As always during rainy, windy weather, I remember a story about Adam. Adam was only three years old in September, 1985, so he probably doesn’t remember this story. That’s why I’m the one who has to tell it. He had just started Montessori School a few weeks before, where they were learning, among other things, all about the seasons.

And that’s when Hurricane Gloria blew through. September 27, 1985.

Now, Gloria was a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 145 miles per hour. There was a storm surge of almost seven feet–thank heavens it was low tide!–when the storm made landfall in southern Connecticut. Gloria dropped up to six inches of rain in Massachusetts and left over two million people without power. The storm killed eight people and did over $900 million in damage in New England. The name ‘Gloria’ has been retired.

While the storm was raging, I was–pretty much where I am now–on an upper floor of my house in the study by the window, working on my computer. But Gloria was raging. It broke whole large branches off the mature maple by the side of our house. These branches fell on our roof with a shaking thud, clawed their way down the roof slope, landed on the roof of the screen porch below with another thud, and slid from there down into the yard.

It was terrifying.

Afraid that a branch might blow through the window or worse, the storm might take the roof off the house, I shut down my computer and went downstairs to the first floor, where I found Dan with Adam in his arms, the two of them in the kitchen standing well back from the windows watching the branches falling from the screen porch roof into the yard.

“Daddy,” Adam asked, “is this fall?”

Well, yes, Adam, the leaves are falling down off the trees, but normally they come down without the branches still attached.

When it began, we were exactly where any garden-loving New Englander would be on a Sunday in June: out working in the yard. But we had a particular excuse. We’d spent the earlier part of the weekend on Block Island and had a lot of catching up to do before Dan flew into his midweek work travel schedule.

I can’t say there was no warning about this storm. Of course there was. The weather was unsettled. This is *New England* we’re talking about here, right? So we ignored the darkening sky, the rising wind. We did note the near-constant background growling of thunder, a more common phenomenon in the midwest than here. We also noted the occasional loud crash and tried our best to hurry putting cages onto the tomato plants in the side yard.

But when the rain came, it came all at once, the air turning suddenly into an environment more suitable for fish than for people. We dropped the tomato cages and fled. Into the screen porch, the nearest door. Soaked. Oblivious of boundaries, wind blew rain right through the screens. We shed muddy gardening shoes and escaped indoors.

Half an hour later, the storm was gone. So was our power.

This turns out to be a big event in our neighborhood, right up there with the annual clean-up party at the community garden. “Is your power out, too?” a neighbor emails our neighborhood  mailing list. I receive it on my Blackberry. Yes, we’re all without power. A neighbor reports a tree down on the road leading into the neighborhood. Struck by lightning. Dan and I venture outside to investigate.Many of our neighbors do the same.

This is what it looks like:

Strangely, no one seems upset. The atmosphere is almost festive. As dusk falls, no street lights glare into the peaceful evening. Soft candlelight in the windows reveals who is at home. We grill fish and broccolini and warm up leftover mashed potatoes on the grill. A feast.

We decide to walk into Newton Centre to get ice cream for dessert. We meet a neighbor at the community garden, who tells us that the electric company has come by. Temporarily, they’ve fixed the problem. We look around at the darkened street and raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Well, not fixed, exactly,” he says. “But they put up that yellow crime-scene tape on both ends of the road where the tree is down.” As if otherwise people would drive right through and not notice.

“Did they say when they were going to fix it?”

“Not right away,” says our neighbor. “They have to work on all the fires first. There are six or eight of those. They don’t know how long it will take. And there are eight trees down just in this immediate area.”

On the way home from Newton Centre, we see one of those other downed trees. The electric company has started work, and a police car, lights flashing, blocks the road while the work is going on. And guess what’s on the screen of the inboard laptop computer in the police car! Solitaire! I swear this is true. Er… that is, Officer, someone must have hacked my blog and put that in. I never saw anything like that. Not me.

“If no one has any electricity,” a neighbor who is away from town emails, “how is everyone managing to send around all these emails?” Just the way you sent yours, of course, I want to reply, but someone else gets to it first. On our cell phones. Computer? What computer?

