I Awake To A Clattering of Windows

I slept only fitfully last night and was lying in bed enduring a stretch of diffuse anxiety when I heard a sudden steady clicking sound. 

Was Monte shivering in his sleep? 

The clicking quickened and became a rattling -- high-pitched, thin, intimately near. 

Was there a snake in the room?

Then the room began to vibrate, and the vibration became a rumbling and a growl so deep that it was everywhere.

“A rocket,” whispered Monte.

Ah, yes. Now I remembered. A Vandenberg launch had been scheduled for 2:20 a.m., some kind of weather satellite booster.

I jumped up and ran outside. I wanted to see its fiery path.

The air was unexpectedly mild. The rain had stopped but the deck was wet and the world smelled green and sweet. The night sky was white with cloud and I could see no trace of the launch, but the growling vibration continued and everything seemed to hold its breath waiting for it to pass. Within its shadows the night held life, and I could sense its wildness and mystery. 

It seemed that I was bearing witness to some vast and wondrous secret that had been out there all along. I stood there in my bare feet listening for a long time until the shuddering of space noise receded into stillness.

I knew that something special had transpired and it sat with me all day today, but I wasn’t sure what it meant until this evening when I read these words in an essay by Orhan Pamuk :

“To sense that life is deeper than we think it is, and the world more meaningful, does a person have to wake in the middle of the night to clattering windows, to wind blowing through a gap in the curtains, and the sounds of thunder?”

Once in awhile, yes.