One Night

A flu that Garret had has now taken up residence in me, but as a tamer cold. It's been winter here for what seems like five years, so the chills really don't seem out of place. Blankets abound in my house.  Yesterday, though, a touch of warmth mingled in the air. I opened the windows and breathed, and I let Murgy sit on the deck for the better part of an hour. She found a spot right in the sun, and she basked in all that we'll take for granted within a month or so. Optimism mixed with my mid-day cocktail of Sudafed and ibuprofen.

Then night came, as it does.  The thing about me having a cold is that I don't sleep. I often have trouble sleeping anyway, but when I have any type of illness coursing through me, my would-be dreams turn into hamster wheels of troubled thought. Usually I'm trapped somewhere between sleep and awake, where I am - in my dark, clammy mind - tasked with something menial but stressful. Two nights ago it was arranging for catering, last night it was arranging for printed products to be delivered somewhere. Anytime this happens, I worry and poke and prod at logistics until eventually I snap myself out of the in-between, and I lay instead in the cold/hot/cold toss and turn of non-slumber. Last night, I ached, my head hurt, and I was hungry.  It's all helpless at 3am, so I stared at the dark.

At some point, there was a white flash. It was brighter than any surge of light I'd ever seen before. When I was 18 I lived in Orlando, FL, and there the top of my bed was situated in a corner of windows. When storms would come - and they did - it was like a giant camera's flash bursting through my dreams. Still, it was nothing compared to the light that filled my room last night.  The mountain I sleep atop is blackened at night, and this, a white match in the darkness, arrived.

At first I didn't know what it was. But then a loud roaring rumble followed, and although it too was louder and more vivid than anything I'm used to, I knew what it was. As it registered, the rain started, and my hot, wrangled brain felt a wash of relief.  A bedtime story pitter-pattered on the trees outside my window, stirring white chocolate into milk. I sighed a little relief, and though still wide awake, I settled a little, prepared to rest. Thunderstorms remind me of the safety of childhood afternoons, when dinner is already cooking and nothing can go wrong.

The dog is afraid of thunderstorms, especially technicolor storms that ricochet off of the sides of mountains and shake our paper ski chalet.  She whimpered and moved closer to the pillows.  I put my arm out as though to reach out for a hug, and she effortlessly nestled herself in the open space.  She placed her front two paws on my forearm. With each rumble, she would shake a little, and although logically I know that her paw cannot physically wrap itself around my arm in fear, in my memory, that is what happened. 

I cooed and whispered that it would be okay, because, of course, it would be.  The trouble of my being awake was still rattling itself into the throb of a headache, and it was still true that I hadn't, wouldn't, couldn't find sleep. But there in the dark, the light, and the rumbles, I could almost - almost - feel myself accept gratitude for my accidental attendance to this early-season storm, and for my dog, and maybe even for the sleeplessness itself.