Another day slept in until 2:pm. I didn’t sleep well, went to bed finally putting my book down at 2:am, and the cat came in in the morning and snuggled up to me hard….so that is my real excuse. How could I disturb her preciousness?

Still working on sleep habits, day habits, schedules in general. Working for myself, holding myself accountable to get my work done, eat properly (and not forget and skip all day meals and then eating dinner and a snack later) yoga and bike riding and other events and activities, especially when I have people to meet and places to be.

Now I am sipping my coffee and took a glance on FB and the weather channel to check on my islander friends. I’m nearly sad I am not there to hunker down through it myself. Today I miss the storms of the island. I’ve been through many, having moved there right after Hurricane Ike.

My views from every place were amazing and special. I remember the Artists lofts being about the best storm view of my time there, my second runner up would be my last little apartment over on the corner of Postoffice and 18^{th at 1724. Postoffice.}.  I was up in the back on the top floor of my 11 tall windows from all sides but the front. My view showed over the houses on three sides as well as over the harbor. The storms there could be crazy scary and in a studio with two windows in the bathroom, no closet…there wasn’t a place to hide. I’d often lay in the safest away from windows corner of my bed waking to the lightning bolts nearly ready to invite themselves to breakfast.

Rain always came in my back door (which was my only door but faced the back faced the back of the victorian home turned apartments onto my little porch). There was no cover of any sort over the door, and the landlord did eventually put in some better weatherstripping though it wasn’t ever truly solved if the rain drove that way, knocking right on the door usually inviting herself in for coffee, uninvited but always welcome. I loved rainy days there, and stormy even better.

A big towels at the floor did the job for me and the weatherstripping did get better.

The rain in wasn’t really much nor a big deal (as long as towel in place), the rain around is what was special, the view and watching her just SWOOSH right outside my windows over my big green yard on the side with its fruit tree’s.

I would usually spend those days with a pot of soup on the stove of the open kitchen, while sitting at my table working on my at the time mainly Behind The White Gate’s novel. My back to one window nearly butted up against that two toned green victorian that you either love or hate, my face toward the window over the garden of fruit tree’s and aloe plants. The lightning always seemed mad at the harbor, the wind trying to find it’s way in on all sides rattling my eleven thin antique windows within their wooden panes, the rain out there while I was in here. I seemed in the storm, but dry and warm from it at the same time. The Summer storms have their very own feel….the grass is greener when wet and smells so divine after, windows to be thrown open for a gulp of after storm smell in that tiny spot before the humidity would set in. Winter storms were the special ones with the apartment smelling of soup on the stove, the heater on trying its damndest to warm the apartment from wooden sunbleached floor to 14 foot high ceilings. And me sipping my coffee and writing what would basically become my future. Not the story itself, mind you, but the book, the writing, and the life.

I’ve seen many storms since I’ve left the island. Storms over big empty un-ending lands of prairie, over lakes coming at you like it has a vendetta. And around mountains that seemed to move even for it. Unstoppable storms with each their own great beauty in the shadow they create, a rainbow later of the darkness. But Galveston storms are a kind of their own. Over the gulf waters that turn the sky the most spectacular grey’s and the waters the perfect lightest seafood green you could imagine. I often wish to find a pearl in that same exact grey and a jewel that captures that seafood green. There has never been in my life a storm like a Galveston Island storm. And each and every one of them hold a candle to the other there. Even the tornado’s and lightning over a desert with no place to hide doesn’t beat them in their angry angry beauty.

Harvey; it’s a good name. I hope he doesn’t bring quite as much memory as Ike did for those that are there, but at the moment he stirs many memories inside of me and even from no less than three days drive and safety away. Galveston Island storms will do that to you….touch you, stir something inside of you even when you are far far away from the island.