Hail to the Weather, its Snowing in April.

April 5th 2006 and snow falls outside my window. I love freak weather days. As I child, I was always fascinated by falling hail. I would go absolutely ecstatic when ever ice balls happened to start falling from the sky. It is not that I witnessed a great many hail storms in tropical Miami but that their rarity made them so much more memorable.

My mom would always try and keep me from the windows in vain. She is after all the queen of conjuring up the most morbid of freak accident possibilities. She has got one hell of an imagination. But tales of freakish accidents, like getting struck by a lightning blot (one of mamis favorite), or loosing an eye to an oversized ball of hail, never quite kept me from finding my way to a window to take it all in. I mean all of it.

Downpours were a favorite, especially the first spring rain which I always made a point to put on swimming trunks and run under for hours. I remember splashing through muddy puddles and having who can collect more earthworm contests with my brother. Windstorms and thunderstorms are a personal favorite. Wind storms then, meant extra mangoes on the ground or a makeshift superhero cape guaranteed to flap effortlessly in the wind without my having to run around in circles to animate it.

Dust devils, flash floods, hurricanes, and just about every out of the ordinary temperamental weather moment were a cause for great curiosity. I often pretend that bad weather was the wrath of God’s anger or tears shed for humanity’s sins to give the entire event a greater magnitude of reverence. I often thought myself able to communicate with the wind and would find myself asking it to blow harder. Snow was just a rumor or Hollywood affect that I didn’t experience until I was 22 years old but hail was as good as it got for any kind of natural frozen anything falling in Miami.

Cuban’s call hail granizo and incidentally granizado to a confection of grated ice with color flavored sugar water poured over it. I remember my father once (many times) slapping the living shit out of me along with a ping pong sized ball of hail I was sucking out of my mouth. You can imagine my dilemma at not understanding why something named a name so close to yummy granizdo would warrant a stinging slap to the face and the ruining of a perfectly good freak weather moment. I rather have taken my chances at not losing an eye out in the storm but thanks for the welt four-finger tattoo. Freak, weather that is, was always pleasant, especially unsupervised.

Blackouts during thunderstorms in Cuba from our high balcony terrace that overlooked the plum trees I often pillaged I have never forgotten. The distance sight of thunder in an otherwise uneventful pitch black sea after days of drifting evokes awe and veneration for the elements even at such a young age. It humbles us and reminds us of our smallness in the face of the heavenly. It makes us stop for a second, while interrupted from our busy schedules and take notice of the usually ignored world around us. It immediately carries us to the wild and untamed nature from which we evolved. It reminds us that we are alive.

This morning I again was that five year old boy running from one end of a boat to another to keep it from capsizing or enjoying momentary moments of illumination that the thunder allowed. I was that red faced slapped child hiding another ball of hail tight in the other hand in defiance. I was that small face wide eyed looking out the window wondering what the life of a Cyclops was like as something that sounded like a yummy treat fell hard from above. Today, I stopped to look out my window. I forgot all of my hang-ups and while the snow fell in April, I for a moment felt totally alive.