It was still.
The world was asleep, or at least my little part of it was still at rest.
I had been, but for the past 14 years or so, sleep apnea has deprived me of a good, solid, continuous eight hours of sleep each night. If you don’t ask me about it, I won’t tell you. I am over it. Hope to get it surgically corrected if insurance and fate will stop sabotaging me.
Enough about that.
I was awakened in the stillness. My CPAP mask was thrown in the floor as it typically is. I tapped off the machine.
I heard the pitter-patter of raindrops on my rooftop. I didn’t think that had awakened me.
My doubts of that were soon verified by a brilliant flash in the bedroom through the west facing window.
It was accompanied by a sharp baritone rumble from the heavens.
A choir of spring frogs and crickets were both chirping and croaking outside in the lightning illuminated darkness.
The clock face of my trusty combination AM-FM-radio-cassette tape deck clock on the bed stand read 5:04 a.m. It’s a hand-me-down from my sister. She’s had it since she was in high school. I inherited it when she married and left home.
I wandered down the hall to the living room and out the front door to my narrow porch.
When and if I ever hit the big time, I am going to build a bigger porch.
I come from a long line of front porch sitters on both sides of the family.
Furnished with a good slat-back rocking chair, a glass of sweet tea or lemonade and a good sturdy funeral home fan to swat the flies, gnats and thick, humid air away, front porches are a sanctuary for me.
Often, as long as the forks of lightning, gusts of wind or a tornado are not directly over us, we sit on the porch.
My Granddaddy Deal did it all the time. I think he felt close to God in such circumstances. A farmer all of his days, he always had his eye on the skies. I think the elements and display of a thunderstorm were good examples of the power of the Almighty.
I feel that kinship.
In the wee hours of that morning, in my Georgia Bulldog pajamas, I stepped out on the porch.
My wind chimes were silent even as the approaching storm made its presence known with each flash of lighting and roll of thunder.
Soon, the aroma, the perfume, the scent of rain filled my nose and then it came.
Lightly at first, a few drops spattering on the concrete ramp of my carport. Later, it came in sheets and buckets, but did not blow under my porch.
I sat there on a varnished wood church pew I have on the porch, a rescue from the now disbanded Hazlehurst Primitive Baptist Church that my uncle, Elder Allison Deal, once served.
I was bleary eyed and needing a few more winks, but I inhaled deep, soaking it all in.
In the distance, perched on the light line, I could make out the form of a feathered friend dancing in the rain.
It inspired me.
In my childhood, rain and particularly puddles, drew us like magnets.
I tip toed over to the edge of porch and stuck my foot out in to the cascading fountain pouring off the eaves.
The water was ice cold, like a mountain stream. The sensation was enough to jar me wide awake. But, it didn’t.
The storm passed on, and although I didn’t know it, it took our power with it.
I ambled back down the hall to my room and went back to bed.
Content. Satisfied. Happy.
If I had any talent for it, like that bird, I would have danced in the rain.
• Jason Deal is a staff writer for The Blackshear Times. Reach him at [email protected].
