And So It Goes

There haven't been many good sunsets lately; clear skies are very boring. But last night really made up for it.

I was fine-tuning the latest installment of the serial when I glanced out the living room windows and saw the most incredible sight.  I grabbed the camera and went out to the middle of the road to get the widest shot I could between the trees...

I don't know when I've ever seen such illuminating bands of light.  It was like a scene out of a sci-fi film just before the aliens burst through the clouds...though even more beautiful because it was pure nature and not annihilating space vehicles.

I didn't go to bed until well after midnight, and as I was brushing my teeth--in the dark as I am wont to do--this sudden flash lit up the bathroom.  I straightened, toothbrush dripping, and wondered if I'd imagined it, or was possibly having some kind of medical emergency. When nothing happened, I went back to brushing, but the minute I bent over the sink, the room lit up again like an old-fashioned flashbulb had gone off.

I finished brushing--counted three more flashes--then decided to go out on the back deck to see if I could figure out what was going on.  It was hot, steamy, stars twinkling overhead.  And totally silent. No people, no mysterious fireworks, no explanation.  I was just going back in the house when the whole eastern sky lit up--for a nano-second--highlighting a bank of clouds on the horizon.  I waited for the growl of thunder...hoped for it because thunder means rain, right?  And doesn't thunder follow lightning?

Not always as it turns out.

The silence was eerie.

I stayed outside for a long time, watching heat lightning streak across the sky, the light show equal to any manic rock concert.  Except for the complete absence of sound.

Yesterday's sunset was a pretty spectacular way to close out July.  And a wild, dramatic lightning display seems an appropriate way for August to begin. We should be celebrating these last days of Summer, after all...