MID SUMMER LULL: I’ve been at a loss for inspiration lately with regard to this blog. Some days, my mind just bubbles over with fascinating ideas (well, they seem fascinating at first); at other times, nothin’s cookin. Maybe it’s just a mid-summer lull.

Mid-summer does bring something to mind, however . . . thunderstorms. Ah yes, Mother Nature’s fireworks show, with its dark, dramatic build-up, its thundering crescendo, and its fade-out on the far horizon. As Matthew 24 says, “the coming of the Son of Man will be like lightning striking in the east and flashing far into the west”. Or as AC/DC sings (in Hell’s Bells), “the white light flashing gonna split the night”. And then there’s Eddie Rabbit: “I love to hear the thunder, watch the lightening as it lights up the sky, you know it makes me high”. (That lyric was later changed, substituting “feel good” for “high“, so as to avoid corrupting America’s youth … like they’re listening to his music.)

I really enjoy a good thunderstorm, so long as I’m watching it from inside a building or a car (preferably a parked car, where one can sit back and enjoy the drumming of the rain on the roof). Up here in New Jersey, we don’t get too many really good thunderstorms; this summer we’ve gotten even fewer than usual. Down south the storms are stronger; ditto for the plains states where cold fronts down from Canada crash into stifling humid air masses, causing all kinds of commotion (including hail and tornadoes). Once in a while I go on the government weather site (www.weather.gov) in the evening and look at the radar for Kansas or Nebraska or such. I watch those red and purple storm blobs bearing down on places like Marysville and Boone Valley, and I imagine end-of-the-world scenes of black clouds, bolts flashing across the sky, driving winds, and rains pelting the cornfields and the prairies and those lonely two-lane blacktops. (Yea, I know, one day I’ve gotta get a life).

The thing about thunderstorms is that they have a real element of danger to them. Often this makes you feel more alive while riding one out. Today I read about a fellow in Maine who just got hit by lightening and lived (which is relatively common; most people hit by lightening don’t die, but they often experience chronic health symptoms afterward). He was doing some work outside on his house but stopped while a thunderstorm passed through. He thought the storm was over and went back on a ladder or something, and ZAP, a leftover bolt hit him. They took him to the hospital but didn’t find much wrong with him, despite his having a heart condition. Now he claims to feel revitalized, with more energy then he’s had in many years. (Being from Maine, he didn’t put a metaphysical or spiritual spin on his experience; he just says that he feels better).

Maybe that’s why I feel a little bit blah right now. There hasn’t been much thunder and lightening around here lately. Perhaps thunderstorms are nature’s anti-depressant (which would explain why they are more common in the plains and in the south – that’s where they’re needed!). Like any drug, thunderstorms are dangerous. But if you use them properly, they might make you feel better.

I’m looking out the bedroom window, but there’s nothing but darkness out there on the horizon; all is still. Dang!