Storm Watching

When I was kid, any time a big storm would bear down on Long Island Sound, my grandmother, known as Ruthie by all us grandkids, would call us over to her beach-side house to watch the dark clouds roll in.

Ruthie loved storms even more than sirens: she chased all of those too. Her porch was neither long nor deep. It was covered in depth by a six-foot roof and another three feet of black and white striped awning. It was wrapped in steps that led to the grass and then, to the beach.

There were three steps: one step was for the butt, one for the feet, one for a dinner plate or a drink. Her wicker furniture was made for the weather and so, it was perfectly weathered: peeling, sunken, enjoyed.

There was nothing fancy out there on her porch. A couple ashtrays on tables, but never anything "nice." Barely a pillow, if I recall. There were two lanterns fastened at each porch post – a green one and a red. Green signaled the port side; red was for returning.

For all it lacked in size and style, that spot was the center of our families' universe. Ruthie made a harbor of that porch. Once when a sizable Nor'easter rolled in, she covered me and my cousins in a tarp hauled from the garage and tied us with rope to that wicker couch on the porch. I have no memory of my parents being there, or any aunts and uncles. I assume they were around the kitchen counter mixing drinks -- storms do that to people.

But Ruthie was by then at least a decade sober: she had better things to do. So we sat, wrapped and bound to a sagging wicker settee, shielded from rain by a saved sheet of plastic. Lightening cracked open the water in front of us and lit up the sand cliffs on Long Island, the ones we could never see in the daytime.

As waves broke the seawall, shards of salt and sand stung our freckled, sunburned faces. "Here comes a big one!" she would holler from behind the lazy, sliding glass door. "Get ready!" she would say.

I don't know how long we stayed out there exactly – my memory suggests hours – but I figure it was more like twenty minutes. She unwrapped us when the lightening moved closer, untied us when the waves moved in for real. As much as I wish it weren't true, we were never in any real danger.

She just let us believe that we were.

Ruthie understood the lesson in a good storm: adventure, camaraderie, excitement and fear. Tied to a seat on a wind-whipped porch, hooting and hollering into a storm with a woman who encouraged that kind of thing, back when a person could do that kind of thing…that's where I learned to be brave.

Later, when I was nearly an adult and my parents lived in that house, storms would rip the seawall to shreds, send boats hurling to the lawn, and salt water through the windows. Five years ago, a hurricane destroyed not only a city, but tested a nation's notion of security, class and comfort. So while I understand the realities a storm might reckon – snow, wind, rain: to this day, I love them all.

Ruthie's abiding love for nature's beauty was matched only by her respect for its' force and unyielding will. Perhaps it represented her understanding of powerlessness, of giving over to something bigger.

Perhaps it was her way of accepting the great unpredictability of life. I will never know for sure, because she died before I could ask her. I do know that her example remains a guiding light to my life.

I have no sea wall, nor porch. I have no spot in which to safely lasso my kids for a show of intense sound and fury. Instead, while I quietly wish for the safety of us all, I will draw my kids near (enough) to the window so that they can feel the wind and rain. I will draw them close to me, under the tarp of my own making, tied down just enough, so that they can see and feel and be let go by the true awesomeness of it all.