"... for me, there are no such things as limits." - (Ororo Munroe, aka Storm)

Hard as it is for me to believe, this is my 25th piece for this blog.  When I realized that fact, it got me to thinking - and asking myself some questions.  Have I really written that much since this idea came into my head?  Did I have that much to say when I started?  Do I still have more to say?

The answer to all of those questions is yes.  And what's most refreshing to me is how quickly those answers came to mind when I asked myself those questions.  I didn't have to sit and think.  I didn't have to contemplate or wonder.  I knew.  There was no need for contemplation.  

There was only a deep sense of peace, and from out of that peace came those answers.

With that awareness came also a realization.  It was a realization about where the peace had come from in my life, how it had come to be.  

Certainly, the peace is in no small part because of my 2013 commitment to self-improvement:  I'd committed at the start of the year to losing weight, improving the state of my health, taking stock of the attitudes with which I view the world.  

Self-care became a priority again for the first time in a long while.  I took big steps toward fixing some long-standing health issues by finally having a necessary surgery that I'd been frightened to undertake.  I even treated myself  to getting my first-ever manicure.

But as good as the manicure looked, it was how it made me feel that made the bigger difference.  It might seem silly to some for me to take such joy in something so simple, but I did.  It felt like a new expression of my personal freedom, however insignificant, and that mattered to me.

In fact, that's the key to where this feeling of peace inside of me has come from; it's what 2013 has been about to me, expressed time and time again through the whole of this blog.  Put simply, this blog and this year have both been about my refusal to be confined - and my refusal to accept limits, even when they're my own.

And that is why I decided to write my 25th piece about Ororo Monroe, the hero known as Storm.

Storm is well-known enough as a character that I don't feel she needs an introduction.  She's been a part of so many different X-MEN comic book titles.  She's been on television and in movies.  I can't imagine people out there don't know her origins.

But what I wonder is how many people are familiar with Storm as a hero who has repeatedly managed to overcome a single desperate, crippling fear.

I talk, of course, about Storm's claustrophobia.

Now, of coure, the image above - taken from a trading card - contains just a mini-biography of the character.    And, in the Storm's many interpretations, she has been shown to suffer from  claustrophobia, and then overcome it completely, and then suffer from it again, and on and on in the never-ending cycle of change that is the hallmark of serialized fiction.

But serialized fiction's tendency to sensationalize real-life health issues and then do away with them when convenient - all for the sake of drama - isn't the point of this piece.

The point of this piece is what that claustrophobia means to me.

As anyone who's read my Dazzler piece knows, Alison Blaire was my first favorite mutant hero.  She was all sparkle and shine, glitz and glitter, power and light.  She inspired me to be loud and proud at a time when I often felt small and intimidated; she also appealed perfectly to my sensibilities in 1980, when I was eight - and when everything in my life had to be big and bright and sassy.

It's funny how much can change in a year, even as you realize how much stays the same.

A quick leap forward in time - to July, 1981 - finds me an extremely awkward nine-year-old.  The sparkle was gone.  The confidence had dwindled.  It's not something of which I'm proud, but it's the truth.  It's who I was at that time - a sad, lonely kid who didn't like to go outside.

So, what changed?

Crushes - two of them, in fact, all painful and all emotionally draining to overcome.

But I overcame them.

And through that time, as sad as it is to say, I had my comic books.  I read them and re-read them.  I know it was wrong to isolate myself, but that's how my life went at that time.  I'd been hurt, to my way of thinking, by my exposure to other people, and impossible loves that had absolutely no chance.  As a nine-year-old, I certainly wasn't sophisticated about the way I handled relationships.

So isolation seemed like the "answer."  I reasoned that if I stayed far away form people, I wouldn't be hurt by them.

I cut myself off from others, and I became something of a little punk.

Okay, I was nine - I wasn't that much of a punk.  But I evolved from a fabulous little kid into a surly tween over that year, and embraced a rather negative attitude about people that wasn't lost on those who once called myself their friends.

I felt like an outsider everywhere I went, and  felt like I belonged absolutely nowhere.  And, during this period, I found myself gravitating toward Uncanny X-Men as my favorite comic.  I identified with the outsider status of the characters, with the way they were misunderstood and hated by he "normal" people in the world.  Where, before, I had identified with the delightful Dazzler, now the sullen mutants of Westchester Mansion.

Now, that July is important to me because it marked the publication of a comic that spoke to me more profoundly than many had prior to that point in my life.  Specifically, it was Uncanny X-Men #147.

In the story, Doctor Doom imprisons Storm in a way that turns her into a living statue.  Her claustrophobia brings her to the brink of madness.

Of course, Doom is eventually convinced to release Ororo.

But Ororo's claustrophobia and rage have left her dramatically changed.

This story isn't the best, by any means, if viewed through the critical eye of an adult.  It's basically a retread of the just-completed Dark Phoenix storyline condensed into a few pages.

Innovation and risk-taking are also not exactly   hallmarks of serialized storytelling.

The upshot of the tale is that Colossus reminds Ororo about what just happened to Jean a few issues ago.

