Peeing in a Lightning Storm

In 1990 my kind-natured, enchanting-gentleman boyfriend, Kirby felt eager to share some of the magical delights of his upbringing with me.  He took me to the Kerrville Folk Music Festival outside of Austin, Texas where we heard some amazing upcoming and highly revered musicians perform in non-stop concerts that lasted all day, and then through the night after the main stage closed and people sat around campfires singing till the morning light rose over the horizon. 

It went on for many days, and we heard well-known performers; Marcia Ball, Nancy Griffith, John Gorka, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Robert Earl Keen, and Timbuk 3, along with those shy singers, only beginning to get familiar with the sound of their projected voices over a microphone on a large stage for the first time, such as Michelle Shocked, Shawn Colvin.  The music very different than I had ever heard delighted me.  It soothed and moved me and opened my heart which only fell deeper for the man who gave me this gift of himself wrapped up in the songs and sentiments from his Texan upbringing.  The hot and extremely humid weather in Texas made me want to dump my cold lemonade on my head – about every 30 minutes. 

A family of women raised Kirby and taught him to look out for others. He thought of everything from bug repellant spray, to cushions for our butts, to buying me a helium balloon to which I could attach the tiny corded microphone from my walkman, so I could record the music within the crowd.  He went to great efforts to make sure I had a good time while experiencing a taste of the life he knew so well in a very different climate, terrain, around generous and friendly people with manners, unlike the men I grew up knowing in California. 

He set us up to camp a few miles away from the festival so we could sleep at night in a quiet campground once we were done being part of the festival campfires and spontaneous sing-a-longs of late evenings.  Kirby booked us in a campground ten minutes drive away within a few trees for shade where campers had more space to spread out. We took off midday in the peak of the heat from the music festival a few of the days when the line up of musicians were less impressive to him and we went rafting down the local creeks on air mattresses to cool off; a lovely and refreshing way to relax.  I have silly photos of me reclined in my bikini on a light-blue air mattress going over low falls, with my arms up behind my tilted-back head, a blissful look on my face, sporting soggy tennis shoes on my feet.  

Kirby’s amazingly perceptive sensibilities about his surrounding, the dangers, and how to stay safe impressed me. I learned to trust his instincts even if I did not have the same perceptions, so when he woke up at 1:30 in the morning and said,

“We need to put the rain fly on the tent, it is going to rain!”  

“What?”  I said in disbelief, sleepier than I ever remember being after being woken up.

“It is about to rain!  Hard. We need to put the fly on - Now!” He insisted.

In my sleepy, ‘I do not want to be woken up’ voice, trying to humor his concern, I said,

“Kirby, it has been thundering in the distance all day long how can you tell it is suddenly going to rain here, now?” 

California rains usually come after sprinkly warnings – it never suddenly rains.

“I can smell it in the air” He exclaimed while he exited the tent.

I sniffed the air.  I smelled Texas.  It has smelled the same since I got here.  Hot & Humid.  Yet I knew from experience with him, he knows this land; he knows the queues. Though my body felt way too tired to respond, and I thought him nuts at the time, I cooperatively got myself up and out of the tent, just in time.  He had gone and grabbed the cover out of the trunk of the car, had it in his hand, and shook it up into the air to expand it and spread it out over the tent just as I stepped out. 

The moisture-loaded clouds above suddenly cracked open and dumped the most intense pelting of globs of water in quick succession I have ever seen or felt on my body.  It felt jarring and ridiculously difficult to maneuver under the pressure of the rain on our bodies felt ridiculously difficult.  We secured the rain fly by hooking little elastic loops onto the tent stakes that held the arched aluminum tent poles to the ground.

Lightning struck and lit up the sky, making it seem like midday sun for a half-second.

 

“Boom!”  Thunder sounded immediately.  

“Wow!” I exclaimed in shock.  “I was getting ready to count out the miles.  I guess it is right here!”  

“Yep,” Kirby said. 

This electrical storm invigorated and frightened at the same time. And we got soaked in no time.  Then we did a funny hesitation, between unzipping the zipper and getting back into the tent and making a mad dash for the rental car parked about fifteen feet away just past the metal-framed picnic table and the tree that towered above our campsite.  

We looked at each other and opted for the car.  I am not sure if that move simply seemed quicker, easier, or safer than fiddling with a wet metal zipper on the fly of the tent, or it seemed like fun to go sit and watch the storm – something we could not have done within the tent.  

For me, I think the car represented a sense of security within a container.  Once inside, I felt relieved and safe.  And I could enjoy the storm – sitting and watching the landscape light up in quick flashes of brilliant light.  I felt comforted within the shelter;  with just enough distance from the unbelievably loud sound of the cracks and deep rumbles that moved across the sky.  

The lightning lines were jagged and fierce and so close we often saw where they were touching down to the ground less than a hundred yards away.  Perhaps due to my own body’s natural rhythm, perhaps fear triggered it: suddenly I really had to pee.  

Without thinking much of it I got out of the car and ran over toward the trunk of the tree and pulled down my pants to squat and just as I did the lightning struck again, to which I freaked, pulled up my pants, and ran fifteen feet away from the tree in the dark to squat somewhere else.  (My eyes unable to see much for not yet adjusting from the flood of light from the lightning) thinking, no, not near the tree, too risky; tree tall, tree potential conduit for electrical charge, do not want to get my yoni zapped!”  

At what I guess is a safe distance away from the tree, I pull down my pants again and squat ready to pee.  The lightning strikes again and the illumination shows me I am right next to the metal-framed picnic table. Scared, I spring up pull up my pants, and dash to yet a new spot. 

With blinded eyes, I am guessing of course that away from the tree, away from metal would be fine, I drop my pants and squat yet again. Lightning strikes yet again just fifty feet away touching down near a bush, and suddenly I am scared out of my wits, as I think about the conductivity of saltwater about to come out of me, and how easily that could bring the current of electricity so prominent in the air right to my private parts.  Man, that would be a sad way to get toasted in a lightning storm, can’t I hold it?  Never mind that fear exasperates my need to pee.

I pull up my pants and run to the car open the door and climb in shut the weather out. Kirby is doubled over laughing at the strobe light scene he just witnessed, while I suddenly realized anyone nearby in the campground awake and watching might have seen: my stark white backside exposed to the elements, repeatedly appearing in different positions about the campsite created a comical scene.  

I did laugh at the absurdity of it all, and I still had to pee really bad so laughing did not help me hold it in at all.  

Kirby started the car and drove me to the restroom, where I found all the rest of the campers huddled inside the building getting the relief they needed.