A Summer of Extremes

It has been a summer of cool days and low humidity (well, relatively cool and low – this is still DC).  It has also been a summer of drought – the grass has been brown and brittle for weeks, and the air has been dusty.  The stream behind our house has dried to a series of puddles, and the dog looks at them curiously as we jog past in the mornings.  “Where is my paddling-place?” he seems to ask.

In a sudden turnabout, the heavens opened last night and it has been raining on and off ever since.  At one point in the middle of the night it poured so heavily that the rain woke me up.  This might not be remarkable, except for the fact that I sleep through everything.  As a child, I even slept through a thunderstorm so violent it scared our large chow-chow into jumping into my single bed with me.  I had to be told the story of Ding in bed with me over breakfast the next morning by my much-amused parents. 

But last night, the rain drummed on the roof and the deck with such an ominous thrum I woke in anxiety.  The water reached right into my sleeping mind and plucked a chord of anxiety I didn’t even know I had.  I know I’m afraid of fire.  I haven’t previously been afraid of floods.  But the sheer volume of noise that had to be created by an equally impressive volume of water sounded unstoppable.  I was reviewing the status of windows and doors before I realized I was awake.  After a few moments of reminding myself that we’re at the top of a hill, well above the 100-year flood plain, I settled back into sleep.  When the alarm went off, the rain was back to a more soporific hush, making it hard to get out of bed.

I can hear the stream now – it is probably rushing in a brown, muddy torrent, freed from its static, puddled state.  The woods are wet and green.  It’s cool and it feels like fall.