Tag: hurricanes

Flowers Bloom

So, I am back home and I am bone weary. And I am brain weary. We had a wonderful visit up north, celebrating the wedding engagement of our son and his fiance’, and enjoyed visiting other family members. We did some hiking on the Appalachian Trail. And also, we might as well have been hiking in New York City. (14,000 steps in one day) I was so busy with all of the fun and the action and getting home and getting organized and getting unpacked and getting our groceries replenished, that it is just now, when I have fully and completely realized that my mind and my body and my spirit have yet to process what we have collectively been through in my community. I am tired. I am quiet. I am taking a big exhale.

We moved to Florida for my husband’s job in 2011. We have been through many hurricanes since then, but only one other time did we decide to evacuate. (that was for Irma in 2017) People who aren’t Floridians watch the hysterical, oversized, 24/7 news stories about hurricanes and wonder why we all don’t just flee the state, and also wonder why we ever go back. It’s not that simple. Nothing ever is. People don’t evacuate their homes for hurricanes for many reasons: finances, pets, stubbornness, a perhaps false sense of security from past experiences, horrific traffic and gas shortages, the uncertainty of where a hurricane is going to hit despite the gigantic “cone of certainty” ominously pasted over the entire state of Florida, for every storm (there are many, many recounted stories of people evacuating to places that end up getting the worst of the storms. For instance, one acquaintance told us that she tried to escape Hurricane Helene by going to her dad’s cabin in Lake Lure, which is in the mountains of North Carolina, with her elderly grandmother and young child. You can imagine the rest of that story, a story that she will likely tell for the rest of her life. Sigh.)

Since living here since the summer of 2011, this is the worst that I have ever seen our own local communities hit by hurricanes. It is sad. It is horrific. The pictures that you are seeing on the news are not exaggerated. Helene flooded most of our coastal communities. People have piled their ruined belongings, furniture, carpeting, mattresses, drywall at the end of each driveway, or have dumped them on specified empty lots, where the piles of debris are growing up like instant, ugly little mountains. Right after Hurricane Helene, in less than two weeks, Hurricane Milton decided to stir the pot with ferocious winds and rains and tornadoes. The devastation is immense. Trees, and street lights, and billboards, fences, and people’s roofs have been tossed around like Milton was an angry three-year old, throwing around his legos.

And yet, the facts are, most of us are relatively unscathed. Most of us (in our county alone there is over a million people who live here) survived with our lives, and our homes mostly intact. Most of us had some small, inexpensive clean-ups and repairs to do, and maybe some raking up of some sticks and leaves in our yards. And so most of us, walk around with that sickly feeling of great relief which is mixed with some sad and empathetic survivor’s guilt, when we see what the hurricanes brought on to others less fortunate than us.

So why do we live in Florida? Why is my one small county densely packed with a million people? Why do we live with the fear of hurricanes every year, and why are we willing to pay four times the average cost of homeowners’ insurance compared to the rest of the country? You tell me. Why do you come to Florida for vacation? I bet almost everyone of you has been to Florida at least once. We have gorgeous beaches. We have amazing wildlife. We are surrounded by water everywhere. (and water is from whence we came) We get to experience beautiful sunshine almost every single day of our lives. We have something for everybody here. Florida is one of the few true melting pots, of the bigger melting pot of our own great country. You cannot feel out of place in Florida. Anything goes. We embrace “Florida Man” and everybody else.

Please don’t feel sorry for us Floridians. We get the hurricanes. We call them “the price we pay to live in paradise.” We understand, and we take on the risks. We are processing right now. We are licking our wounds. Some of us will decide that the price is no longer worth it, and will leave. And that is okay. In the end, we will all be okay. The sun still shines upon us, the land of flowers. Flowers bloom.

Sneaky Bits

Hello. It’s a been a minute . . . but I’m feeling the need to write an update . . . . for me. My cousin was recently laid off from a high-powered job. She has started writing a blog about this experience. She has expressed to me, that me and my blog inspired her to start writing her own story. She says that she is surprised as to how cathartic it is to write about what happens in your life, and how it makes you so much better understand how you are processing everything which you are experiencing in your own one, precious life. Friends, write about your own life (even if it is in a private journal, just for yourself, for your eyes only). Learn about yourself. Be surprised. I am beginning to believe that this act of writing is practically an imperative, in order to fully experience the entire scopes of our lives. Your story is an important thread of it all. Write it. Read it. Embrace it. Begin to understand . . . .

