People will ask: where do your columns come from?

Writing — or, to put it another way, connecting the world around us to the world we carry inside — is a mysterious process, but I can say a few things about how it happens for me. Often a column will start with a powerful emotion. Anger, perhaps. Or fear, as in the case of the severe summer squall that swept over St. Peter’s Church Road last Saturday night.

It was more like a barrage than a storm. The roof sounded like automatic weapons fire. Lightning burst all around, followed by thunderclaps, sometimes delayed, sometimes, when the bolts were right on top of us, instantaneous.

I sat out on the porch, squeezing the arms of my trusty rocking chair, safe under cover, but exposed to the violence of the night, watching.

With each volley of lightning, a new impression would form, born partially out of fear, I suppose — the mind’s way of distancing itself from a perceived threat — but also out of fascination with the rawness of the experience. The split-second illumination would trigger a chain of mental associations. For instance:

[thunderclap]

Like a bomb! How summer storms, like fireworks, make me think of bombardment; how it must feel to be on the receiving end of an artillery barrage; how raining destruction on an enemy must be horrible and exhilarating, an awful guilty pleasure; Mars, god of war; what it means to be beyond guilt; guilt being what separates men from gods.

As my thoughts chased each other down the rabbit hole, I wondered how I might render the storm/destruction/guilt thread in written words. Then I was sidetracked by a memory:

[thunderclap]

Flying home from Seattle, mid-country, pressing my face to the window, twisting to look behind the wing, where a thunderstorm menaces Chicago. We’re high above the storm. Stars are above us. Thunderclouds sit on the plain like heavy smoke, lit from below by frenzied bursts of light. The plane is quiet. Most people are sleeping. The storm is silent to us, but lighting convulses the landscape behind and below us like a bombing run.

Or maybe I’ve added the impression of a bombing run just now. That’s what happens to memories when you write them down. You overlay them. Rewrite them, even. I do remember sitting in that airplane seat and thinking: to see a lightning storm from above is a rare godlike pleasure; there are mortals in that weather down below, but their problems are puny and remote.

But just as I’m getting lost in the memory of that flight, the storm calls me back:

[thunderclap]

Flashes to the south illuminate Blue Mountain, crowned with wisps of purple; flashes to the west make Buddie’s hill an ominous yellow; and flashes to the east, over Harrisburg, fill me with dread. Megatons and cities. Growing up in Washington, D.C., in the height of the Cold War, we called our city Ground Zero, because that’s what it was to the Soviets.

There’s a nice reprieve when Shana comes onto the porch. She runs her fingers through my hair. “What are you thinking about?” she asks.

I tell her I’m thinking about my next column. We sit and watch the storm together, chatting about travel plans, the crazy weather we’ve been having, how things have changed since September 11, 2001.

“Everything’s worse,” I say. “Remember how we used to travel? Before?”

She agrees that travel has become a nightmare.

“Everything bad has happened,” I say. “We’ve pulled back from the world, except to engage it with violence. We’re less free at home. Less safe. Two endless wars and a broken economy. And after all that, most Americans still don’t have the foggiest idea what Islam is. But they know enough to hate a Muslim on sight. Ooh! Sharia law! Scary!”

Shana sits in the darkness, rocking. She’s familiar with the pattern. Sometimes I work things out in a rant.

Eventually, the storm passes. The wine bottle is empty. We sit, side by side, holding hands and politely stifling our yawns.

It’s bedtime. The storm has planted a seed in me, in the form of a phrase: “Impressions of a Late Summer Storm.” Those words come to me as I turn off the kitchen light. They seem sure and balanced. There’s music in them.

I don’t know what, exactly, I’m going to write about, but it will have to do with sitting outside with thunder and lightning; fear in my belly; the uncanny beauty of violence; our nation; my family; and war.

 

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 15 September 2011

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com