Worked from home today for no other reason than that the weather was terrible—wild, heavy rain hammering most of the country, except for Auckland. And even when Auckland does get hit with a weather event, it’s usually somewhere else. We’ve lucked out, I guess, in the weather sweeps. God knows our clapboard house would take a beating if we ever copped the brunt of it.

Still, it’s awful to admit, but I miss a good old nasty storm.

“I miss a good old typhoon,” I once said out loud—and immediately got a scolding from my mother.

“What if you got your wish and it was Signal No. 4?” she shot back. Fair enough.

One of my earliest memories of a typhoon is walking the five meters from our old house to my aunt’s in the middle of the night, rain and raging wind on our backs, because there was a real danger our house might be blown away. I have fond memories of that old place—it was little more than a large nipa hut with bamboo slats for flooring, held up by thick hardwood logs embedded in concrete.

Even then, though, people knew it wouldn’t stand up to the seasonal storms that grow stronger every year. (Not long after, my parents took out a loan to build our current house.) The last time I was home, I don’t think there was a single house left in Naguilayan that wasn’t made of concrete and cement.

But as a child, the danger never really registered. What I remember most was the cozy kinship of being safe inside a solid house—drinking coffee (at night! a treat!) and listening to the hushed, slightly worried voices of the adults, tut-tutting at every whip and howl of the storm outside.

Of course, danger is always present with a typhoon. But as my dad always said, at least you’re given time to prepare—and you just need to make logical, sensible decisions.

Still, you never really know, do you? For some people, the odds are stacked unfairly against them, no matter how careful they are.

I just hope and pray that I’ll always find myself on the other side—warmly huddled in bed, with a cup of decaf in hand.