Heavy Thunderstorm Edition

We are in the midst of quite a storm tonight in Tucson. The windows have been rattling with the booms of thunder and the lightning has been quite impressive. I feel as though I'm being transported back to my youth in Nebraska when loud thunderstorms often kept me awake at night. Back then, I thought that every storm meant there would be a tornado, and thus, I think I bothered my parents quite a bit. I always wanted to sleep downstairs, even though they knew there was really no danger. They were nice enough to let me do that (or even crawl in with them when I was really small). Living with a poodle that likes nothing better than to sleep right on top of you every night has taught me what a large sacrifice my parents were willing to make. I still very much appreciate it, though I'm glad I don't have those same fears anymore.

I have new and different fears, but they seem much more easy to deal with than storms I had no control over. Thinking back to one's childhood can make that past life seem very simple or very complicated. It can do the same for one's adult life as well. Life as a 6-year-old may have seemed like a piece of cake, but I had a lot about which to be irrationally afraid. These days I have a lot to be irrationally afraid about as well - the difference is that now I know it is irrational. That is a piece of wisdom which I must regularly remind myself. I guess it is nothing more than the trope that "it's all small stuff."

But I know for certain that bolts of lightning that lit up my walls adorned with sports stars and loud thunderclaps that had me covering my ears did not feel like small stuff. That's when you need people you can turn to. In that room where I would bother my parents on stormy nights, there was a message on the wall that said something about giving two things to your children: "the first is roots, the last wings." I can recall reading that as a child and not really understanding it - I think for a while I thought when I grew up I'd literally be able to fly. But when I think back on it now with a better understanding of what it means, I have to thank my parents for doing just that.

I realize that this has come off as equal parts Prairie Home Companion and back-to-school special, but I can't really help it. I once had a discussion with my dad about whether Garrison Keillor was actually funny or simply had a better memory than every Midwesterner. My dad said he was funny, while I felt that he could just remember the names of long-forgotten toys and grocery items so well that listeners simply remembered the humor of their own childhood.

But like many things, I find now that I was wrong. When I think about home, I can remember every single thing that was hung on the walls and every single piled box in the garage. I don't know what it is like now, but I can tell you exactly how it was then. And if Garrison Keillor could tell me a story that reminded me about being afraid of tornadoes, drinking cranberry juice, being trapped with friends in our house without electricity and without parents, or watching the 49ers in the Super Bowl, I'd laugh, too.

If I wasn't crying.

(Sorry about that. I don't really know where all that came from, but I felt like it was somewhat real, so I'm leaving it. I'll probably regret it, but it's OK. I'll have my regularly scheduled nonsense soon. Here is a link, via The Basketball Jones, that I am currently enjoying.)