Summer Storms

           It is a stormy night here in Bulgaria and I am sitting at my desk watching the curtain dance from the air the rain is pushing into my room as it makes it’s way to the earth. Every minute or so my room is illuminated by the bright electricity striking in the distance, which is followed by that sound that never fails to make my soul quiver a little every time it hears it. I can’t help but remember an evening of the same caliber not too long ago; only this one was in New Mexico. I could not of been older than 10 and I remember lying down to sleep when a storm rolled through as they often do that time of the year. At this time I had a hard time sleeping without a light on in my room, so when this particular storm knocked out the power and left me lying in total darkness I could not help but feel slightly panicked. I remember sitting up thinking that I had to cross the house and get the sanctuary that was my parent’s room. With my hand against the wall I slowly groped my way to their room, but I did not get very far when my path was completely illuminated by a flash of light and I stopped dead in my tracks. The sound of the rain pouring against my roof, the sweet smell of wet dirt, and the earth shaking from the powerful bolts completed this scene and it made me feel so alive. It was a moment that is so engrained in my memory, not because something significant happened. It was one of those moments that you see or feel something so beautiful and you begin bursting at the seams because your body cannot contain how big your soul becomes.

I feel this now, but not because there is a storm of the same magnitude but because it is bring forth many memories of home and the people who are there. As I mentioned it reminds me of my childhood and the nostalgic sensations of summer storms, but it also brings forth a flood of other precious memories with people whom I love. I remember getting caught in storm under a porch with my best friends, I remember my dad pulling my brothers and I out of the house and into his truck so we could watch a storm. I remember being in Philadelphia running through the streets soaking wet looking for an umbrella. The point of all of this is that even though I am very far away and in a foreign place I am still surrounded by things that remind me of where I came from and who I left behind. My mind is always looking for something that can reconnect it with the world it left behind and this is one of them.