Thursday, September 6, 2018

Any port

We had a storm tonight. I could tell a little bit ahead of time. I was in the library a little after five and saw that it was dark out. Darker than it should have been at the juncture of afternoon and evening, unless we're talking about late fall when the clocks have been sent forward.

There were a few minutes of intense rain, then it trailed off into something mild to moderate. There was a fair amount of thunder and lightning, though. And here's where I'm going with this. I talked to a guy who said he liked thunder, liked the way it shook everything. It might have looked to him like I was just gawking at him. But I get it. Sometimes other people think you're judging them, or at least mocking them, when that isn't the case at all.

2 comments:

susan said...

It's easy enough to fail in making a quick reply, especially if you've never considered a subject in positive or negative terms. Personally, I've always fallen on the side of liking thunderstorms - fast, furious and electrically charged as they are. One time, though, when I was visiting my mother a particularly noisy storm stayed overhead for hours - far longer than I'd ever remembered one lasting. I didn't like that one.

Ben said...

Most of the time, for me, a slow and thoughtful reply is received better than a quick, glib one, even if it's a little awkward. People can misinterpret silence, too, but you can't please everyone. (Of course if you're just trying to be funny, quick and glib can work just fine.)

I can see how a truly persistent storm near water might make one a little uneasy. Of course once it's there and you're there the only thing you can do is hunker down and enjoy whatever you have around you.