The Girl Under the Dark Grey Cloud
I first learned the power of lightning when I was 10 years old. My mom and I were in the dining room during a common afternoon thunderstorm when the air suddenly shattered, sparks exploding off the ground in a white hot flash at the base of the tree on the other side of the sliding glass door. I remember screaming; it was the loudest thing I had ever felt. My whole body rattled. No one was hurt, other than the tree, which was split in half with a black burn painted down the bark. Later, it was cut down to a stump. The neighbors perched a Mickey Mouse weather vein on it once, for reasons unknown, and it stayed there for years, Mickey spinning in wild circles every time a storm blew in. It became one of those mildly crazy stories that comes up from time to time, nothing more.
Strangely, this wasn’t the start to my lightning phobia. But I’ll never forget the ungodly expansive power of that strike, and the earsplitting crack of the thunder that came with it. Zero seconds to spare.
Another one.
It was a hot summer night, me in my stuffy teenage bedroom with the window thrown open trying to encourage a breeze to bring in some cool air but it’s futile. The air is not cool. I’m in my usual bout of insomnia, lying backwards on my bed, wide awake. I perch my feet on the windowsill above my pillow, watching heat lightning dance in the clouds, pink, silent, high in the atmosphere. How delicate it looks up in the sky, lacing between puffs of darkness, splitting into threads, weaving through the night. It is calm, far down below, here on the surface. The electric storm rages on, soundlessly, above.
This time we’re in it.
We’re approaching the ridge, the last obstacle between us and the end of this ill advised backpacking trip. We had the knowledge and experience, kind of, but maybe not the specific hiking fitness to do this - it was a longer one-nighter than I had really bargained for. The run-in with the bear the day before had already made this quite the adventure, but everything had been so beautiful. So, so beautiful. It was only occurring to me now that we might be popping up back over treeline in the final stretch of the loop. It’s 2pm on a late summer afternoon in Rocky Mountains, where thunderstorms are common and dangerous when you’re the tallest thing on the highest peak. This is new terrain to both of us, so we don’t immediately turn back downhill with the first rumble. But the trees are thinning, farther and farther apart. It’s a graveyard of dead and charred trees, in fact. Some had experienced a violent demise by the looks of it, from storms past.
I know the power behind that.
The thunder cracks repeatedly through the sky. Rain pelts us. We drop our packs and sit within some patches of trees shivering. Forward is no longer the smart choice, but we’re not ready to turn back. We are so very tired, our legs not trained for this. Maybe we can wait it out. I sit there, helpless and afraid.
There is nothing uniquely bad about today. Countless intrepid Coloradans have had similar experiences if not worse. It’s the world’s dumbest PTSD. But my fragile little brain breaks.
The heat lightning is back, tangled up in the clouds again. I’m sitting on the front stoop with J and E. We’re each sipping a tart margarita, enjoying the warm nighttime breeze, escaping for just a minute from the sorrow in the house. Dad’s still alive, but he isn’t himself and he needs a lot of help. We all do. We are falling apart, and I am thankful that J and E are here, if nothing else than to support my mom.
It is quiet, save the clink of ice. We don’t say much, just sit on the warm concrete steps. My arms are resting on my knees, holding the cool damp glass. We watch the purple flashes dance in silence through the clouds. It is an impressive show, mesmerizing and meditative. Breathe in. Breath out. Following the flashes. The quiet calm, away from the storm.
The world does not stop, even in sorrow. It barrels on regardless, beyond control. I learned that in a big way this year.
I’m back on the trail. The same trail of that fateful trip. I am here to do it right and to get over my fear now. I’m a wreck.
We have set up camp in the bowl of crater lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness when the storm comes. It’s an expected one at 2pm. We are sheltered in the trees, surrounded by high peaks, by no means a target for a thunderbolt. We go into our tents to escape the rain, and I am violently shaking, on the verge of throwing up. The thunder is raucous, reverberating around the steep stone walls, filling my skull horror and doubt, no room for anything else.
The storm passes, of course, and everyone is fine. It would appear that my brain does not store the memory that nothing bad actually happened. Instead, it stores the memory that backpacking = fear.
I don’t backpack anymore.
A few years later we quit our jobs and ran away to the woods.