Still enjoying the festive spirit of an evening with no electricity (and trying not to worry too much about what will happen to the contents of the refrigerator if this turns into a week with no electricity), we go home and to bed.

The lights come blindingly on all over the house at exactly 4:13am.

Thank you, NStar, for working through the night while we slept.

Cloud front moving in at Pt. Judith

A hole in the clouds just at sunset

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I wonder what it’s like outside at five in the morning.

My side of the bed is less than one foot from the balcony door, and so it is not a long leap from thinking to doing. I open the door and go outside. The air is humid, warm, and very fresh—way better than the air-conditioned sterility inside.

The sky is black. Light spilling from the ship illuminates the water swirling rapidly by. There are distant lights on the horizon: I wonder what island. Stars shine overhead.  Stars! I bet if I could get out into a place with nothing overhead there’d be a gazillion stars. Deck 12, for example, with its running track.

This is ridiculous, I think. It’s five in the middle-of-the-night morning, for heaven’s sake! I go back to bed.

Ten minutes later, I’m up, dressed, and out of the cabin. I learn that the island sliding by to starboard is Cuba.

Deck 12 has a fine running track, and it is completely deserted. It’s also distressingly well lit. There are no visible stars. The warm, windy air is wonderful. Birds are everywhere. They seem somehow trapped in the ship’s gravity. They fly in front of me as I run, but they won’t—or can’t—fly aside.

The track is too short; it circles around only about halfway to the stern of the ship. Once or twice around, and I run down the seven flights of stairs to the track on deck 5, which I’ve heard is longer and I hope will be a little darker. The freedom of movement on the deserted ship feels great. As I run forward on the starboard side of the ship it gets a little too dark. Good thing I brought a flashlight (yes, I really did) because now I need it. There are no lights. The deck peters out into a staircase, which has been closed off with plastic netting, but the netting has been taken down on one side. Closed or open? Hard to tell. Open, I decide, and up I go.

The bow of Deck 6 is unlit, and it’s really something. Cuba is more rural now, with only a twinkling of occasional lights. Above, the black sky flaunts its promised gazillion stars. On the port side of the ship, distant lightning illuminates clouds in soundless fireworks. The port stairway from Deck 6 to Deck 5 is definitely closed, but the temporary netting is easy to step over. I’ve gotten good at this. I run the Deck 5-Deck 6 circuit several times, then head back up to Deck 12. Definitely not as good. Back to Deck 5.

And then back to Deck 12, where I head to the gym for a workout on the deserted machines. By the time I leave at 6:30 people have started to arrive.

I’ve been up for an hour and a half, and now it’s time to start my day. I feel great.

Happy birthday, Dan! And many happy returns of the day!

Bowing down in the rain, the hosta places its flowers in the Buddha’s lap.

Thunder roars.

Amber, who has been napping at the edge of the rug, looks up in alarm. As the thunder strikes again, he scrambles, terrified, to his feet.

Amber, the world's silliest, most doglike cat

I try to soothe him. “It’s okay, Kitty. It’s all right.”

But Amber is not to be soothed. He knows that whatever this is, is horrible. He slinks from the room, keeping as low to the floor as he can. Later, I find him hiding on a chair pushed far under the dining room table. He won’t let me touch him.

Today Showers Likely Hi 73 °F

Tonight Chance Showers Lo 61 °F

Tuesday Chance Tstms Hi 70 °F

Tuesday Night Chance Tstms Lo 61 °F

Wednesday Tstms Likely Hi 75 °F

Wednesday Night Chance Tstms Lo 62 °F

Thursday Chance Showers Hi 76 °F

Thursday Night Chance Showers Lo 62 °F

Friday Chance Showers Hi 79 °F

Honestly, it’s been so grey and wet here in New England the last two months that moss is starting to grow on the windowsills and doormats. The formerly white garage door is turning green.

It’s so rainy that a family down the street is building an ark in their back yard.