I remember the cold sting of it when I was a child, that chill and cool breeze just before the sharp crack of thunder. I can still see the heavy drops that seemed the size of Roman coins dancing on the heat of the sidewalk. I wish I could have taken a picture of it – indigo sky as dark as night shadows over my little prairie town with an ominous silence that always precedes the coming of a summer storm.

You could almost taste the lightning as ozone filled your nose with that pungent aroma. We gathered, us girls – all 6 of us…long time friends, at the nearest house and peered out someone’s bedroom window, just waiting for the flash of violent light, all the while counting out loud softly. Waiting for that boom directly sent from God himself to determine just how many miles away that storm was.

I miss that. I miss many things; people, places and sweet memories that drift across and dust my mind with light like the slow beating wings of an exotic butterfly.

The rain is gentle here in British Columbia; it’s warm and soft. I rarely see the flash of a vengeful God or hear the crash of Thor’s hammer from the sky. The seasons blend nicely and there is stillness here, almost a warm and protective arm from the surrounding mountains and then there is the border to the Pacific. There is really nothing like being close to the sea.

It calls to you, this salty soup of life, just as the snowy peaks shield us. Today I’ll feel the rain. I’ll let it melt into my skin, drink it up into my cells and let it drip like honey off my lips. But in the back if my mind, I’ll be waiting on the hot cement sidewalk under a big prairie sky…waiting for that first tingle of electricity that lingers in the air to lift the tiny hairs on my little girl arms and make me want to sprint for cover – yet stand defiant in the face of possible annihilation at that very moment.