Tunnel of green, silver in the air

I’ve been away. Had to get the hell out of this city.

I missed the salt air, the green, the mist, the smell of the turf farms near my house. Also, it was my mother’s birthday. And I needed to see my sister. It had been too long. And the high school friends. Needed to see them. The touchstones. My forever-people. Rhode Island calling.

The street off of which my parents neighborhood lies is, at this time of year, literally a tunnel of green. No sky can peek through that lushness. It’s a green twisting corridor, undulating forward, as far as you can see.

I got off the train on Saturday and was hit in the face with a big ol’ wind, all of the trees bending, the leaves turned inside out. It was muggy, hot – and very grey. New York City had also been muggy, I had trudged to the train through the liquid haze, and was drenched in sweat by the time I arrived at Penn Station. So to be confronted by a huge sweeping ocean-wind in Rhode Island was fabulous. I felt like I could breathe again. A heavy milk-like fog over everything. And the sound of the leaves, being whipped about high up in the trees, filled the air with a roar. You could FEEL big weather approaching, in that ever-present whispery roar.

Finally, a couple of hours after I arrived, the weather came. Pouring thundering rain – but that only came after the air turned a strange silver, hard to explain – but it’s the way the air looks when lightning is coming. You can feel the electric potential in the molecules – the trees suddenly get very still. The leaves settle down, and a tsunami of quiet motionless-ness washes over the land. It’s waiting. The landscape is waiting. And then comes the silver feeling in the air. The hair on your arms rises up, obeying that invisible silver command.

Then – in a whoosh – the silver is snuffed out, the sky opens up, and a downpour beats on the grass, beats on the leaves – and everything gets very very dark. The clouds are overhead.

I stood out on the screened-in porch and watched all of this, in thrall. The coolness of the rain, the wet air … the almost-offensive lushness of the green – the sunflowers bending under the weight of the rain …. Damn. That’s why I come home! For moments like that.

There’s more to tell, but that’s it for now.