As soon as I walked outside, I felt it. The silky warm haze of summer that was wrapped around us unexpectedly fell to reveal a sharp and biting cold. The air was alive and eager for some kind of action. It is spring, once again, in the middle of a large continent. Anything can happen.

I sat down on my porch chair, as I love to do. There is nothing more invigorating than a Midwestern thunderstorm rolling and growling its inevitable way towards you. It makes me feel very small and vulnerable. No one can make elaborate plans or simply laze around when there is a storm coming – the sight and sound and smell and pure electric feeling demands action. Instincts flare as if smacked by lightening; shelter must be found.

I soon realized that this storm was not the one I was hoping for, however. Hard winds bowed the trees sideways as their leaves chattered disapproval, and then one quick shake brought them back to shape when it stopped. A truly imperial storm demands nearly unending fealty from the trees as the wind feels as if it will never stop. But the first one of the season did not have that power.

Since this was not a strong storm, I took the time to watch the thick wall of clouds roll in from the West. They are called “fronts” because pilots in World War I first noticed them moving, marching as if off to war. It was important information, because their small human plans were screwed up by the weather as the trenches filled with mud. Since our planet and all the life on it is fueled by water, they could have looked at it as an opportunity; the force of life was coming to their hopeless battle. But to them, it was only a problem.

On the East view off my porch, condos are rising along the Mississippi. They partially block my view, in fact. They keep rising onward, built on river silt and finishing up in time to hit a totally busted market. The gusts of wind stopped work for the day as the workers dribbled down the ladders like rain. Whoever is financing this project might want to consider stopping the work for a lot longer, but still it inches up. We humans do have our plans, and they must be followed.

Meanwhile, I didn’t even get a good storm out of this. My plans were as fouled as anyone else’s in the end. That’s the way it goes in the middle of a big continent, where weather swirls and pushes its way across borders on its own immense scale. It brings us life, and it can kill us. It can ruin our plans or tease us into making some.

But in the end, it tells us something we should listen to: we are rather small. That’s only discomforting if you make plans far bigger than yourself.