AHH

After Hurricane Helene, Probably Part I

AHH - the new acronym in my life - after Hurricane Helene. The cliche is that things will never be the same and for once, this is exactly true. Things will never be the same. The force with which this metereological astrological geological event has changed the face of the community and mountains where I have been living for the last 14 years is in many ways beyond comprehension. The depth and breadth of the devastation is paralyzing. The lack of communication is terrifying. The fact that absolutely everyone I know is affected is mind-boggling. This was no small affair.

I don't really know where to begin so I'll start with the date; Friday, September 27.  I woke up to a sound like a freight train coming right through the house.  I felt and heard wind, rain and the slapping of branches all at once.  I jumped up and ran to the door after the first big crash.  I could barely see as it was just after dawn but I could tell that whatever had fallen had not hit the house.  Agitated I walked around the rooms of my house up and downstairs for a few minutes, trying to find a place where I could sit so my heart would stop racing and I could breathe normally.  No place to be found.  So, I sat myself down on the couch to watch the trees circling wildly all around me.  I knew to be afraid for my life but it still seemed so crazy, so impossible. I kept wondering how a tree could fall uphill, or how I would move if it did. 

Then, suddenly, trees began to fall across my driveway. First one, then two, then a clump I couldn't count. Stunned I just stared and began to cry.  I reminded myself that I was alive and unharmed so far. But it wasn't over yet.  For another hour the wind and rain raged, trees came down all around me.  Finally, the rain began to ebb, my breath finally slowed and I just sat without any thought in my head. 

I sat helplessly for an unspecified amount of time, vibrating on the inside, shaking on the outside.  The power was out but due to having a gas stove which I lit with a match, I began to boil water for my morning cocoa.  Shaking still, my hands stiff, trembling and unreliable, I tried to move about the kitchen.  Sitting down again, this time with some version of cocoa in my hand, my mind again became quite a blank.

Sometime later, I could see a few neighbors gathering toward the end of my driveway.  In my excitement to see them, I ran out the door, pajamas and all, and literally crawled over the 30 feet long by 8 feet high by 6 feet wide (guessing these numbers but you get the picture) pile of trees to commune with them.  Soaking wet and muddy right away, I just cried with happiness to see them.  And within a half hour we all went to work cutting trees, hauling branches and working to make a pathway through my driveway.  We worked for nearly 4 hours straight and that was all we could do. 

Now, ahh. Ahh, nothing to do, everything to do. Ahh, nowhere to go quite literally. No one to call since there is no cell service, no power, no internet. Ahh, here we are. Tired, stunned, exhausted, oh so exhausted, still nowhere to go and nothing that we can do once we have expended all that we have on the trees at hand. Day 1. Ahh.

{For the moment, I am on the road again, still without internet or reliable cell service at my home. It is Day 30. On the road is a practice I am well-prepared for having become a refugee in the Buddhist sense of the word nearly 40 years ago. Finding what is essential, relishing the ordinary, dialoguing with uncertainty are the only orders of business. And in this sense, I continue to do business… ahh, ahh, ahh!}