Silence

There's wind and then there's WIND. The kind that sounds like a train headed right toward your house. Blowing right through your house. The kind that makes you sit up straight in bed from a sound dreaming sleep. The kind that blows the window open with a smash and a bang. The kind that tosses huge pine limbs around as if they were autumns leaves... dropping them who knows where. Well, some you know, because you can see the flash of transformers exploding just up the street and others you know have just crashed on the roof. But most, you can only wonder what damage they might be causing.

More shocking than the wind though, is that dead silence that wakes you up when the wind has moved on. When there is no electricity to cause your furnace to hum, or the clock to make it's faint buzz... it doesn't last long, because the dog starts snoring, but for that few seconds or minutes, it's too quiet to sleep, too quiet to get up. Too cold to get up, too. Sleep still doesn't come, because you are wondering what the damage is... but it's good, a relief, the adrenalin rush that has been the norm for the past several hours, even in sleep it seems, starts to fade and that buzzy feeling inside starts to go away, and no matter what the damage is, you and your family have made it through, again, and whatever the problem is outside... it's nothing that can't be fixed or replaced.

Too soon, dawn comes and it's time to see what all those bumps in the night really were... branches and tree limbs... all around your car, hanging in half your magnolia tree, on the roof, all around.... The worst of it, which is nothing really - NOTHING! is the smashed in windshield - easy to replace, not another dent to be found, not a hole in the roof, not a whole tree down on a house or a neighbor's house or car. Lucky again, really. And only half the time before power is restored, though cable takes yet another 12 hours to show up.

It's all good. Except, the wind is back, even though it's at half-force, and I'm really not ready for it again, so soon. It sets me on edge, makes me want to run away. A constant swoosh and swish in the background... making me yearn for that complete silence again... that calm and peace that I guess I will have to find elsewhere... turn the music up or do some yoga or get caught up creating something... something to get away from it, before it drives me completely crazy.