Storm basically then says "Yeah, you're right" and then puts herself back together again.  The day is saved, and we can all be grateful that Scott Summers wasn't involved with trying to rescue her, or we'd have lost the character a few pages after that.

But the story's plot breakdown, that's not why it had such an impact on me.

It impacted me because I saw myself in it.

Here was Ororo Munroe, who had in the time I was reading these books dedicated herself more outspokenly than any of Xavier's students to the Professor's principles of peaceful co-existence with others, declaring herself superior - declaring herself a goddess.

While I can certainly identify with the fantasy of being a goddess, what struck me about this was what caused this fundamental change, through the lens of Ororo's claustrophobia as a plot device.  It was a disconnect between Ororo and the world around her.  It was the way Doom's actions cut her off from any contact with the world, any sensation.  She had been turned into a statue, and through this situation she was - for a brief time - totally isolated from everyone and everything.  And far from making her stronger, it turned her into someone else, however briefly - someone cold and sinister and power-mad.

She had become untouchable, like a statue.

Realization hit me like a pile of bricks.  I was doing the same thing in my own life, only I was doing it to myself.

I was reacting out of fear - cutting myself off from other people for the sake of feeling no pain. It hurt to realize in that sudden, lurching moment how much I'd isolated myself - on-purpose no less - from former friends, from family, from anyone and everyone.

I clearly remember crying for a while, lying on my stomach on my bed, the comic book I'd just read open in front of me, an open and emptied Snickers bar wrapper off to the upper right.  Yeah, I ate chocolate while reading comic books. I told you I've never collected them for value.

But I nevertheless realized that even though Storm's story was a fiction, crafted as a product to entertain, it could still hold truth in my own life.

What I had come to love about Storm over the years of reading her adventures was that she was so committed to Xavier's ideals that she incorporated them into her thought process, and she agonized over violence despite having to be a part of it so often as part of the X-Men.  I loved her kindness and benevolence, her refusal to kill no matter how appropriate it seemed.  These ideals resonated with me, even if they were the product of false drama.

I loved, too, perhaps oddly to some, her appreciation of the weather she controlled, because that resonated very strongly with me.  Maybe it's part of my upbringing, but I love all kinds of different weather - I'm not a sunshine kid.  I love storms, and rain.  I love vast clouds rolling overhead to give the world that particular overcast look.  I love watching lightning explode in the distance.

Storm, written the way I like her best, basks not in the glory of having her power, but in what it creates.  She isn't some mad artist trying to shape the world.  She can control the weather, yes, but she loves what she creates.

But there's a deeper metapor there that struck me as a kid, and stayed with me:  that we can learn to take joy in our situation, even if it's only for a fleeting moment surrounded by sorrow.

We can laugh in the rain.  We aren't victims to our circumstances.  Just because there's a hurricane around us doesn't mean we can't find peace in the eye of it, or find truth and beauty in that difficult situation.  We can learn to walk through the metaphorical lightning of our daily life and be strong by absorbing the energies around us and controlling them, or by letting them pass through us without destroying us.

That's what I learned most from Storm - watching her maintain her quietude and sense of inner peace even in the turmoil that surrounded her.

She is - when written to her best, in my opinion - a testament to human endurance and the capacity to adapt and evolve without compromising your true identity.

Storm, herself, of course, has certainly evolved throughout the years.

But through all those different looks, and all those different creative teams reinterpreting the character, that grace emerges again and again.  It's as if not even the worst writers and artists can siphon that graceful energy from the character entirely.  She endures, and comes back into focus over and over again - whether she's a temporary Goddess of Thunder or a mohawked vampire, or whatever they've come up with for the Next Big Comics Event.

But none of that matters to me, because when I see her, I still see the same Storm who meant so much to me when I was little.

I see the Storm who got me out of my room on a tough day in July, got me to walk outside - willingly - after I'd shut myself off from everything, so I could be a part of the air and the earth again.

I see the Storm who was struck by the lightning bolts of the world, and who refused to be brought down by them, who channeled that energy.

Because that lightning didn't have to be a force that would destroy her, if she used it - if she harnessed it - if she controlled it and turned it into poetry with the power of her innate abilities.

Which is precisely what Storm does.

I see the powerful woman who maintains her dignity and pride even in the worst of circumstances, but who isn't bound to those characteristics to the point where they become self-destructive.

Because a confident woman can think for herself, and decide things for herself - can decide when it's time to adhere to beliefs and when they need to be adapted to the situation at hand.

Because sometimes, even grace and peace need to give way in the name of doing what's right and opposing what's wrong.

Most of all, though, I see elements of myself.  I see myself in Storm - but what I see are bold representations of the heroism that I want to achieve in my life, the standard of bearing I wish to have in my own daily existence.

I may not achieve that goal on any given day.  I may falter.  But the nature of having a strong sense of self-confidence is that you don't let those bolts of lightning hurt you, either.  You don't let the winds sweep you away.  You don't let yourself be contained or imprisoned, whether the nature of that prison comes from outside circumstances or your own self-doubts.

You break free of that prison, and when you do ... you bring the thunder.

