no place like home

A tumultuous storm blew through at about 2 a.m. The first big bang of thunder woke me up, and I don't know that I ever reentered REM sleep after that. I was stuck, floating, in that half awake/half asleep stage I find myself in all too often, where I know somewhere subconsciously that I'm sleeping in my bed, but my thoughts are dreamlike, silly, and irrational, and I can't get all the way back into sleep no matter how I try, like an old pair of favorite jeans obviously now too small no matter the contortions I do to squeeze into them. 

At some point, I remember distinctly, I believed our house was being blown down. I thought tornado was coming, and I had what was then a completely rational thought-- well, I'd rather stay here asleep and die then have to get up and run to the bathtub. That's way too much work. Plus our house is brick, so we're fine. I practically shrugged in my sleep.

Tornadoes are serious here. Just last year we had our town's industrial road leveled, about 2 miles from my house as the crow flies. So, no, that is not a rational thought. But there were no tornadoes, just a lot of howling wind and rain. 

My first thought on hearing my annoying beep beepbeep beepbeepbeep alarm this morning was how late I'm going to sleep tomorrow. But then I remembered that my parents are coming to town, and my dad wants to drive over to my great-grandmother's hometown, about thirty minutes from here, and do some grave stone rubbings. We've been waiting for a pretty day, and I think tomorrow may be it. We both got interested in our genealogy last summer, and he's decided to write a book about some of his side of the family. Plus he's a road-trip kind of guy. 

I wonder what my ancestors did 50 years ago, 100 years ago, when a tornado was a-coming. No brick houses for them, not that it really helps anyway. I know my Granny at one point had a root cellar-- a big hole dug in the ground, with wood doors over the hole, ala Wizard of Oz, and they would run to that any time the sky turned dark. They didn't have the news stations breaking into regularly scheduled programming to alert them to bad weather using highly sensitive and specialized radars that track clouds. They just looked outside and guessed. Not that I was taking advantage of any of those radars last night either. 

But I guess growing up here, being used to our weather, makes a difference. I know what a real tornado sounds like-- I've heard that freight train scream, and let me tell you, you don't forget it. I have to trust that even in my sleepy stupor last night, that sound would have forced me to wake and run for cover, Bub under one arm, my husband being pulled by the other. 

It's raining again right now, huge quarter-size drops, randomly banging themselves into the ground, one over there, six over here, the wind greatly diverting their usually straight course, their usual rhythmic pounding on the roof now sounding like a herd of small children playing a game above me. And just as quickly it's gone again, the sun shines through.