The Storm

From my prayer journal….
I need to write, help me make it great. Help me raise the question about change. Help me not pull back from feeling it as I write. This is power packed for me. I even thank you that they laughed in class, because it make me want to show them and helps me really go at it. Help me learn how to write, to learn all the technical stuff, to overcome my weaknesses, to overcome discouragement.

Then the answer to the prayer…
God must really have a sense of humor or He really likes to listen to my prayer and thrill me just for fun.

I have been rewriting my short story all morning. It includes a “tornado scene.” The idea for the scene germinated the night I slipped out of class and found myself in a torrential downpour only to later learn that the storm contained cloud rotations although a funnel cloud was never sighted.
I did some laundry and as I was hanging it out on the line, I notice some darkish clouds. Then I laid down for a nap. I was awakened by the sound of rain pounded on my roof. The bathroom in my bedroom has a skylight which magnifies the sound of the rain enough to wake me. I ran outside to get my laundry off the porch and was driven back by the wind and the rain and the lightening which lit up the darkened sky completely as I tried to step outside.

I ran and got my camera and tried again to go outside this time to capture the downpour. But the rain was coming down in sheets and coming in under my back porch. I did not want to get my new camera wet, so I went inside. Then I thought of Rachel in my short story and I decided to journal about the rain. I pulled a chair up got my notebook and started scribbling this mess of words while I sat in the half darkened room.

If Rachel was just under a tree she soon would be completely wet if not perhaps knocked off her feet. She needed to huddle under the tree. She would be completely wet and shaking from cold and fright. She couldn’t sit down on the ground because it would be a puddle of water. She would have to hunch over, head tucked, hands around her knees.

I notice the thunder come close and far away diminished in its effect at irregular intervals but almost continuously even after the rain subsided. The lightening came in flashes, it sliced across the sky lighting up the darkened sky that looked as dark as if the sun is about set. The thunder crashes and rolls and crashes. The rain picks up again as another band of storms moves in, lightening flickers across the sky, rain pounds, beats, pours sheets, whips, drips.

I realize I want vindication for this story I am writing. I realize David has made Rachel feel shabby. I want vindication for Rachel who didn’t do anything wrong, but feels betrayed. Rachel loves beauty and she doesn’t know why she was treated shabby. Like the art she loves she wants to rise above the situation. She wants to see it from a light that will bring restoration. She wants to understand. She is angry. It is her anger that motivates her to try and find answers. Anger doesn’t fit well into her world. She is uncomfortable in its skin. She is surprised by it and its power.

David was shabby, made shabby by his behavior, his treatment of women. He wants change; he is looking for a new life, building one by working on himself, looking outside himself to help others.

The storm is the agent of change thrusting Rachel into a situation she doesn’t understand, causing David to see himself still in need of change. Do they turn back or move ahead?