It sounds romantic and peaceful and restorative, so why did I feel so damn anxious? Maybe it’s because I didn’t know where I’d be sleeping the next night, or maybe it’s the storm cloud that parked itself over Lake Irwin. We sat in the truck as the hail pelted the roof, no choice but to delay dinner. We were relatively safe in the truck, but I don’t feel right. The storm is on top of us now, bright flashes and instant cracks, and then as it always does, it moves on. I do not.
I sleep curled up in the front seat of the truck, partially reclined, legs scrunched up, huddled in my sleeping bag. Kit is in the tent like a normal person and I want to make him come back to the car but I don’t. It was around this moment when I realize I actually have a real problem here.
The next day we drive down to Crested Butte. I go on a jog through town, my eye on the clouds still hugging the peaks. I can’t go back in. The forecast was not good for the next few days. This is the first time I really want to go home. We stay in a hotel that night, finding a discounted room since it’s the off season, and take glorious showers for the first time in nearly 2 weeks. Did laundry too. It’s a successful night, and I am finally calm, but I am ashamed. I know the real reason we are sheltered tonight, and it’s silly. Hundreds of other campers are scattered nearby, weathering the storms just fine.
The next day, it became clear that mountain roaming wasn’t the way to restoration. We drive to Palm Springs.
At mile 18, I stop at the aid station, pull out my phone, and see that I have cell service. I check the weather. It was a zero percent chance of thunderstorms in Hatch, UT, but now it’s 30%. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. I shouldn’t have checked but now I can’t undo it. And I see those clouds drifting lazily overhead. They aren’t a threat. Yet.
I sit down on a log eating my pretzel sticks. The aid station bustles around me as runners come in. I consider what sort of excuse I could conceivably make up to drop. I couldn’t tell the truth. I didn’t look injured, and while I had been nauseous all day, I was in decent shape. Maybe the race volunteers would believe me if I I said I had an old injury popping up that I didn’t want to aggravate. Obviously no one was going to MAKE me continue. But the social Ferris wheel is hard to get off. To further sell that point, Kate, the runner I had been chatting with 3 miles back, passes by. “See you at the finish line!” She waves at me, cheerily ambivalent about any potential storm that may or may not come to pass.
So I get up off my log and jog out of the aid station on Thunder Mountain Trail, which is just cruel irony. I just have to make it 5 miles through the exposed hoodoos, then it’s mostly downhill and back into the trees for the last 15 miles of the 60K. I stop eating what little I had been that day, the nausea shifting from physical to stress-induced, but I do finish the race. There wasn’t a single rumble on thunder mountain.
And many more. After all, it’s normal summertime weather, right?
I become known as the storm phobia girl. I can’t help but bring it up to anyone I run with, when the clouds build in the distance and I have to explain why I’ve suddenly gone weird. I don’t like this. I am a product of my culture, where bravery and overcoming fear is rewarded. Anything else is shamed. And I am ashamed.
Because the story is that you do overcome your phobia. You do the thing that scares you and you conquer it and then you are better. What happens when you do the thing, and you don’t get better? What if all you learn is that being outside in the summer feels horrible? The conquering never occurs? The fear buries you deeper and deeper and others seemingly move on but you freeze; regress. Your brain says fuck you, be miserable. Then what? How much do you give up to just feel OK?
Last summer, I was determined to get to the bottom of this. I signed up for a stupid, stupid stupid stupid, big big race in the middle of the mountains to force myself to do something. There was no way I could do that race with this fear. That much was correct. But I pulled out 6 weeks before the start, with no progress made. I did try! I talked to three therapists, attempted EMDR (“I’m sorry April, I wish I could help you, but you aren’t responding to this”) and something called “accelerated resolution therapy”, and I took steps towards safe exposure therapy. Though I’m not sure my thunder loops around my house were particularly effective. Needless to say, I got nowhere. Deeper into the hole, if anything, because now I’d lost hope, too.
If I don’t push through this, I am a lesser person.
So now I’m faced with another monsoon season. Another renewed desire to change this. To be someone else, really, but that’s not possible. I kept waiting to see the ending of this story, but I now know that isn’t happening. There is no way out, there is only through, into it, never out of it. In it, where I sit with the ever present fear, and somehow feel okay about it. But for now, I’m done talking about it.