freewrite

It's cliche to start anything with rain, so I'll start with the car, humming warmly in the onslaught. I'll start with the headlights in the gloom and the slices of drops they illuminate. I'll start with the sound of rain rushing over metal, shooooooosh, and all the quiet in between, and the still. My daughter spent half the night tonight trying not to sleep, working herself into a frenzy over thunder, and part of the time crying because I wouldn't let her return to the couch to watch TV. I curled with her on her bed, finally, and just let her scream and cry, and in short order, she worked herself down into quiet whimpers, turning in toward me with her eyes clenched shut, one hand over her nose and the fingers from her other hand in her mouth. She sucks on the tip of her pointer finger and I am surprised; I didn't know she did that. I rub her back in circles and she giggles suddenly. And again. She's decided that this tickles her and I don't cut it short, I let her laugh, her little giggles popping into the air over and over, legs kicking in delight, and she doesn't even hear the thunder now, or see the lightning, everything is okay.

And suddenly my perspective shifts and I'm not annoyed any more, and I just pick her up and take her to the computer. "Mad, they have pictures of the storms on the computer," I tell her. "We can just take a look and see if it's going to storm anymore."

I pull up the weather radar and see that we are squarely in the green. "See the red, Mad? That's the really big storm, with lots of thunder and lightning. And see the yellow? Those are teeny tiny storms, no big deal. You might hear just a little bit of thunder, but nothing super-loud. See the green? That's just rain. And here's where we are," I point. "Right there in the green. So it's just rain for us, and all that red -- the big storm -- is far away from us. No big deal! And Mad, that red is probably not going to come back, but if it does, I will come and get you."

And she is okay with this, and repeats it to me as I take her back to bed. "We're in the green," she says. "It's just gonna rain! But if the red comes, you will come and get me. And if the yellow comes, it will just be little thunder."

"Yes," I tell her, and tuck her into bed. And she is fine.

It's not graceful to end with rain, either, but I'll do it. It's still raining and pitch black, and there are lizards running up and down the windows, reveling in the moisture, hunting for bugs. Thunder rolls through, low and quiet, and lights flash dim in the distance. Everyone is asleep. Everything is quiet.