Blog

Nuts! (and seeds)

POW!

My eyes fly open. POP! POW!

I wait for a crash that doesn’t come. Usually these POPs and POWs—which is the exact sound of wood breaking—are followed by a crash of limb or tree trunk coming down. Ice storms bring that sound. So do hurricanes.

POW! I try to place the sound out of the context of major weather events. Nuts are falling now, in fall. Could this be the sound of acorns hitting a nearby roof? Maybe, if acorns are the size of golf balls. Hickory nuts. My sleep-addled brain remembers hickory nuts are also falling. So loud, these sounds. It’s hard to sleep when my body involuntarily flinches from every POP and POW.

The next morning Dear Husband Brooks mentions the limbs he heard breaking throughout the night. He, too, was waiting for a crash which never came. We concluded that we had been fooled by nuts, and also concluded that we both might suffer a little residual PTSD from Hurricane Helene. ~K