Another thing about storms…

is that unexpected thunder really scares the shit out of me. Not the rumbley kind, but the kind that flashes and cracks and explodes right over your house like it’s under attack. For a fraction of a second there is nothing but terror, not even the beating of my heart.

It’s the same with fireworks. Mexicans love fireworks, especially on high days and holidays but pretty much any day will do. Which should make me awful happy, because I LOVE watching fireworks, except that here the oooh-aaah-prettyness seems to be secondary to the fuck-what-was-that-noise-iness. Which means random explosions are a possibility at any time, day or night (and usually just one or two – not a whole display you can settle into watching, oh no, just a couple of almighty bangs). Which I am mostly used to, and no longer wonder if someone is being shot up in the hills, but they’re still unpleasantly startling close by.

I am getting worse at coping with unexpected loud noises as I get older. Especially when I am alone and in a certain intense, fragile kind of mood. I hate shouting, the sudden yells and shouted greetings and catcalls of the city. I especially hate shouting, in fact, because there is part of me that is instantly terrified, instantly assumes that it is me who is being shouted at, that I’ve done something wrong, and my mother is screaming at me all over again because I have or haven’t done something, tidied my room probably, and it’s going to be horrible. Quite apart from living in an foreign land, where I don’t understand what is being shouted and my skin and hair and foreignness and assumed and actual relative wealth puts me always in a little more than normal danger. Quite apart from it being a bloody loud noise. Also car horns, and the whistles of traffic cops, and all the rest of the traffic’s roar. Barking dogs. Aeroplanes. A brat with an incredibly loud football rattle.

Not crying babies though. They almost never do here, and it is beautiful.

And nevertheless I love the bustle of the city. I love the glimpse of fireworks flowering over faraway houses. And I love the storm.

What I was going to say, before I got distracted by noises, was, tonight there is more darkness and candlelight, thunder and lightning, rain and rain and rain. I have my candle, and matches, and the delicious little stink of matches when you light them, I have gas to cook with, I have laptop battery (for now), and I have a spurious blanket, which makes me happy because of its stripes, and which is wrapped around me because that seems the sort of thing to do when sheltering from the storm in cosy candlelight. I have everything but the internet. Which I miss MUCH more than electric light. But I suppose I can do without even that for the perfect silence in between the thunder and between the ticks of the clock.

*

Next day:
I am in my office now, where there is internet.
Last night, when my laptop battery ran out and the power stayed out, I stopped.
I stopped worrying about all the unwritten emails (dozens), all the unwritten blog posts (dozens), and all the undiarised days. I stopped worrying about the things I have to send to the insurance people. I stopped worrying about things I need to read on the internet. I just stopped.
I read for a little while by candlelight, and it was very very quiet. Then I blew out the candle and it was very very dark, because the bloody streetlampthing outside my window was out too. And I didn’t have to get up for at least eight blissful hours, and I went to sleep.
And I woke up for no good reason in the early morning and went back to sleep again until after I meant to wake up. But nonetheless today I am merely tired, rather than tired-to-the-point-of-death.
I think this no-internet-no-power business might just save me from myself.