Gale Force

By 4:00 this afternoon, we’re supposed to be having a gale.The sky is blue with big thick lines of puffy looking clouds and the lake is roiling. Minutes ago, the sky turned nearly to night and rain came sideways at the windows like someone aiming a high-powered hose right at the glass. Throughout, it has been so windy that the chairs on our deck have flown by us and the hummingbird feeder has emptied all its food.

We have guests but they are staying in their camper in the driveway. We meet on our deck or in our old pieced-together wood chairs around an outdoor fireplace we’ve had for years but haven’t used. Last night, it was raining too hard for either venue so we ate our dinners separately, read our books in our own abodes, and turned the lights out. Such is the time.

There are people on the beach. I don’t know them but I know them. They love weather. When they heard the wind and saw the immense dark clouds in the western sky, they got in their cars and drove down to the beach. They are bundled like November, coming from the school of ‘no bad weather, just bad gear.’ So they are smart like that, Lake Superior folks. They don’t venture out in t-shirts in August when the sun is shining because they know something that most of us forget: anything can happen.

A text comes from my daughter in California. It is a picture of her little boys waiting their turn to bat. They’re smiling because they love baseball and probably because their mom told them to. They are going to be a lot taller and more sophisticated when I see them – it’s been nearly a year – and they may be harder to engage or maybe easier since they’ve had months of trial just like all of us and it’s probably deepened their observations of the world.

I wish they were here to see the weather. We’d stand on the beach and let the wind blow the hats right off our heads and balloon our jackets behind us like parachutes. When we got far down the beach, we’d turn around to see the massive black clouds aiming for us and when the hard rain came, we’d run laughing back to the house. Then we would talk about it for years. We’d never forget. The gale on the beach.

New pictures come of them at bat. Each of them swinging with the intent of a pro player. They look happy. I’m so glad they are happy. But someday I hope we can be together in a gale on the beach on Lake Superior. It would be grand.