Waiting for the Storm (Richard Shindell)

The weekend was weird, in that we were dealing, or not, with the unpronounceable hurricane Isaias (four syllables - WTF?!?).  We experienced heavy rains Friday night, calm Saturday morning, more rains Saturday night, back to calm today, with a few scattered showers.  I'm not complaining, and certainly do not miss the days of installing shutters, taking down windchimes, and bringing patio furniture inside.  Plus I have plenty of non-perishables stashed away (PopTarts and canned soups and peanut butter, oh my!), and a Category 1-possibly-2-which-stayed-a-1-and-then-downgraded-to-a-tropical-storm, given all that we've gone through, is not even on my radar (pun intended).  Hoping the rest of the East Coast is as lucky as we were.

However, it did allow me to make good on a promise to Colin, in that I had given him a pair of dinosaur rainboots for his birthday a few weeks ago and vowed to accompany him on his first puddle-jumping adventure.  I had an extra pair, which I brought for Sarah and, by the time he woke up from his nap yesterday, most of the leftover rain had evaporated, but the *one* in her apartment complex parking lot did the trick, and we all stomped and jumped to our heart's content.  What a blast!

NR:  The Travelers by Regina Porter


SONG:  Waiting for the Storm by Richard Shindell

BOOK:  A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes by Eric Jay Dolin

POEM:  Visitor by Brenda Shaughnessy

I am dreaming of a house just like this one

but larger and opener to the trees, nighter

than day and higher than noon, and you,

visiting, knocking to get in, hoping for icy

milk or hot tea or whatever it is you like.

For each night is a long drink in a short glass.

A drink of blacksound water, such a rush

and fall of lonesome no form can contain it.

And if it isn’t night yet, though I seem to

recall that it is, then it is not for everyone.

Did you receive my invitation? It is not

for everyone. Please come to my house

lit by leaf light. It’s like a book with bright

pages filled with flocks and glens and groves

and overlooked by Pan, that seductive satyr

in whom the fish is also cooked. A book that

took too long to read but minutes to unread—

that is—to forget. Strange are the pages

thus. Nothing but the hope of company.

I made too much pie in expectation. I was

hoping to sit with you in a tree house in a

nightgown in a real way. Did you receive

my invitation? Written in haste, before

leaf blinked out, before the idea fully formed.

An idea like a storm cloud that does not spill

or arrive but moves silently in a direction.

Like a dark book in a long life with a vague

hope in a wood house with an open door.

QUOTE:  "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning how to dance in the rain." ~ Vivian Greene

Follow the Light (John McCutcheon)

On the 7th (impossible to believe) anniversary of 9/11 and the impending landfall of Hurricane Ike on the Texas coast - prayers, blessings and love to everyone involved (that would be all of us...)

[ Added 9/15/08: Watched 102 Minutes That Changed America last night - what an impactful documentary, especially because there is no narration or commentary... ]

SONG: Follow the Light by John McCutcheon

BOOK: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

POEM: Anything Can Happen by Seamus Heaney

After Horace, Odes, I, 34

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter

Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head

Before he hurls the lightning? Well just now

He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky.. It shook the earth

and the clogged underearth, the River Styx,

the winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.

Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,

Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune

Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,

Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven’s weight

Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle lid.

Capstones shift. Nothing resettles right.

Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

QUOTE: "There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go." ~ Author Unknown

Houston (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

From Today's Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 2005 that Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast near New Orleans. Before it reached land, it was the strongest hurricane ever measured in the Gulf of Mexico, with winds of up to 175 miles per hour. But by the time it hit New Orleans on this day, it had lost some of its strength. The wind damage was much worse in parts of Mississippi. Early on, most people thought New Orleans had dodged the bullet.

But two reporters from the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper got a tip that there might be a leak in one of the levees, so they rode bikes out to the levee of the 17th Street canal. They never even made it to the levee. One of the main streets on their route was filled with rushing water, more than seven feet deep, and it was rolling south toward the rest of the city. More than 80 percent of the city was eventually flooded, about 140 square miles, which is seven times the size of Manhattan. The water rose higher than 14 feet in some places.

All communication in the city began to break down. The 911 operators had evacuated, and so people calling 911 just reached an answering machine. Eventually there was no power, no phone service, no cell phones. Many of the police officers in the city abandoned their posts and just tried to save themselves. The local prison was evacuated, and several prisoners escaped. National Guard troops didn't arrive until the fourth day of the disaster.

Many of the journalists at The Times-Picayune slept in their office building the first night after the hurricane, and they realized the following morning that they had to evacuate or they'd be stranded. A total of 240 employees and some family members piled into all the newspaper delivery trucks available, and they drove out of the city.

