Thunder

Tonight, after work, I walked home as I always do--but this time, something was different. As I crossed the street and headed past our local Café de France, I noticed a large raindrop as it landed, *plop*, right in the middle of my page.

(Explanation: I read my book while I walk down the street, especially in my own neighborhood. I use my peripheral vision to watch out for crottes and people. I hate wasting time, I hate putting my book down when I'm "in a good part", and I also dislike dealing with the multitude of people who a. beg for money or b. beg for money for their charity. Not that I have anything against charity. It's just that they try every single day, and I get rather tired of it.)

A greenish light was in the west, and the clouds were heavy and low. As I prepared our dinner, from the open window I heard the unmistakeable sound of thunder.

Thunder. In Paris.

In other words, Yes, this is the real world.

It's easy, when you live in Paris, to consider yourself living in a bubble. Everything is different here. The architecture, the history, the language, the culture, the food, the people. Even the weather.

Back home in the Midwest (what some would call the "Great Plains"), we had weather. We had the kind of weather that "kept the riff-raff out." We knew that Mother Nature could and did wreak havoc, and could (and unfortunately did) take lives. We knew cold. Cold that froze your snot inside your nose cold. We knew rain. Rain that pulled the contact lenses out of your eyes (yes this happened to me once so don't tell me I'm exaggerating!) We had tornadoes, and thunderstorms, and lightening strikes. We had floods and droughts and blizzards. And we were tough. We could take it.

My Grandpa says thunderstorms are God's fireworks. During rainstorms, he'd stand in the window with all the lights out, and watch the lightening crack across the sky.

I guess He's reminding me that He's still there. Watching.

And now, after the rain, there is a fresh, clean, sort of electric feeling. Like something could happen, really happen.

Change.

I wonder if I'm ready.