Cloudbursts

I do enjoy a good cloudburst. Especially in the summer time. Not the kind of cloudburst that I'm about to have around this house since two of my four daughters have moved back home. No, the cloudbursts I love are the ones provided by Mother Nature. 

I am known to get lost in my thoughts. Hardly a day passes that doesn't find me visiting my childhood. Those are some of my best memories. Besides my college ones. Ha!

But stormy days are the best days to get lost in my thoughts. A good cloudburst will take my mind back to my childhood. I have loved storms since I was a child. I mostly remember the cloudbursts of summer which came along every afternoon bringing sheets of rain, booming thunder, and crackling lightning. Those were the days before central air conditioning so our windows were open and the winds that accompanied those summer cloudbursts caused the sheers hanging in front of the windows to billow out like sails and then float, slowly back to their original position before the next wind came through the screens and repeated the hypnotizing process. If the wind was particularly strong, the sheers would rush straight out into the room and then float back down—until we rushed around and closed the windows because the next thing to come rushing into the rooms was the wind driven rain. Some days we had to rush outside to get the clothes off the clothesline before they got wet but, when there were linens on the line, I would stand between the sheets as they blew all around me and breathe in their clean, fresh air aroma. The smell that was left behind when the storms left was so fresh and clean and grassy (and no matter what they say, no one has ever been able to reproduce this smell in a fragrance). These summer wonders only last a half hour or so, but they were quite enjoyable and have certainly provided me with treasured, sensory memories.  

I'll leave you with one of my favorite rain songs. Because it's Neil. And who doesn't love Neil? :)

This is Day 3 of the A-Z Challenge!