One unsung benefit of urban living is that tornadoes generally hop over a city due to the bubble of heat created by all those cars, buildings, and asphalt. Not so out here in the sticks. In Cleveland in nine years I never went to the basement once due to severe weather. And that was right on the lake! I mean, weather… tell me about. That sleet would really come off the water in a straight line, right for your eyes. But not tornadoes.
So Friday, after a mere two weeks of sort of living in the new house, we had a serious weather situation on our hands and had to literally hide in the basement. The babysitter, wonderful dear violist Bonnie was here riding herd on Isaac and carrying the baby around while I worked on the many unpacking projects and phone arrangements that still daunt me. I noticed that the day had gotten so dark that I was compelled to turn on the light to see (it was three in the afternoon), and that there was a torrent of rain falling around us on all sides that resembled sitting under a major waterfall. I looked online at the weather maps (we don't have TV or functioning radio) and could see that indeed a serious storm was in fact here. (Somehow this official computer validation was more convincing than the low-tech approach of simply looking out the window.) There was a severe thunderstorm warning with lots of talk about "damaging hail" and "80-mile-an-hour straight line winds." But it looked to me like on the radar maps the worst was already beyond us.
Then it started to clear up, and Isaac was really acting the goat inside the house. The sun came out and I poked my head out, saying to Bonnie that it looked like it was okay to take him out to try and tire him somehow. But at that very moment, the sirens started blaring. This really took me back to my youth in Minneapolis, where at school we were subjected to the storm sirens the first Wednesday of every month at 1:00 p.m. We were also drilled often for tornadoes, although only a few actually came during my entire education.
So, feeling sort of like a Londoner during the blitz, I grabbed the computer and my cell phone (certainly the security blankets of the modern era) and the children, and a blanket, and Bonnie and I headed downstairs. Then I realized we didn't have Lena dog and so I was doing the Auntie Em routine, calling her desperately from the top of the stairs (she was asleep in her bed and could only be bothered to come very gradually and reluctantly… stupid dog! Next time I'll let the twister get her, I swear!) (Our lapsed cat is living in the basement these days, so she was already there.) I called Ben to confirm whether we needed to be down there at all. He searched online and found that there was a funnel cloud spotted in the area and indeed it was true that we should take shelter.
Our basement here is not so bad for an old house. There are huge trees for beams holding up the ceiling and indeed it's a comfort to know that they've been there 175 years or so and are unlikely to be dislodged by a weather event at this point. The floor and walls are concrete and dry and seem quite solid. It's cold down there and there's no place to sit, but really a cut above the dungeon that is our basement in the old house.
Anyway, Bonnie and I were trying to keep the mood light and keep Isaac entertained. I swept the floor rather nervously. Then Isaac added an unneeded layer of anxiety by making the following totally unprompted remark: "There are spirits moving through the basement."
I honestly don't think I've ever used the term "spirits" … where did he hear about them? He began running about doing something odd with his hands, sort of clapping motion but where his hands didn't connect. What are you doing? I asked… "Trying to catch the spirits!" he exclaimed. "They're all around us!" Shadows? I suggested. Are you talking about our shadows? "No, spirits!!" he insisted.
Sotto voce to Bonnie: "are we having a Sixth Sense moment here?" (the movie where the kid says, "I see dead people..")
Bonnie: "… Because if there's any kid in the world who would have that sort of thing, it's Isaac…"
Me: "I mean, is he going to start saying, 'who's that lady and what happened to her head??'"
Nervous laughter..
After close, close investigation and detailed questioning, it seems the "spirits" he was referring to were those little bright spots you get floating before your eyes after you look directly into a light. He was apparently gazing into the light bulb on the ceiling and THEN chasing the spirits. And this from the child who just last week announced in the car out of the blue: "I don't believe in ghosts. I believe in GOD … and BATS."
The tempest raged outside, which we could see if we peeked around the corner to see the window above the washing machine. It got progressively darker, windier and rainier. Not much else happened. There was no sound of a freight train going right over our heads, the windows didn't burst in and no cows sailed through the air. Who knows where the tornado actually was anyway, someplace else in the county? I don't know, but online it said, alarmingly, "TAKE SHELTER FROM THIS STORM!!" Of course my wi-fi ceased to work at the key moment. I called Ben periodically for updates and after a while (we had been playing rocks-paper-scissors on a quilt on the floor) I went upstairs to check the situation and sounded the all-clear.
I have a feeling this will be a common occurrence in these parts. I should put together a kit, with a radio and some games and whatnot to pass the time down there. (I could throw in some duct tape in case of terrorism and those little germ masks in case it's the bird flu pandemic…)
Toto, I don't think we're in Cleveland anymore…