Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Storm

I am sitting at my kitchen table, it's almost midnight and everyone is fast asleep. I really shouldn't be typing here... (but it's all Damian and Angela's fault... filling my head with big dreams).

We are getting ready to evacuate early tomorrow (beating Irma to the punch if you will) getting on the road before everyone else we hope, and dashing up North for an impromptu vacation.

I'm doing laundry and tidying up, because that's what you do when a hurricane is coming, right? :) 

I was thinking how crazy the past couple of days have been - this weekend marks our 2 month anniversary in the US (with some really awesome parts and some really challenging parts) and we are possibly going to experience the worst storm Florida has seen in some time.  I mean, easy guys... we have only been here 8 short weeks! Plus, we haven't got used to the regular weather yet (man, it rains in Florida!) let alone the extreme weather here (giant hail stones anyone?) I just don't feel ready for our first hurricane. It's felt scary and overwhelming, and I've watched the news rather obsessively.  Harvey has only just left, and now this... already?

Last night as I put moisturizer on my face, I said to babe, somewhat ashamedly: 'I'm actually really scared you know...'. He just smiled and said something nice and macho like: 'don't worry honey, I'll take care of you'

I dreamt all night about huge walls of water towering over me, and packing all the wrong things (why am I always packing in my dreams? Or missing a flight?)

Today, we started to define a plan... we were definitely leaving.  Cheryl, my Florida go-to girl, had told me how she sheltered in her bathtub in 2004 with a mattress over her.  I'm not sure my delicate English constitution could cope with that, and how on earth would I get everyone in the tub anyways (lol) so Team G are off to Alabama y'all!  Leon's thoughts on it were, as always, classic: 'look mum, if we get back and both our houses (we are renting the house next door to our new home) are flattened, it's ok.  Dad is going to sort out someone to fix them and we get to miss school!'  Life is so simple when you're 8 (*sigh*)

Once we'd sorted out the logistics, booked a house (thank you VRBO) and told the schools, something magical happened.  I stopped worrying.  At 9pm the confirmation for the house finally came through... I laid my head on babe's shoulder and exhaled and then felt fine.  Right as rain in fact.  We opened a couple of Corona's as I packed some more.  I read some jokes about the storm and laughed. At about 10:10pm I decided the time was right.... for me to do my roots. I am not kidding.  I mean it's ridiculous - one minute I am truly panicking and next I am doing grey hair maintenance.

The funny thing is, and the only reason I wanted to write, is this whole Irma thing is how I do life.  Drama. Blind panic. And then total calm.  Total, nutsy, crazy behavior followed by methodical, logical, laid back action.  

It's not like the threat had gone away, but all the other "stuff" I had created had.  I felt ashamed that I allowed myself to be carried away with it... again.

Is it once we get past all the drama and actually start to act in some way - is that when we can actually surrender it?  Is it that we are so naturally resistant to surrendering that we lean on panic and pandemonium first?

Our neighbor said the last time a hurricane came over the houses in our neighborhood, he went out... right in the eye of the storm (he swiftly recommended we DO NOT do this).  He said it was so calm, and so quiet. So beautiful. He said you would never know the destruction it was wreaking. He warned us against blind panic and not seeing the big picture (which was basically: 'are you all alive?' 'great!')

Maybe that's what it's all about, just keeping your head... when everyone else is losing theirs* or maybe it's just focusing on keeping your own head and never mind what everyone else's head is doing. Keeping your own treadmill of thoughts at bay so you can actually focus on simple positive action, things you can actually do with the time and talents you have at your disposal. Because that's really all you can do - no point getting distracted with the news, and the stories, and the hurricane models... not when that moves you away from peace of mind, and a meaningful center of attention.

Or like me, maybe you just focus on your roots for now, and surrender the rest to God :)

*blatantly lifted from the wonderful R. Kipling poem which is so fitting and so RIGHT for today:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!