 
You fight when you need to fight.  But then you can go up to the attic and take care of your plants.  And that's another element of Storm that's important to me, one that I fear has been lost on many writers, that she doesn't seek out the fight.  So many of the X-Men characters seemed contradictory to me in their handling of violence and aggression.  Characters like Wolverine purport to seek a peaceful life, but in a given story they'd most likely be found tearing robots apart in the Danger Room.  Storm trained, of course, but when the fight was over she sought the solace of quiet contemplation - and that was clearly the life she preferred.

At the same time, she was not afraid to leave that calming space when called upon to do the right thing by way of others.  Her capacity to know when to meditate and when to fight affected me, helped me shape how I think, myself, when I have to decide on what battles I want to fight.

But when we do fight, we bring it.

Stan Lee has said that Storm is his least-favorite Marvel character, because her powers don't make sense.  Controlling the weather is, apparently, silly to him.

But what I think Stan might miss about Storm as a character is that I've never thought of her power as simply controlling the weather.  I see her as a sort of a conduit for energies - positive, negative, elemental.

She takes in the energy of the world around her and then decides what form it ought to take, like a gardner decides on an order for her small part of the natural world.  She doesn't force the garden to grow, but she nurtures those parts of it that lead to a desired result - the world as she wishes it to be in that small part.  Storm decides whether her small part of the world will be calm or quiet, or a wind-battered landscape in the heart of a maelstrom.

I think we all need to realize that we have that same power with the events of our own lives.  We might not be able to decide on the energies that come to us, but we can be gardeners in our own way, tending our own lives.

We can't completely  control what will grow or fade away, what will ultimately live or die, but we can try to harness those energies.

And we can ty to shape them in our small part of the world, into something we desire in ourselves or in our environment.

Storm's grandeur, to me, isn't about her incredible raw power, but is instead about discipline and patience and sensitivity.  Those are the traits that have led her to be successful as a leader of her team of X-Men - not simply her power.

And having those traits means not running away from other people, no matter how much you might crave an escape from pain, or the quiet of solitude.  When you're running away, it's a retreat.

Storm doesn't retreat.

And, yes, Storm wields a ridiculous amount of power, but it's her life outside of those super-heroic adventures that give her the strength of character to know how and when best to use it, just as a gardener's life outside the garden shapes how the gardener views the world, which in turn helps the gardener decide how to shape the garden.

Storm's power isn't expressed by her screaming like the Hulk about how she's the strongest one there is.

It's about the care, measurement and restraint.  She tells the world that she's powerful when it's necessary.  But she understands that the power and control come from inside of her, and that she ultimately decides when and how that power gets used.

Storm also inspires me with her stalwart dedication to her friends, to those she recognizes as having a place in her world.  I've always preferred her when she's written as having an open and welcoming nature, versus the coldly-disinterested Storm of the 1990s - though, to be fair, most every super-hero in the 1990s was coldly-disinterested in anything but gritting their teeth and punching people so hard their fists went through the opponent's entire head.

But the best portrayals of Storm - to me - have been the ones where she has put her friends first in her life, put love before angst and duty before vendetta.

That's the Storm I love, the one who won't abandon her friends no matter what, who will brave the night, will fly fast and true to rescue someone from danger.

So many reasons exist for my love of Ororo Munroe, and so many elements of her character make me glad to have shared in her many adventures over the years - because they've inspired me and helped me become the person I am today.

Some of those reasons are profound, those personal character traits that elevate the positive traits of the human spirit.

Some, I've successfully incorporated into myself. Others, not so much.  I've never had the courage to rock a mohawk.  Maybe I'll change that, someday, if the time and situation prove right.  I've always wanted to.

As I write this, there's a new all-female team in an X-Men comic book featuring that mohawked version of Storm as, I think, its leader, if the art is to be judged like that.

I'm hopeful we get the Storm I have described here in that book.  I'm hopeful we get the Storm who might inspire little girls to be brave and strong, to measure the power within themselves and use it to shape the world instead of being brought down because of it.  I'm hoping we get the Storm who has claustrophobia, but never lets it defeat her.  I'm hoping we get the Storm who is true to her friends, is open to the people around her - but who isn't afraid to seek quiet contemplation when needed instead of surrendering to angst.

I'm also kind of hoping we get the Storm who has plants in the attic.

Because it's the Storm who maintains her garden that seems to most-often carry the traits I have praised here.  It's not the grim-and-gritty Storm who sneers at Morlocks and gets into three-issue  knife-fights that is inspiring.  That's pointless, plot-driven "strength."  There's no truth in that, no connection to real human experiences.  Because that's the Storm that inspires.  Because, at her best, Storm tells all the little girls crying on their beds that they may feel like they've been caught in the middle of the rain and the lightning in their lives, but that every experience in life is to be taken for what it is - energy, to be brought into one's heart, to do with as one wishes; that, in real life, we may not be able to control the rain, but we can take joy in the fact that we're alive to experience it, can feel the water run through our fingertips knowing that we can't catch it, but we can gain from being here to experience it.

When we learn that, we learn just how much we can achieve in the world.

When we learn that, we learn that there are no such things as limits.