There is a distinct, teeth-clenching flavor of psychological dread that comes with the true calm before a storm. You can feel it in your bones long before the first cloud turns the color of a bruised plum.
The National Weather Service issued an omnious warning - 35 mile an hour winds with gusts to 40.
I grabbed all the kids and insisted they come outside with me - the gorgeous fall colors like a bottle of maple syrup waiting for a pancake…/ and the sunset -the glorious sunset.
A fascinating thing happens when a storm is approaching, you can literally watch the front move across the sky like someone with a sword ripping a line in the blue with white.
With the winds on the horizon, you could see the lennies up high in the distance - winds ripping at the higher altitudes… they would all be on the ground tomorrow.
I didn’t want the kids to miss it. The last bit of Fall - before it fell.
You see... lately there’s been an invisible, heavy-handed barometric pressure pressing down on all of us, an impending doom.
Something whispering that everything needs to be locked down, battened, and bolted down - a low-grade, humming sense that something massive is coming down the pipe, leaving us standing in the stillness wondering if we are actually prepared for whatever is about to hit.
In meteorology, that eerie stillness—the literal "calm before the storm"—has a very specific mechanical pedigree.
When a low-pressure weather system approaches, warm, moist air rises rapidly into the upper atmosphere, creating a pocket where the horizontal winds die down and the air feels deceptively flat and breathless.
Sailors on the open water know this lull all too well; a sudden, glassy calm isn't a gift, it's a terrifying warning that the atmosphere is choking on its own unstable energy before a squall rips the canvas off the rigging. It also means in the moments before it hits, the sails aren’t propelling them to where they need to be to batten down the hatches.
The thing is, on some level we’re so busy preparing for the storm, that we forget to pause and enjoy the calm.
And that's the real secret to surviving the squall—enjoy the calm before the storm, then find your peace in the process.
Stop freaking out and fighting the current on the surface and choose to be like an octopus floating with the tide, trusting your buoyancy and moving with the water instead of breaking your ribs against it.
I'm on a group text with some like-minded friends and we have a phrase we say "I do not consent."
I do not consent to fear mongering.
I do not consent to panicking.
I do not consent to allowing someone to steal my peace.
I do not consent.
So of course, in the hours before the storm hit - I did what any good aviator would do - I went to fly - in the calm before the storm. I had my best take off and landing in months - but more importantly - I truly re-found my wings, I felt one with my airplane, no difference between my arms and hers… together we skirted the layer of birds above the rice fields.
PS - Yes the FAA grounded all flights today (I'm pending confirmation of whether this applies to IFR only)- the first time since 9/11. Friday the 13th- go figure. Nobody panic - we’ve got this.
And I’ve only got 17.4 of 21 hours left to Fly For Nathalia. Are you joining me?