Dearest Rachel –
It’s been a couple of years since last I commented on such an event happening as it did yesterday evening; although compared to our own lives, that actually seems more often than it used to be. Then again, what do I know? It’s not as if I was keeping track of life like this back then, more’s the pity. Likewise, I can’t remember how we used to react when it happened – or if we even reacted, for that matter.
If you followed that link above, you’ll already know what I’m talking about, but if not, you’ll recognize it as I describe it soon enough. Unlike Tuesday, when Dad was laid to rest, yesterday was mostly grey and cloudy, with what seemed to be the slightest threat of rain. Indeed, when I checked out of the ‘office’ around two (I was of the understanding that Jenn and Will were coming over to help move furniture back into the family room at Mom’s, and when I heard voices upstairs, I assumed it was them. So I shut everything off downstairs and headed up, only to find that a neighbor was paying Mom a condolence call, at which point she admitted that they might not be coming over at all), there had been the odd drizzle now and again, but it wasn’t happening in the moment.
It did start up again once I’d made my way through the local grocery, but it was little more than a nuisance at that point. In fact, once I got home and started making an early dinner for Daniel and myself, I never so much as needed to turn on the lights in the kitchen; natural light was quite sufficient, although that may have been the earliness of the hour. Then again, given what the weather eventually turned into, that could have turned even high noon into darkness, had it happened then.
By the time the rain had settled into a rhythm on the roof, Daniel and I had finished our (relatively early, still – I’ve begun to eat like an old man in terms of timing, and I’m dragging Daniel along in my wake, it would seem) meal, and we had settled into the bedroom theater to watch a few videos. Soon, Logan would wrap up his day and come downstairs, whereupon Daniel would join him (after waking up – one video in particular had him nodding off. Maybe it was a food coma?) and they’d go off on their own, leaving me in my own little world. But before then, we could entertain ourselves with stuff that he wasn’t necessarily interested in – although it’s possible that he might be, if we subjected him to some of it.
But I’m drifting away from the point, here. At some point along the way, we began to hear that unmistakable, sorrowful moaning whine of sirens in the distance, growing louder as nearer ones switched on and began blaring their own warnings. These sirens were not those of the emergency vehicles that pass by on the regular, carrying unfortunates to the hospital that’s theoretically within walking distance of our home (although not in the way that you walked there from our condo on the day you gave birth to Daniel, and certainly not in the middle of the weather we were having yesterday afternoon). No, these were the ones warning us that the village (or city; it’s not obvious as to which municipality’s sirens are going off when we sit on the boundary line like we do) was in radar range of a tornado sighting (or high winds; apparently, anything over 70 mph triggers these things these days) that we were dealing with some severe weather – or would be soon enough.
What’s funny about this is that, since the winds didn’t seem to be sufficient to even so much as knock out our power, we didn’t really react. In fact, I don’t think either of us had noticed that the rain had started until the sirens began to wail, at which point we stopped and listened just enough to agree that “Huh; yeah, we’ve got a storm going on.” Then we went back to whatever it was we were watching; I may even have had to rewind the video at that point to allow Daniel to catch up on what he missed out on, having dozed off until the siren served as an alarm in a more literal sense than intended.
I can’t help but be amused by how blasé we were about the situation, and whether that was truly appropriate for us. You’ll recall my stories about driving down to see you through similar storms – I remember green and yellow skies on I-80 during one particular drive, with virtually every other car pulled off to the shoulder (whereupon I concluded that it was less crowded on the actual road, and so I might as well keep going) – but now, there was a part of me that was relieved that we no longer had to be off to choir practice, like we used to be every Wednesday so many years ago.
None of which was enough to get me to get up and suggest that he and I ought to relocate to the bathroom – the one completely interior room in the house, with no windows or other exposure to the outside – for safety. If the power lines weren’t down, we tacitly agreed, there was nothing to worry about. And as it turned out, there never was. But it did seem odd to sit there and essentially ignore the sound of the rain and the siren as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
But really, nothing was. And nothing seems to have been, as – regardless of the alert, and in contrast to other storms we’ve lived with – there wasn’t even so much as a branch lying in either our front or back yard this morning. So it can’t have been that bad; but it begs the question as to why the sirens went off in the first place. Or are we just inured to the sound (never mind that it only happens once every other year), and just don’t bother to react? One of these days, it just might come around and bite us.
But until then (and maybe that much more then), keep an eye on us, honey, and wish us well. We’re going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 