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A little rain will fall.

Dearest Vivian (aka the Lean Bean),

Turns out we had nothing to worry about after all. You see, what was supposedly a “confirmed” tornado-producing thunderstorm, was just the average, late summer supercell.

We’d just dropped Mom off downtown, and you were falling fast asleep in your carseat, as you are wont to do. So, instead of going home, I decided, like your typical dad, to drive aimlessly, affording you ample opportunity for an extended nap, which is something that you, as an incredibly energetic 10-and-a-half-month-old, don’t get nearly enough of.

We drove out of the city due west on U.S. 50, a smooth-as-silk blacktop that could carry us all the way to California if we wanted. Cruising along, a curtain of doom suddenly enveloped the sky. The color reminded me of pencil lead, grey but with a supernatural luster and sheen. Even though it was only 3:00 in the afternoon, sunlight was nowhere to be found. I could see a couple traffic lights in the distance swinging to and fro like drunk teenagers or ships’ masts on a violent sea. We were all but alone on the road, going a steady 50 mph — the speed most conducive to napping! — but our little car felt utterly powerless, contstantly buffeted by urgent headwinds. I downshifted, as sheets of rain overpowered our wipers, splashing and swooshing, pointlessly. So I pulled over to the side of the road, thinking it’d be safer to wait it out than to press on.

Sitting on the side of the road, it sounded as if we were being pelted by golf balls; the car felt like a covered wagon, rocking back and forth on it struts. Just as I was about to check on you, reassure you that we were fine despite all the sturm und drang, my phone began bleeping a beep I’d never heard before. I turned it on and, quite alarmingly, here is what it said (paraphrastically): you and I, little one, had somehow managed to place our fragile bodies, unknowingly, in the direct path of ARMAGEDDON and needed to find shelter RIGHT QUICK. Odd that my phone would give such stern advice, I thought to myself, so I heeded it, and swung us about, flooring it back to whence we’d come.

It’s fortunate U.S. 50 is more or less a straight arrow out of D.C., Viv. A 747 landing right in front of us would’ve gone unnoticed.  Cracking sounds of falling timber punctuated the thunderclaps. We seemed as much wind propelled as gas driven, requiring the brakes, as if in steep descent, in order to stop from accelerating. After a couple miles, I exited the highway again and found an underground parking garage for us to hunker down in. My heart was racing but you, my precious child, whom the barely audible has pulled on many occasion from the deepest depths of slumber, had managed to snooze through our entire meteorological misadventure! A few minutes passed, the worst of it having come and gone, and we were back on the road, completely intact and no worse for wear.

Anyway, kid, even if a real tornado had found us and flung our car into the abyss last weekend, I want you to know that we would’ve been just fine. I want you to understand, as you grow into a little girl, teenager, woman, that there is no panic, just equilibrium, in our mighty, unknowable universe.

I’m telling you this because no one ever told me: Forces beyond our control constantly shift, align, and realign, more often than not without even the slightest hints or explanations. And there is absolutely nothing worrisome about that.

Absolutely. Nothing.

Love you to pieces,

Your daah-daah-daah-daah.