My apartment got struck by lightning on Tuesday night.
Not in some metaphorical, I had a flash of inspiration, great grand things are happening sense. In the literal, bolt of lightning blew a hole in the roof and blasted through my ceiling, exploded a phone jack, and fried all my electronics sense. This was followed by a massive water leak in my kitchen (see: giant hole blown in roof during thunderstorm).
My apartment is, yet again, covered in drywall and insulation debris as a result. But far fewer things are truly broken or dead than you’d expect from a direct lightning strike, and tomorrow they’re coming to try to get the internet working again. Until then, I’m on my phone.
This journal is supposed to be one of recording my steps toward a domestic cult practice, and I promise I’ll get around to that part, but before I get there, I want to talk a little bit about intuition.
Tuesday night at around 7:45pm I got a warning that a tornado had been spotted in an oncoming storm, and to seek shelter. Normally, tornado warnings aren’t something I take too seriously – Houston rarely gets tornadoes. My town doesn’t even have tornado sirens. But I pulled up the radar, saw the storm (which had three little hook-like shapes extending out from the front of the storm) and thought… NOPE.
I don’t know why I thought nope, but I noped right out of there. I grabbed the cats, my phone, and a portable charger, and the three of us went to go sit in the closet with the door closed and the lights off. I was texting with a friend, and she was updating me on the storm, and at about 8:15, the warning expired. And still I thought… NOPE.
So I stayed in the closet, and at 8:20, lightning struck my kitchen. There was a blinding flash and a simultaneous massive explosion, followed by the fire alarms all going nuts and my apartment filling with the smell of electrical smoke.
I fled, calling 911.
(The electrical smoke was most likely from the phone jack that took the brunt of the strike. The cover is melted.)
I can’t tell you why I had the ooky feelings about that storm on the radar. I work through thunderstorms all the time. Hell, I’ve been through hurricanes. Storms don’t bother me. But this one? It did. And I don’t know what little part of my brain got the signal that my rational brain did not, but I’m glad for it. If I’d been standing in my kitchen making dinner, I could be hospitalized or dead instead of dealing with a construction mess.
All that, however, leads me to the second bit. The actual practice bit.
I have rarely, in my entire life, felt less like I wanted to do anything related to prayer or ritual practice than I have this week. I am exhausted. Exhausted on that deep, mental level that you really only get after months and months of burning the candle at both ends. I have nothing to give my grove. Nothing to give my practice. I am depressed – and not because of my mental illness (which I’m happy to talk about) but simply because some things are just utterly overwhelming and stressful, and dealing with that is hard.
I will journal this though. At least four months. No less than weekly.
Rev. Michael J Dangler is known to say “when you least feel like praying is when you need it the most,” and maybe that’s true. But this week, I have no words to give, and so for week 2, I am lighting the lamp, taking a breath, and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) not to cry.
Let that be my prayer for this week. I’ll try again next week with words.
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Little Druid on the Prairie 