The Storm Is Coming...

The sun set as I left work and the wind from the west whipped the fallen leaves at my feet. There's an energy in the air when a storm approaches, an energy that's felt in the trees, the grass, even any birds braving the shifting air currents know...the storm is coming.

Where I live our weather is tame compared to other places...it doesn't get too warm or too cold. One thing, though, we get winds, sometimes hurricane-strength winds. As a kid I used to love anticipating a storm. My friends and I would go outside as the winds arrived and allow the force of nature to cheat gravity as we leaned into the air rushing past us. When we were feeling extra brave, we would procure large garbage bags and skateboards and have some real fun on the paved streets and hills of our little town.

Of course, as a husband, father, and owner of two paid-for cars (not to mention the holder of a mortgage...), the repercussions of strong winds means different things. I worry about the decades-old pine trees that lie to the northeast of our house. I worry about our garbage cans rolling down the hill. I worry about tree limbs or rocks flying at my car. And I wonder if I would allow my kids to go into the path of an on-coming storm armed with plastic garbage bags and skateboards.

Probably not...

As I drove home from work and heard the wind whistling through the imperfect fit of my driver's side window, a slight jolt of electricity ran from my brain to my extremities as the storm--it's power evident in the dust hiding the sharp glare of the setting sun over Antelope Island--announced to the child in me that it was coming. I love that feeling!