Sunshine didn’t break through until almost mid-day, and tonight, with the overcast weather burned away, I’m thinking about how I used to lay in bed on rainy days and pass the time reading or listening to music – really listening to it with deep concentration and imagination.

We lived at the bottom of a big hill and the water would come spilling down the gutter as broad as a small creek and 10 times more powerful. Our neighbors would leave their gas lights on late into the day, which made it easier to see what direction the rain slanted. I’d sit at the window and watch the leaves turn dark and water drip on exposed roots, dot by dot, coloring the dirt in. Then, I’d eventually give up on the scenery eventually lose myself in whatever weather was depicted in the book I was reading.

Tonight, as I fade off to sleep in warm blankets, my thoughts will be on those sleepy, lazy days when I had nothing better to do than read or listen to someone else’s lyrics purely for pleasure, long before it ever occured to me that mine were inferior by comparison.

This sudden flourish paralleled another recent explosion in my freelance career. An article I was supposed to write for Urban Times fell through last week, leaving me with an average-sized historic piece to write. I scheduled a few interviews and was crusing along when an unexpected assignment from a local arts-focused magazine, called Review, came through. Than, after accepting that piece, another Urban Times article was floated my way. Now, I’m back to my usual monthly alottment of three pieces.

Funny how it happens that way. When I thought I was in for a slow down, it tuns out I can actually expand my portfolio a tad. I’m trying not to think about all the work – the words – now. I’ll find them. After all, there’s a paycheck in it for me. It’s a lot easier to be ready for a downpour when you can afford a decent rain slicker.

I find this private show waiting for me after raising the curtains to investigate. About 2:15, the activity in the window caught my attention. Something outside was so brilliant and seemed so close, I had to check. What I thought might be a police car stopped up the block with its emergency lights on turned out to be lighting strikes shocking the living room with sudden light.

The storm is maybe 20 miles off and harmless where I’m standing even if the noise was turned on. These quiet flashes are a natural phenomenon that occur on July and August nights over the farm houses and wheat fields. Here it can be seen just above the treeline and rooftops. Segments of the sky fill with stuttering white light. Then another place in the sky has its turn to flash.

How the dogs know to be frightened is remarkable. Sounds only they can hear apparently has sent them to stirring in the garage. Whatever it was must have drawn me awake, too.

After watching a short time, I decide to go to bed and let the storm run its course. While I sleep, the beauty can dance around the bedposts and I can wake up, late maybe, to a soft rain.

I was afraid for a moment that with the storm dead ahead, we would have to drive straight through high-powered winds and blinding rains. With the fear disappating – when something as potentially threatening as driving through strong Midwest thunderstorms that can transform roads into slippery and unpredictable ice rinks turns out not to be a threat after all – the flashes up ahead became harmless entertainment for us.

Between windshield wiper sweeps, I could see several black clouds with jagged edges floated independently against a white wall, what looked like a silver movie screen background, with strikes behind both.

“Hey, look over there,” I said over my shoulder, rolling down the window and pointing out so the children could see what I did. “Look at the lightning.” Their heads turned as they tried to see around the seat backs and my extended arm, but the changing scenery on the interstate had brought along a hillside and treeline to replace the clear view I had, and they looked as me with confused faces, as if I’d finally lost my mind.

I’d seen almost the exact same scene on a return plane flight from Las Vegas in June. We were passing a thunderstorm to the south. Lightning strikes were filling the sky and though I’d seen thunderstorms play out wildly from under tree limbs or safely behind paned glass, it was different being in them – even with the elements – up where you could see the red-flashing lights of other planes slip underneath the rough weather.

The experience is quite different behind the wheel. Driving on wet roads is a science in which gradual rates of speed are preferred. Touching the brake or the gas in a big puddle can cause the vehicle to slide. But on the ground, you can see how the big, heavy raindrops can impact the dry surface, how the Earth is just a big receiver of whatever the sky has for it. And, that’s when it occured to me that, as long as there was enough water, there would always be a possibility of Eden.