Provided it's night. And I'm inside. And east of the Alleghenys. And north of the Mason Dixon. And south of the Hudson Bay.
We are pretty sheltered here in these parts. A rogue hurricane once in awhile. Winds don't go much above 40 but so often. Hail smaller than the diamond on your finger. Storms are in and out in a half hour, usually less.
***
Growing up in Erie, we had tornado drills. I'm guessing they closely resembled the air raid drills from a generation before. Tuck under the desk. Tuck behind the coats. Tuck under the lunch tables.
Tuck.
Always tuck.
One must tuck to keep safe.
I've never been in a real tornado, but I've watched plenty skies turn green. Plenty waterspouts form over the lake to the north, pick up to travel over the city and touch as a twister out down south in the county where there is some open space.
North
Always north.
One must look north to keep safe.
In grade school, the brother of a pair of sisters- one a grade up from and one a grade lower than me- died in a tornado. The girls said they were tucked in the basement, eyes to the (north) window, when it happened. A wind whipped around and took a hubcap off the wall. It sliced through the little boys neck, practically taking his head clean off.
I have two deep seated fears.
Tornadoes.
Severed heads.
I never realized where they came from until ten days ago.
***
Ten days ago, I was supposed to be in North Carolina at a good friend's wedding. We were going to drop Jacob at my dad's in Raleigh and drive out to the Outer Banks for a few days. A nice trip for everyone. Much needed after the way the first third of the year has gone. But we couldn't go. Couldn't do it. Too exhausted.
A tornado hit Raleigh-Durham that weekend, and cleared just about everything a few miles down a piece from dad's. You probably heard the story about the Lowes being leveled. That's the one. That's the tornado that would have passed by my son.
They are fine. The house is fine. Jake would have been fine, assuming they would have been home. But I would have been a mess. The thought of Jake being that close to a tornado, without me, without power, without telephone lines, without his dad, without his stuff, without without without (his head) has me dry heaving.
Just
the
thought
of
it.
***
But I'm glad we didn't go.
Glad I've discovered the root of my anxiety over heads and tornadoes. Because before I just couldn't figure out why. All these years.
Now I know that tornadoes+heads are the reason I discovered that children could die. I could die. My little friends could die.
Those phobias came back in full force after becoming a mother. I didn't know why. Now I do. Children die. My son could die.
That's a step. Knowing is half the battle. Moving on.
***
There's a lot of shit weather happening in our country now. Lots of people being displaced. Being hurt. Being dead.
I ran across a poem yesterday in a book I'm reading for class. The book is called Ghosts from the Nursery. The poem is this:
Do Lawd, come down here and walk amongst yo people
And tek 'em by the hand and telt 'em
That yo ain't hex wid 'em
And do Lawd come yoself,
Don't send yo son
'Cause dis ain't no place fo chillen
It's an old slave poem, written following the 1866 earthquake in Charleston, but it's just as good today as it was then.
Love and prayers and thoughts and energy and positive whodoo to all in the wake of a storm.
Whatever your storm may be.
10 comments:
Beautiful and powerful post. (I'm nearly in tears). It's a very scary time in our World and in our Country right now for so many different reasons. Even with finding beauty in it every day, (and I do find it, make a point of it!) storms are always brewing or unleashing themselves on the horizon, out of the corners of our eyes.
Sitting out here in the West, where the only things we have to worry about are earthquakes and volcanic activity, where the weather isn't nearly the factor it is as it moves east and combines with either tropic or Arctic air, we forget just how nasty it can get.
After reading your tale of missing a wedding...
Isn't it amazing what we can give thanks for?
Bad weather scares me. Maybe the speed in which it can change is what gives me the willies (that or the weekly tornado sirens in the Midwest growing up).
Wonderul post. I am glad you and yours are alright.
Maybe it's because I grew up in the west county of where we're from, but I"m absolutely appalled that the kids here in the central part of the state don't do tornado drills at school. Drills in an area where there's been at least one tornado within an hour of us each year. The new houses they're building on post - no basements. It's cheaper that way you know. Terrifies the shit out of me. Must have a basement in July/August/September when the sky turns that tealy green. Call me crazy, maybe it's the way I was raised, the era I was raised in - post spring 1985, but not even hurricanes Isabel and Ivan hitting us as tropical storms were as scary as a tornado could be to me.
I ♥ you. And now I know what to do if a tornado actually does hit DC tomorrow.
Amen.
It's always interesting when you can look back and realize why you felt a certain way as a child. My sister is terrified of tornadoes. She's never actually been in one. Or near one. Or near the threat of one. I think she's still scarred by The Wizard of Oz.
I fucking HATE this severe weather we have here and that we had when I lived in Ohio. HATE IT.
I'd MUCh rather be back in CA with my earthquakes.....
It has been wicked down here, absolutely awful.
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