Are Other People Like This?

By other people I mean non-writers. Or maybe non-artists.
     Today I was bringing hay to my horses, which involves driving my truck to a neighboring farm, having my "hay guy" use his tractor to drop a 6x6, 1,500 lb., round bale of hay into the bed of my truck, which I then take back to my farm and out into the horse pasture where I roll it out of the truck.
     This afternoon, during the drive to and from my farm, all the radio stations were repeating continuous severe weather warnings about thunderstorms, high winds and hail, but all we had at that point was lightning. Serious cloud-to-ground lightning in every direction. The torrential rain didn't start until I was out in the pasture unloading the hay.
     So while I was standing in the bed of my truck, trying to wrestle, push, maneuver this recalcitrant hay roll out onto the ground - I mentioned they weigh 1,500 lbs? And while round bales, also known as hay rolls, are technically round, they all have a flat side and can sometimes be difficult to "roll" out of a truck bed - my actions were arrested by fascination with the weather.
    In the few places in the sky where there were no rolling clouds and phenomenal bolts of lightning, a stunning sunset was showing. I found myself thinking this would be a good time to work on my admittedly poor skills of description by taking note of my surroundings.
      Smell: wet hay, mud, wet horses. Tactile: itchy hay stuck to my skin; how heavy a light t-shirt and shorts can become when suddenly drenched by a downpour; my bare feet (lost my sandals in the mud while trying to climb into truck bed) trying to get some traction on the slick truck bed liner; how different the hard, fat drops of rain felt, compared to the stinging impact of the small, sharp ones. Sight: The light spots in the sky where breaks in the clouds let the sunset show through;  the colors - black, palomino, chestnut, gray - of the impatient horses, circling the truck like sharks. Sound: Cracks of thunder; rain splattering on the roof of the truck; horses slopping and slipping in the mud. Taste: rain and (unfortunately) damply dusty hay.
     While trying to experience all these things, I was distracted buy the continual spears of lighting, all nearly straight rather than jagged or forked. It seemed as if the lightning was taking the shortest, most direct route to the earth to have the most devastating impact.
     Does this sound safe? I can tell you from recent research into lightning strikes for a short story I was working on, it is not. I even spent a few seconds, standing soaking wet and barefoot in the back of my truck in the middle of a wide-open field, wondering what the odds of my situation being an attraction for lightening might be.
    It reminded me of videos and photographs of deadly situations, where the person responsible for the visual images must have been dangerously close to tornadoes, volcanoes, explosions, tsunamis, flying bullets, or vicious wildlife. I always think, "Was the photographer/filmer crazy? Stupid? Or just so intent on capturing the experience to share with others that they were oblivious to all else?"
      Fortunately, I didn't become a casualty of this aspect of artistic temperament. I came to my senses, dumped the hay and scampered to the relative safety inside my truck. But I keep wondering...are other people like this?


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