Bone-shattering claps of thunder, accompanied by brilliant flashes of lightning, awaken in me a sense of awe and wonder and appreciation for the power of the natural world. I can sit for hours watching wave after wave of thunderstorms pass, listening to rolling thunder and searching the sky for jagged fingers of lightning. When the strikes are close, I hear the crackle and sizzle of the lightning bolts, followed almost instantly by an explosive crash that echoes across the clouds for what seems like minutes. I remember the times as a child I’d sit with my family, watching storms and counting the seconds between the far-away flashes of lightning and the rumble of distant thunder. The time between the flash and the sound of thunder was the measure of how far away we were from the lightning strike.
I sit and wonder how different the experience of thunderstorms will be for me here in a new topography, where instead of huge expanses of flat landscape I see rolling hills and miniature mountains.
Joyce, there’s something about thunder that makes me feel connected to nature. And humbled by it.
Felt the same way, John, when as a child at our summer home in the Catskill Mountains I’d hear the thunder bounce from one side of the mountain to another. I’d love it – and my mother would hide in her bedroom with a pillow over her head!