Helene

It's not a day for levity, I guess.  A lot of people are going to be miserable for awhile, and there is nothing they or we can do.  Wind and water.  Who can stop it?  Right now, as I sit with the computer in my comfortable chair looking out the window, things are calm.  They won't be later on.  There is the chance of losing power or having damage from wind and rain, but in all likelihood Hurricane Helene will stay off the Gulf Coast as it passes our latitude.  Still, I can't help but worry.  As I sit and think back through my life these past 25 years, I'm remembering that hurricanes have played something of a major role in my life, and I want to cower.   

My ex-wife and I sat through one hurricane in our newly purchased house on sloping lot where we sat below the road but above the canal.  We were so protected from wind that you couldn't even hear the storm, but the rain was something else and it washed away our seawall.  We both had nightmares about the house sliding into the canal after that, and she decided we should sell and move to higher ground.  

We did.  We bought the house I am in now and lived there for three years before Hurricane Floyd.  That was the huge one that never came.  I drove my ex to the airport that morning, then came home to prepare for the worst.  That is the day I dropped the fifty pound, six foot in diameter, half inch thick tempered glass table top on my right big toe.  The bones were crushed into mush and I was taken to the E.R. where wet from rain, I shivered for hours waiting for a doc who would give me pain relief.  What I got was a cocky assed fellow who didn't seem to like me at all.  The dumb ass caused more damage than good by his ignorant procedure.  

By evening, I was home, but my wife never called to check on me.  Not for days.  And when she did come back. . . well. . . she wanted a divorce.  

Selavy.  That was when I met Sky.  And it was during a hurricane (which one?) that we reconnected.  

"Storms are our thing," she said.  And so it seemed.  

Charlie came through like a bullet, the eye passing directly over my house.  It spawned a tornado that tore a giant oak in two, half falling to the north, half falling to the south.  The devastation to my garage apartment wasn't covered by insurance, and it took my buddy and me almost a year and $60,000 to repair it.  I stood at the door and watched those four giant oaks crash down on it as it happened.  

Ili and I had the best luck sitting through two hurricanes without losing power and sustaining no real damage.  I remember sitting with her all night watching the local news channel, looking out the window to watch the bands of wind, and waiting for the lights to go out.  The storm passed us around two in the morning.  We were sitting on the floor doing a little breathing exercise to calm ourselves and then went to bed.  

Two years ago, during our last hurricane, I did not lose power nor have catastrophic damage though the wooden fence between my house and the neighbor did fall down.  But all around me, roads were closed and houses on the lake were flooded.  Further out in the county where greedy developers had paid off greedy politicians for building permits for thousands of houses in the wetlands, flooding occurred on a giant scale.  We are all paying for the sins of those developers and politicians now.  It is near impossible to get home insurance in this state.  

The storms have not begun here yet, and I plan to get out for a walk before they come.  But the skies are grey and the air ominous.  It will not be a happy, comfortable walk.  

I've sent a "good luck" message to Sky with whom I have all but lost contact.  I am trying not to wish for my ex-wife's house to flood because it would be bad karma.  No, I do not wish that.  Ili I've lost somewhere in the ether long ago.  And the tenant, I see, has what I assume to be her boyfriend bunking with her in the apartment.  

I will go sit with my mother later this afternoon which is when we will have the worst part of the storm.  We will eat a meal together and watch the local weather, and perhaps sit out in her open garage and watch the wind and rain and drink a beer.  

Such is my current life.  The mojo will have to be put on hold for a minute.  

But somewhere else, people are going to have real tragedy.  That is not the correct use of the term, of course.  Strictly speaking, it will be pathetic, not tragic, pathos being the more appropriate term.  But nobody likes to be described as pathetic, so. . . . 

We all wish them the best of luck.  It is in the hands of the gods now.