The staff of The Times-Picayune had to evacuate their building, but the editor Jim Amoss was determined to keep publishing the newspaper even if only on the Internet, so a small group of journalists stayed behind in the city to cover what was going on. By September 1, the newspaper had begun printing the paper again, and they delivered it free to shelters and hotels around the city. On Friday, September 2, reporters brought copies of the newspaper to the Convention Center, where many people had been living for days. Witnesses said that the people at the Convention Center wept at the sight of their hometown newspaper. Reporters then began distributing the paper to refugees and relief workers throughout the city, and residents of the city were overwhelmed by emotion when the newspaper arrived on their doorstep. The Times-Picayune eventually won two Pulitzer Prizes for its Hurricane Katrina coverage, including a gold medal for meritorious public service.

SONG: Houston by Mary Chapin Carpenter

BOOK(S): The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley

Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City by Jed Horne

Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster by Michael Eric Dyson

1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose

POEM: Providence by Natasha Trethewey

What's left is footage: the hours before
Camille, 1969—hurricane
parties, palm trees leaning
in the wind,
fronds blown back,
a woman's hair. Then after:
the vacant lots,
boats washed ashore, a swamp
where graves had been. I recall
how we huddled all night in our small house,
moving between rooms,
emptying pots filled with rain.
The next day, our house—
on its cinderblocks—seemed to float
in the flooded yard: no foundation
beneath us, nothing I could see
tying us to the land.
In the water, our reflection
trembled,
disappeared
when I bent to touch it.

QUOTE: “We are looking now at a disaster above any magnitude that we’ve seen in the United States. We’ve been saying that the response is going to be the largest Red Cross response in the history of the organization.” ~ Peter Teahen (national spokesman)

Hurricane (Kris Delmhorst)

From Wikipedia: "The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season officially started June 1, 2007 and will last until November 30, 2007. Hurricane experts predict above-average activity (17 named storms, 9 hurricanes, 5 of Category 3 or higher). The forecast indicates a 74% chance of at least one major hurricane striking the U.S. mainland, which includes a 50% chance of at least one major hurricane strike on the East Coast of the United States including the Florida peninsula and a 49% chance of at least one major hurricane strike on the Gulf Coast of the United States from the Florida Panhandle westward."

We were very lucky last year but, considering the frequency and intensity of 2004 and 2005, it was nice to have a bit of a break - we moved here in March 1992, 4 months before Hurricane Andrew made landfall and we've certainly learned our lesson over the years regarding early preparation... which reminds me that I need to go to the grocery store this weekend and stock up on storm supplies (canned foods, Pop-Tarts, bottled water... and E-Z-CheeZe, a family tradition... :-)

I wrote the poem below on 9/5/04, in anticipation of Hurricane Frances - the storm, downgraded from a Category 4 to a Category 2, made landfall on the Atlantic coast of Florida, near Stuart, on September 5, 2004 and moved across the state dropping up to 13 inches of rain. Frances made a second Florida landfall, as a tropical storm, at St. Marks on the Panhandle on September 8 - more than 2.8 million people were evacuated, damages were estimated at $9 billion and the storm killed at least 38 people.

SONG: Hurricane by Kris Delmhorst

BOOK: Florida's Hurricane History by Jay Barnes and Steve Lyons

POEM: Prayer to St. Margarita (Be Careful What You Wish For)
She began as a twinkle in my mother’s eye
As we floated in the pool one South Florida summer day
“What this backyard needs is a statue”
And we went on a quest

We bought this house from a former Chicagoan
He called the yard his Wrigley Field
Because of the high ficus hedges
Surrounding the property on three sides

Being a literary rather than a sports enthusiast,
I dubbed it my Alice in Wonderland backyard
I could envision a door hidden by the foliage
Leading to faraway lands and magical adventures

“What this backyard needs is a statue”
And the quest began
A mermaid? A fountain? A dolphin?
A goddess… not too big, not too little, just right

We loaded her into the back of the minivan
And coerced our men to position her… a little to the center, a little to the left, just right
Nestled amidst an island of greenery
She surveyed her new kingdom from a poolside vantage point

Her eyes were comforting yet mischievous
The pitcher in her left hand dispensing imaginary well water or alcoholic concoctions
So we hot-glue-gunned a plastic margarita glass to her right fist
And the goddess was canonized

She’s witnessed a decade of baby showers and bums-by-the-pool days
She’s overheard the confessions of sleepovers and midnight Jacuzzi soaks
She’s sworn to silence of teenage birthday parties and adult couplings
Always a knowing smile, always sealed lips, never a judgment

A heavy rainstorm once upset her equilibrium
The next day found her lower half reclined on the concrete
And her upper half immersed in six feet of water
Smashing her right arm into a useless appendage

Fearing she’d never live to see another tequila sunrise
We hoisted her from the depths and began the reconstruction
Resurrecting her like the phoenix or a time-worn quarrel
Re-igniting the dispassionate fire for a hopeful future

Patroness of blender drinks and village women,
falling-star viewings and moonlight skinnydips
We balance the storms on our horizons with the calm of an eye
Our vision is clouded by history, yet clear with love

St. Margarita, deliver us from normal and lead us not into stagnation…

QUOTE: "Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record—Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages—you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?" ~ Barbara Ehrenreich