By Jan Penton Miller
Columnist
To a four-year-old most things appear quite large, and a year lasts an absolute eternity.
When I was four my home in rural Simpson County with the porch across the front
seemed gigantic. The memory of an encounter with nature on this front porch is as fresh
today as the afternoon it occurred.
It was past time for my trip to Mrs. Barlow’s Beauty Salon. My mom always kept my hair
cut short. It stuck out over my ears, and I didn’t like it. I always wondered why the other
girls in the family were allowed to grow beautiful long locks, and I was doomed to my
boyish cut.
I pushed the long bangs from my eyes and relaxed in an old chair on the porch. The hot
summer sun beat down causing beads of sweat to form on my upper lip. Lazily, I licked
my lips enjoying the salty taste on my tongue.
What a scorcher, I thought, mimicking the adult’s conversation I had overheard around
the lunch table. In reality, the hot summer temperatures had little effect on me. I enjoyed
playing outside in the heat and had never been exposed to air-conditioning so I didn’t
know anything else.
Occasionally, I would leave the yard for a little rest in the old chair on the porch. It had
overstayed its welcome in the house, and was banished to it’s new spot until the kids
and dogs managed to wear it completely out. The stuffing was coming out, but an old
quilt covered the hole.
On this particular afternoon I sat in the comfy chair lost in my imaginings when an
uncharacteristically cool breeze wafted through the trees in the yard gently rustling the
leaves. The delightful sensation on my warm, damp skin stirred something deep inside
me. My eyes widened with interest as my senses came alive.
The blue cloudless sky of a few moments before had turned grey. In the distance dark
purple thunderheads danced through the heavenlies as if for my pleasure alone. The
gentle breeze of only moments before now whirled with abandon whistling through the
branches of my favorite climbing tree.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. I breathed in the smell of rain in the air and felt more
alive than I ever had before. Lightening pierced the darkening sky like fireworks on the
Fourth of July, and thunder boomed like a cannon. I pulled the quilt around my shivering
body while my heart beat faster. Excitement coursed through my veins while the actors
in nature’s show danced and sang their way into my heart.
That was fifty some odd years ago. My love of nature and storms never left me from that
day to this. The beautiful and exciting cleansing and replenishing of the earth through a
summer storm always reminds me of the little freckle faced girl on her porch in Simpson
County and her newfound delight in God’s magnificent creation.