Storms

This morning, I drove to work in a storm. A big, noisy, earth shuddering storm.

I`ve always been a little divided about storms. They terrify me and excite me in equal measure: it feels a little like I`ve done something very bad and the sky is furiously shouting at me, but at the same time I`m impressed by how extremely angry it is capable of getting and a little bit thrilled by just how much trouble I`m obviously in.

When I was little this divided adoration and fear led me to a neat conclusion. I had deduced through various studies – asking my mum, mainly – that rubber was the antidote to storms: some kind of magic wand that could be waved and would immediately render the power of lightening utterly useless. My mum had told me that there was rubber around church spires and schools and important places (I`m still not sure if this is true), and that if I was caught out in a storm I should find something rubber and touch it (or “lie down flat on the floor,” which seemed a little too passive-aggressive for me to ever do). As a result, whenever there was a big storm I would kit myself out in my carefully organised Anti-Storm gear and head for the window, where I would stand and watch the storm with my face pressed against the glass: safe in the knowledge that it could thunder and lightning as much as it liked because I was totally and embarrassingly safe (the storm always seemed a little pathetic after I was sure of that: a little bit of blustery nonsense, raging for nobody`s sake but its own).

It must have been quite an amusing sight: me in my Anti-Storm gear, aged four, with my tiny, fat bellied two year old sister in her Anti-Storm gear, in which she had been kitted out rather bossily by me (it was my job, duty and right to protect her, whether she wanted to be protected or not).

My Anti Storm gear was thus: yellow pyjamas (I felt most secure in these), yellow wellies (made out of rubber, obviously), a pink rubber bracelet (found in a Christmas Cracker) and a shave-headed Barbie. The Barbie was not an emotional clutch in the slightest, because I had never liked her in the first place: she was a very literal, practical talisman against evil. I had decided that - as she was made out of rubber - as long as I was clutching her firmly and waving her sporadically in the air so that the storm could see it - I could come to no possible harm. Having made sure that my sister was similarly safe, I would thus drag her to the window so we could watch the storm together. I would hold her hand rather possessively, and inform her every time she jumped that she was a silly thing because we were invincible. And then we would count between the thunder and the lightening and work out how far away the storm was.

It was the same process every single storm - the same wellies, the same Barbie, the same bracelet, the same sister (funnily enough) - and this string of identical memories are some of the fondest of my entire childhood: especially when my mum came in with her Barbie and wellies too.

This morning, when the thunder was crashing and the light was cracking and the sky was giving me what for, I felt exactly the same as I did when I was a child: scared, thrilled and immensely excited by all the drama (although it made me miss my sister and mum even more). But I`m an adult, now – even if I feel exactly the same on the inside - so obviously I didn`t go in for any of my Anti-Storm gear nonsense. No.

I put my grown up clothes on, got into my grown up car and drove – very slowly – to work, just like a grown up, except talking to the sky in the process.

It`s still storming, and the sky is showing no sign of calming down: I haven`t seen it this cross in years. But it`s okay. I`m sitting by the window, and I`m totally safe. Because on my wrist is a pink Christmas bracelet, and on my feet are two bright red, adult shoes.

And they`re both made entirely of rubber.