Ask Not

I'm nervous.  I can't help it.  We're dead in the crosshairs, and I've been through a hurricane devastation before.  At this point, there is nothing to be done but put away objects that can fly away and fill pots with water.  I have a ten gallon stainless steel pot we used to use for boiling crab legs and several other two gallon pots.  And others.  I've never not had water before, but it is easy enough to fill pots with water just in case a tree topples and its roots takes out a water main.  The ground here is saturated now which makes it easier for trees to fall.  

So today, I prepare to stay with my mother.  We will see who loses power.  Probably both of us.  They have not yet put the power lines in my neighborhood underground, so. . . .  

I tremble a bit.  It is the remembrance of that thing past.  I can't afford another devastation.  

The grocery stores are overrun.  I went yesterday to buy the things for making dinner with my mother.  And though I am nervous about what might come, the constant spewing of "stay safe" irritates me.  WTF does that mean?  What is the speaker really saying?  

"I'm a concerned person.  This makes me feel good."

When I look in their eyes, I see the equivalent of a school shooter.  

When my apartment was destroyed by Charlie, no one offered me any help.  They might say, "Oh, man. . . that is terrible.  I'm sorry.  Is there anything I can do?"

"Sure. . . give me money.  Come over and help me put on a roof, replace the wooden siding, tear out rain drenched walls and put up new drywall, repair the kitchen, refinish the floors, paint. . . something!"

What they were really thinking is how lucky they were.  

$65,000 and nearly a year of labor later. . . . 

I don't want to go through that again.  

The worst thing that can happen at my mother's house is having shingles lifted off her roof.  Her house is block and solid.  She is on higher ground.  My house is old and so is built on the highest ground around.  But we will get tremendous rainfall, and I know people who are sitting in new homes built around retention ponds are even more nervous than I.  

It is grey.  Constant rain.  Hurricane predictions get worse rather than better.  Just about anything can happen.  

And it is still two days away.  Once again we live through the slow motion nightmare.  

Not everyone.  The young, of course, and non-home owners haven't much to worry about.  Already schools are closed for at least three days.  

And so it goes.  We are predicted to be on the worst side of the storm.  

It is not that I fear any loss of life.  Just suffering, of which, it seems, there is never an end.  

My friends who have left the state to live elsewhere send me screenshots of their weather forecast.  Sunny.  Cool.  It says something great about human emotions.  

After this, maybe I'll splurge and spend everything I have on buying one of those Mercedes Benz converted camper vans.  I, too, will go where the weather suits me.  

I will not be going to the gym this week.  I will need to get on the floor, stretch, breathe, and meditate.  I scoff.  

"Serenity now!"

My mind is a jumble of disastrous thoughts right now.  You can call me Nelly if you want, but I think there are good reasons for it.  Most of our fears come from imaginative thinking, I've been told, but most of mine is experiential memory.  There are reasons we don't send traumatized soldiers back into war.  

The clock is ticking.  The bells will toll.