Wack Attack

          Last night there was a state of emergency declared in Massachusetts. After an entire spring season of rain leading to a week of welcome sunshine and extreme humidity, the humidity broke in a series of violent lightning storms. Many people enjoy the austere beauty of a thunderstorm from the inside of their safe homes. For me, this is generally not the case. As a 5 year old, I became so hysterical one morning during a thunderstorm that I refused to wait at the bus stop and my mother had to drive me to school. I remember running from the parking lot to the front door of school, screaming and clutching my umbrella.

          My fear of thunderstorms is only outweighed by my fear of tornadoes. As a child, (presumably after a recent viewing of The Wizard of Oz), I asked my parents if there were ever any tornadoes in Connecticut. They laughed at me and told me that Connecticut is too hilly for tornadoes to form- that tornadoes happen in flat Midwestern and Southern territories. My dad still periodically brings this up in my adulthood and has a good chuckle: “Remember when you were little and you were scared of tornadoes? Ha ha ha.” Oh yeah, Dad, and what happened a year ago in our very own Nutmeg state? http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Tornado-confirmed-in-Bridgeport-536870.php. Just sayin’. Laugh all you want at my childhood fears…

          So, when at 5:30 last night, lightning actually struck the other side of my office building and there was no little commotion, I became pretty frightened. There was no damage and no one was hurt, thankfully. Things seemed to clear up for the commute home and dinner. I flipped to my new favorite sitcom last night (Modern Family, for anyone interested) only to find that the news had taken over with a special report about further tornado watches after one had hit Springfield, MA. I was now in downright panic mode. Then the lighting started at a ridiculously frenetic pace and Governor Deval Patrick held a press conference urging people to stay off the roads because the storm was moving from Western and Central Massachusetts to Boston. This only sent me into more of a wack attack because I knew that the boyfriend was out in Worcester for rehearsal.

          Since Brendan was not answering his phone, I sent him a long series of texts, which I am fairly certain, made no sense but to sum up, urged him to stay where he was. Ideally I envisioned him holed up safely under a blanket in a church basement somewhere. My panic did not stop me from calling nearly everyone I know to distract myself, including my parents, to whom I said: “See! All of my paranoid childhood fears are coming true!” My dad laughed and told me about the pleasantries of his day. When he found that he could not get me to talk about anything other than the weather, he passed the phone to my mother, whom he knew could be more sympathetic. In future situations of this nature, I would probably do well to put down the remote and stay away from the media's scare tactics.

          In the end, B called me several times from the road. By the time he was leaving Worcester things had calmed significantly, and it was merely drizzling. I don’t have to tell you which one of us was the more nervous of the two for his ride home, but he was very fortunate and made it safely and uneventfully.

          There is only one time and place that finds me at ease in thunderstorms. This is a certain kind of perfect thunderstorm in the summer on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where my family vacations. These storms are usually brief, lasting less than an hour and when they stop, the hot sun makes the steam rise off of the pavement and the world around you is filled with the most earthy and delicious smell. Maybe, it’s just that when I am there, I have no place I need to be and my worries melt away with the steam.


Footnote: The expression "Wack Attack" is not a Katrina original.  Credit must be given to my dear friend Rita Dwan for this extremely useful and particularly palatable turn of phrase.