Tornado

This morning August and I slept in. We awoke to a beautiful day, blue skies and a sunny warmth at the windows.  The past few days here in Oklahoma have been rather difficult. On Sunday, Family Day, we  headed off to Edmond, OK for record hunting, children's book shopping, Goodwill thrifting and organic fruit and veggie buying. We found ourselves under layers of rotating clouds, feeling the electrifying static of an atmosphere in motion. The lightening was unlike any we had ever experienced. It came without rain, without low, pregnant, dark, ominous clouds. Soon, we heard what sounded like a jet crossing the sky, but the roar never grew fainter, it was steady and constant. We didn't think it was thunder, looked around and saw no motorcycles, no heavy machinery... it was thunder that had no end.

It was at this point that I checked my phone and saw that we were in the middle of tornadic activity. The weatherman stood in front of a red screen and was excitedly telling viewers to seek shelter now. Then the screen changed and there was a cloud, I looked to my right and there was the cloud that was threatening to fall to earth, angry, destructive, frightening. Neither one of us had ever been so close to a funnel cloud or seen a tornado. We drove out of the city as fast as we could. While it's been said never to try and out run a tornado, we have a GPS with a live, radar weather map. We were able to see where the danger was coming from and able to make an informed decision. It was a Sunday, there was no traffic on the freeway, another plus.  We listened to the weather alerts and reports that were coming in. It was above and hitting the areas were we had been shopping. It ht the location we had just fled.

As we drove  down the freeway, the cloud remained to my right for several minutes and I could see it change. It was very much alive, it was difficult not to anthropomorphize it.  It was as alive as any wave I have ever played with in the ocean, as alive as the full moon rising right before your eyes, living and breathing. It is easy for me to understand how people worshipped these gods and didn't want to anger them.

Years from now I'll tell August about this and how at a few days from turning 13 months, she sat in her car seat calm, happy, oblivious to the hazard and at one point held my hand, bringing me comfort. I made her laugh and giggle to calm myself. We stopped in Shawnee to continue our grocery shopping, feeling quite relieved. We left the town while "bubbly" mammatous clouds began to form above us, unfamiliar with what they meant. We drove home, and had dinner. I checked the weather and a tornado struck Shawnee an hour after we left. Footage of it destroying a mobile home park was taken from the grocery store where we had been. Too close.