here comes a gale

[ontology]

There was a thunderstorm a few hours ago, a violent, chaotic sort of storm, crashing and banging and raging all over the sky. I kept getting up and running out onto the porch because I needed to be in it. It was hot, at first, hot and thick like damp black flannel, and when I stood in the driveway out back before the rain came the air tingled restlessly with anticipation. Then the storm came, like some avenging god: it was magnificent, and glorious, and splendidly terrible. I've never seen a storm like it, I think; certainly not since I grew out of being frightened of them. It was only seven in the evening, an hour before the sun went down, but the sky was green-grey-black and the whole world was dark. (Funny, though; daytime darkness has a potently different quality from nighttime darkness -- there's something in the edges of it, something in the colours. Somehow, it is also spookier.) The wind was weird, in the old, mostly forgotten sense of the word; I want to say that it was fey, but nothing dire happened and nothing dire is likely to happen, really. There was this strange, dual sense of heat and cool: the thick, still air and the chill wind, soft and sharp all at once. And how the thunder crashed!

After dinner, I went up to my bedroom, sat on the trunk in front of my window, opened the window wide (by this time the storm had quieted; the thunder had stopped altogether, the wind was less frenetic, but the sky was still sea-coloured and heavy with rain), lit candles (it was too dark to see properly, but I hate artificial lights, and the glare of a lightbulb would have banished romance forthwith), and spent a phantasmagorical space of time discovering Patrick Wolf's The Wind in the Wires, which, as wanderlight said, has the perfect atmosphere for stormy weather. I kept glancing between the trees frantic in the wind and the candle-flames on my desk inside wavering witchily and casting odd shadows on the wall behind, and it was magical. I don't know if I've ever had a more memorable album-listening experience.

The world was another place, I think. It was curious: the atmosphere of the world Patrick Wolf was creating and the world I could see with my outward eyes were nearly one and the same. The day that began and the day that ended aren't the same days.


(Alas, now I seem to have a cold coming on; there is a nasty stiffness in my sinuses. Drat you, world of prose!

Comments

[travellers-home.livejournal.com]

Thunderstorms = love.

We had one on Friday, with lightning and thunder and high winds (apparently there was a tornado as well, which is rare in our area). I didn't get to appreciate it properly, as my brother and I were mowing someone's lawn, but on the way home, we passed a lake that was a weird, stormy green... and it wasn't reflecting the sky, which was a smoky blue. Also, it smelled gloriously like a storm.

I don't think I've ever sat and listened to music during a storm though. I should definitely try that sometime. ♥