Lightning

In English class, we had to write an essay portraying a part of ourselves that is not obvious, but significant. We're supposed to use imagery and description in order to communicate this.

The sky is dark and low as orange-lit clouds the texture of worn cotton scud across its surface, obscuring the stars with their reflected light. The nearly-full moon is a hole punched through in shades of pearly white and dove gray, illuminating from around and behind and counteracting the effects of the city lights below. The concrete of the walkway in front of my house is hard. It presses, cool and unyielding, against the sensitive skin of my hands, down the length of my arms, and along my spine and legs. The surface is gritty, and picks at the fabric of my shirt when I shift my shoulders into a slightly less uncomfortable position. A couple of stray droplets discharged from the fast-moving clouds land in my eyes. The air is suffused with the thin, clear, scent of wet dust.

Then, there it is-- that burst of brilliance charging through the sky, followed shortly by rolling, tumbling thunder. It’s what I’ve been waiting for, out on the wet concrete, lying under intermittently dripping clouds. It is not often that I feel so purely, clearly happy, content, unconcerned with daily stresses, so I lay out for half an hour watching lightning and feeling the rain as my clothing accumulates polka-dot spots of dampness.

It’s moments like this that I clutch to me when I am lonely and every mistake I’ve ever made is running through my head on a loop. It’s moments like this that carry me through a bad day, the memory enough to make my body slump down from where it’s been twisting into knots of stress and twitchiness. I may feel like I’ll never experience that sort of contentment again, but at least I have the memory to sustain me.

Another day, I am sitting in the middle of a flow of conversation, letting the lazy sun blanket my legs as I listen to the tide of thoughts and ideas rush in around me. At 12:00, it has already been a long and mentally exhausting day. As I prepare to offer my argument for why, exactly, shoes should not be required at school, I am struck by the warmth of the moment, at how comfortable and simple it feels. Seldom do I feel so at ease in social situations. This is the type of moment that convinces me I don’t do everything wrong. I lay back and bask in the effortless flow of a closely-knit group, and try to crystallize the experience in my mind for another day.

I close my eyes, and my face relaxes into a smile.

No photograph or video can capture the thrill of witnessing the sudden burst of luminescence, the anticipatory moments wedged between light and sound, the sensation of thick vibrations humming and tumbling through the air. Short as they may be, it’s the memory of those euphoric moments of perfect contentment which make bearable the low points of life, which it is important to take hold of while they are happening.