The heralding humidity made my skin prickle and my habitually nervous stomach churn into overtime. I remember the summer sight of heavy pastel evening, the sky a low canopy of clouds, cotton soaked in ink. Once the storm started, the rumble and abrupt BANGs were always cataclysmic to me; I felt as if I was the only one on earth who realized that this event was the apocalypse.
My mother loved them, and would celebrate their coming by opening the house's windows to listen to the rain and the low BOOMs. Once, when I was about ten years old, the anxiety that this caused me was so terrible that she had a friend on the phone tell me that he was a meterologist and that no, thunderstorms wouldn't kill me, and that yes, it was alright to open the windows during them.
When I was a few years older, I devised a sort of coping ritual; in the muggy heat of summer vacation, I decided that thunderstorm time would be art time. Along with my younger brother, I spent those nightmare evenings in my bedroom, watching cartoons on my tiny tv and drawing. I created a comic character named Mr. Olive Head; he was a news reporter who was basically an olive with a hat and a microphone.
By the time I was in my 20s, I should have been able to fully cope; this wasn't the case. Once upon a May sunset, I was caught out near Spadina Ave. underneath ominous clouds. The date whom I was with was completely nonchalant; every CRACK of thunder or bright flash made me flinch involuntarily and his comments made me feel ashamed of my reaction. I walked towards shelter as quickly as possible, wondering why I wasn't allowed to be afraid and beginning to question the lack of validity that others gave to my feelings.
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