My teacher waited for thunderstorms

Miss Carmela. My teacher used to wait for storms.

When the sky turned dark, we children would huddle at our desks. We must have been three, maybe four years old.

She, instead, would open the window.

She taught us how to count.

First the lightning.

Then the seconds.

Then the thunder.

The longer the wait, the farther away the storm was.

A sound you can measure is less frightening than a sound that simply arrives.

As we grow up, we meet other kinds of thunder.

Things that arrive suddenly. Words, losses, changes, decisions. Noises that feel bigger than us, even before they truly reach us.

Our first reaction is the one we had at those school desks.

To shrink.

To close.

To wait for it to pass.

Miss Carmela did something else.

She opened the window.

You too will have your storms.

Some will last a night. Others, a season.

I don't know if they will all have a meaning. Sometimes meaning comes later. Sometimes it comes slowly. Sometimes we just can't find any meaning.

But when you hear the thunder, try not to close everything at once.

Count the seconds.

Breathe.

Look at the sky.

And, when you can, remember to open the window.