raincoats for penguins

I like storms.

Not the kind that obliterate.

I like storms small enough for a 6 year old to race leaves down street-gutters roaring with rainwater.

Storms strong enough to give a teenager, standing knee deep in floodwater, a moment to forget and just feel.

Storms that move fast.

watercolour/ink/cotton thread 

I was in a park one day with my 18 month old. It was years ago. It was a windy day but I didn’t expect the sky to turn green so quickly. Branches started to bend. A vertical rain encouraged everyone around me to run to their cars.

Now I’m an overly cautious individual. I don’t walk down stairs without holding the banister. I don’t cross streets without looking ‘left, right, and left again’. I would rather walk another 10 minutes down stream if the stones look too small to step on.

Yet every time I hear thunder, my first inclination is to run outside. And when this particular storm started, I smiled knowing I wouldn’t have to run. Under a picnic shelter happily situated 2 metres to my right, my little bub and I were about to witness nature in all her operatic grandeur, in the ultimate theatre of the round.

And the sensorial spectacle we experienced was spectacular. Full of sound and fury. Nature had a lot to say. We may not have understood a single syllable, but we were ‘curious and curiouser’.

And I haven’t even mentioned all the colours!

Maybe I can summarise it a little bit with a few lines of chalk pastels.

chalk pastel on cardboard