Bomb cyclone over North Carolina… Ambience. This week’s episode covers the major coastal storm as heard from the coastal plains Carolina (i.e., my twin’s house). Her recording (thank you!) captured wind, snow, and birds sheltering nearby. I also filled out the recording with added notes and sounds (I’m really into ambience with non-music motifs).

And as everyone who has followed this podcast should know, I am a fan of fans. (We’re starting with fans?) One distant summer night in Myrtle Beach, I sat bolt upright fast enough to catch the sound of an explosion in its negative phase. Light-headed and feeling each beat of my heart pulsating through my eyes and ears, my brain trying to re-engage consciousness.  

I looked around in the dark. Ghostly echoes of thunder washed over me. The wind picked up and lashed raindrops into the window. A flash of light ignited the room, and I was staring into the pale visage of a little girl’s face, wide-eyed.

I screamed.

This was the thunderstorm that ruined me for thunderstorms. I experienced the eye of Hurricane Hugo (Kershaw County, not Charleston), and my memories aren’t as vivid of that hurricane as they are of that brief, terrifying Myrtle storm. I can remember everything from the moment I was ripped from my dreams to my father plugging in a large box fan next to my bed.

After recovering from the face-flashing jumpscare, it was my twin staring at me—we summoned the courage to wander down the hall of the efficiency motel room to where my parents slept. We ripped them out of their sleep and beckoned them to look out the windows. 

The sheer unsettlement of the night sky—Do something.

A blinding flash enveloped us in white. And just before the collection of sounds that make up thunder hit my ear, I swear I heard a sizzle rip by first. Sparks fell across the street from a power line. I backed away from the windows, reeling—the room’s oven flashed and sparked with small tendrils of electricity.

I shouted, “The oven’s on fire,” because I had no idea how to describe what I was seeing.

“The oven is not on fire,” my mother said, furious. And I can understand why; if she were writing this podcast description about the experience, it would be: waking to children screaming, a massive white light filling the room, a shattering thunderclap, and her son shouting “fire!”

“Sometimes lightning can sneak in through the wires,” my father explained after sorting out what I had seen. And I was like, “Wait—it can get inside?!” urgently gesticulating toward the windows and the flashing forks of electric death.

This is why I sleep with noise at night—preferably rushing wind, whether electric or naturally created. To drown out the possibility of hearing thunder.

Essentially, all of what I have written so far can be boiled down to my trying to conjure a title for this week’s episode. I wanted to offer howling winds as anxiety relief. And my beloved wife interjected that I should offer calm winds for anxiety, as people might not feel calmed by rushing wind. And I was like, “CALM WINDS DON’T CALM ME!”

The argument eventually ended with accusations that I never do the dishes. Happy Valentine’s Day! (Oh no wait that’s next week)