Sandy

When the storm started, I decided it was time to go to bed. The lightening lit up my room and kept me awake through closed eyelids, as thunder rumbled in the distance. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three. I counted miles from the storm instead of sheep. As I began to drift off, residual thunder became the background noise to the start of my dreams.

Then the storm really hit. Strangely, it was the moment of quiet that woke me. Nothing had happened yet, but all my hairs stood on end and I felt like I was vibrating in anticipation. My eyes opened just in time to see the lightening, thunder cracking a second later and shaking the house. I felt exhilarated. Both helpless and alive!

We were talking in one of my classes about the concept of nature. Are we a part of nature or a separate entity? Can anything be unnatural, if it is the product of the minds of humans? Just another species altering its habitat to suit its needs.

During the storm I was lying in a man-made bed, beside my cell phone and computer, physically separated by the walls of an old house, but directly connected to the storm. The electricity flowed through the walls. I felt it. Within my unnatural, man-made construction, the energy of the storm had a physical effect on me. Is that not evidence that, despite our efforts to separate ourselves with physical and mental barriers, we are still a part of nature.

Tiny. Significant. Electric. A part.