Thunder in the City

I grew up in a woody suburb. My backyard was an old growth cemetery. Every year a storm with winds like a tornado, or a heavy, wet snow would take down another tall oak or evergreen. The destruction made the yard feel alive. It yielded to change in the most natural way and each season I found new emotions in its depth.

I live in a city now. I have for a while. Never in big downtowns and city centers with towering glass facades and narrow commercial corridors. Brownstones and pre-war European rows. It’s different watching a storm roll through my new backyard. I still have trees and a view. But I can’t track the wind rolling through the neighbor’s yard or from the street behind. I can’t hear the thunder crack and know ‘that’s over the river’.

In a city, the storm creeps up on you. The buildings hide its path. They are like waves washing away the tracks of the storm. I wait now. Sitting on my balcony, sensing a storm is upon us, I wait for the thunder to crack over head or the wind to rush upon me through the gap. 

I am at a loss, though. For I can’t experience the storm completely. I will never know how thunder in a city sounds without comparing it to my childhood home. Would I even be listening so keenly if I hadn’t been exposed to the weather in a forest theater of rain and snow and wind?