Weather

I was sitting in Madison Square park during my lunch hour, reading Atlas Shrugged, when suddenly I heard a huge crash of thunder, and realized that the "widely scattered" thunderstorms Accuweather had predicted for the afternoon were right on time. I had waited to take my lunch until about 1 p.m.

So I dallied for another paragraph, and another huge crash of thunder echoing off the buildings, before hustling back toward the office.

As I made my way along 23rd Street toward 8th Avenue, the thunder started again, and I couldn't help but think that it sounded like some great artillery battle was being waged nearby and any moment now the combatants would come spilling around the corner in full retreat, trampling civilians all the while. All I could do was stare up in wonder at the clouds bustling across the sky, and note that the buildings looming above me were very much like concrete canyons that writers who're far more talented than I had described. I felt really very small, and at the same time like part of it all - as though somehow I were protected, being an insignificant part of this great mass.

Well, as you can guess, I didn't make it back to the office before the storm swept over Manhattan... but I did, luckily, make it under the canopy at the entrance of a hotel. It was one of those instances where the Universe sorta forces you to relax, 'cuz you're trapped and can't go anywhere. The rainstorm was a typical summer storm: Fast and furious, with lightning dancing among the tops of the tallest buildings, and great, boiling clouds seeming to lower toward skyscrapers. There's nothing quite like a really big thunderstorm looming to make the Empire State Building seem like a cowering child.

How good is my life? I thought. How great is it that I can stand under a canopy and enjoy the show that nature's putting on for me, and not worry that everything's gonna work out?

I won't call it an epiphany or anything, but I think I can say that I had one of those revelatory moments that we're all occasionally treated to. Things will be all right; the Universe really may want to kick my ass, but I think it has a reason, and I think that the ass-kicking, however severe, will be finite.

All of life is a cycle, isn't it?