Beautiful thunderstorm tonight. Sky was low and heavy, green-gray with a restrained fury that only Mother Nature can manage. I was very nearly struck by lightning, actually. A single bolt hit one of the lampposts in the parking lot about twenty yards off, leaving my ears ringing for several minutes.

I came home a little after midnight to find that the power in my neighborhood had gone out. It’s come back on, but my cable is still fried so I’m using my fancypants smartphone to connect my laptop to the interblag.

Having the power out at 1:00 in the morning made me realize just how long it’s been since I’ve seen a legitimate night sky. It never gets dark in Orlando; there’s too much light pollution. But with the streetlights out, I remembered just how much I love nighttime. I broke out my Surefire and my Canon T2i and took a stroll through the darkness.

Neighboring districts still created a lot of glow near the horizon, but my immediate surroundings were dark, just barely underlit by the moon through the muggy haze. Torn leaves and tree branches lay scattered here and there, ripped to pieces by wind and hailstones the size of grapes. The light reminded me of early morning on the moraines of Ruth Mountain in the North Cascades when I was a teenager. I found myself pining for the alien landscapes of high altitude once more, and my thoughts were drawn to someone I love, who will soon know that alpine longing as intimately as I do (hey, you’d better get used to how often I think about her).

Then the lights came back on, and the banality of central Florida returned. It was a brief, wistful reminder of where I truly belong, and it’s only a matter of time before I return to the mountains that made me what I am.