A year ago, I wrote about the resilience of the people of Galveston just a few months after Hurricane Ike. When a place in a natural disaster area has one of those natural disasters, there is always a lot of speculation about whether it should be rebuilt. I've noticed that people make choices for reasons and, if something changes the situation people will try to make to original choice work. That is true in Galveston. The city is not only being rebuilt but is getting better and better. The old Victorian houses are being updated and refurbished by the dozens, dead trees stumps are being transormed into works of art, beaches are clean and new parks are springing up.
Today is the 20th anniversary of my 29th birthday. I pray I'll be like Galveston, New Orleans, San Francisco and so many other places and be better than ever the older I get, no matter what disasters come.
594. Tuesday, June 9, 2026
2 days ago
The potential of positive results from a great storm are rarely visible or even within consciousness while the storm is building or once it's in full gale; there is only chaos, ducking the flying debris, seeking some kind of shelter, and trying to protect one's Loved Ones. And fear -- there is fear: that something more terrible than the storm will occur before it ends, or because of the storm, and there's nothing whatsoever we can do about it.
ReplyDeleteHopelessness and fear can draw the warmth and life out of us as surely as any wet, whipping wind.
Eventually, the wind begins to subside, setting its previously airborn detritis back onto the earth, to be still once again. The rain turns into a drizzle, and the higher currents find appropriate places to gather, allowing us access to pathways once more.
Somtimes the old paths are so damaged or clogged with mud and felled trees that the effort to use them again, to go "there," is just not worth it, so we find a new way, a new "forward." Perhaps the neighborhood in which we once resided is no longer habitable, and we seek another place to sleep, to eat, to keep our families.
Until we look, until circumstances force us to look, we have no idea what is possible in a different direction, a different place.
In my life, it has as often been the storms that have moved me in new and satisfying directions as my booking passage on the Adventure Bus. Storms have certainly provided me with a clarifying vision, at least for a time (sometimes I lose sight of that vision, and needs Loved Ones to remind me). They have also strengthened me in ways I never sought and expanded me in ways I never thought possible.
I have sometimes suspected my angels to have colluded to bring storms into my life when I have needed to move and have either been unaware of the need, or stubbornly refused to do so.
Storms feel violent and destructive. Afterwards, there can be joy in discovery and building something new, and it can live along side the grief of what is no more. This is the balance of life.
After the apex of my grief has passed, and with the help of those who love me, I try to tip the scales a bit by trying to remember to nurture the discovery and the joy and my Loved Ones. I think my angels will forgive me.