Those summer days

A wicked thunderstorm has just lit up the neighbourhood!

I was at a bootcamp session at New Farm Park when it hit. It was fantastic to be in it. Thunderstorms are so primal. Love it!

I remember, as kid, those muggy, suffocating summer days over the school break, when not even an ice block or swim in the pool could cool us down.

Late in the afternoon, like a wish granted, we'd see the sky darken toward the west. We could smell rain. It was coming.

Over the next half an hour or so, the wind would pick up. As the clouds got darker and closer, I could feel the wind cooling and bringing that long-waited break in the heat.

I'd sit on the front step and wait for the first drops of rain to kiss my cheeks.

It wouldn't take long for the fierceness of the storm to show. I'd scamper up to the top step and relative shelter. But I had to stay outside-the sky was putting on a wild light show for us!

Massive cracks of thunder and blinding flashes of lightning that tore up the sky. Wind and rain making trees thrash and bow.

It would pass as quickly as it arrived, leaving a spooky twilight that was full of silence for a little bit.

Every time I've lived away from Brisbane, I've missed storms like that. The energy in them connects me to some primal source.