I am writing to you from a hotel room in New York City. New York City has been a part of my history since I was young child. We would visit relatives in New York City almost every Thanksgiving when I was a kid, experiencing the Macy’s Day Parade, Broadway, and all of the visceral sights and sounds which are entirely New York City’s alone. The pace of NYC is insane. I was walking along city blocks tonight, all by myself, laughing at how out of breath I was, trying to keep up with the rush hour walkers. I usually pride myself in my unusually fast pace of doing anything and everything. Yet, on this evening, New York seemed to say to me, “Move to the side, Floridian . . . . we’ve got places to go and your slow-ass is in the way!”

Recently, I paused writing this blog, because I felt that I was in a turning point time for me. It was one of those times of false security. It was one of those times that I falsely believed that I had it all figured out. I honestly felt like, “You’ve made it, girl. You got all of your four children to adulthood, all in good stead. You got through the pandemic years, and the worst years of your son’s epilepsy, and the deeply depressing years of your mother-in-law’s slow decline and eventual death. And now, Voila! You got to a good year- a really good year -2024. And honestly, 2024 has been a year of amazing adventures, and new excitements, and pride and relief, and a rekindling of the focus on just me and my husband, since the two of us were barely adults. And it’s been great! And it’s been revitalizing! And then, in just the last couple of weeks, the community which I have called home for more than a decade has experienced two horrific hurricanes in the span of about ten days. And also, at the same time our eldest son and his wonderful longtime girlfriend, got engaged to be married. And I was soberly reminded that I will never be at the “all settled” point in my life while I am still living it. I got reminded that there will always be good in my life, and there will always be less than good in my life. Life is messy. Life is wonderful. Life is hard. Life is simple. Life is complicated. Life is confusing. Life is beautiful. And all of this swirl of life, usually happens all at once. And so you have to be brave to accept it all, and to deeply know that you are up to the challenge of feeling it all, experiencing it all, handling it all.

In my life, I am most grateful for my ability to connect. As Garth Brooks sings, “I have friends in low places” but I also have friends in palaces. Tonight, in my wanderings in NYC, I chatted with homeless people, and investment bankers in swanky bars. I chatted with bellhops, and a priest in a world-famous cathedral. I connected with all of them, all because of my deep intuitive knowing that we are all so imperatively and intrinsically connected to each other. I don’t think that this wisdom fully comes about until you are willing to surrender to the idea that you honestly don’t know shit. Your primary job is to experience it all, and then, to write it all down.

Same Old/Same Old

It’s a surreal experience when you go through something that takes all (or at least most) of your attention and focus and energy and emotion, like preparing for the hurricane did for us, the early part of this week, and then, when the event is over, you just get back into your normal, everyday routine like nothing happened. In fact you feel an urgency to do so. It feels much better and more secure and in-control, to quickly clean up any messes (which serve as reminders of what you’ve been through), and to swiftly move on. We’ve all gone through this type of phenomenon in our lives, whether it be from a health crisis, or an accident, or a job loss, or something major breaking in our households, etc. Everyone else’s lives are carrying on as usual, and yours turns into this little microcosm of focus and anxiety, while “normal” life is happening all around you. It reminds me of something I watched on TV recently. My husband loves to watch road bike races, the most well-known being the Tour de France, and I watched some of it with him. During the race, which includes hundreds of bikers, riding closely together on narrow trails, at top speeds, inevitably someone will crash, or a tire will blow, etc. and the biker will stop (sometimes dramatically – like sometimes actually falling off of a cliff), and then the biker is quickly attended to by physicians and bike mechanics, and if the biker is able to, they pop right back on to a bike (even sometimes the ones who fell off cliffs!), and they do everything that they can to get back into the race, trying to forget that the annoying interruption ever even happened. It’s in our human nature not to dwell, and for the most part, I think this is good, as long as you give yourself a little acknowledgement and compassion for going through something tough and scary and sometimes traumatic. And after a little dose of self-compassion, you go to your proud “Atta Girl/Atta Boy” inner coach and you are reminded that you’ve just got another notch of confidence and experience on your tough, thick belt of resiliency, that is yours to rely on, as you wear it proudly, into the future events of your life.

Yesterday, I read the old adage “The more things change, the more things stay the same.” This is one of those wise, old sayings that I have heard, and read, and maybe even said a million times without really knowing what it means. I had to take some time to ponder this one. I even looked it up on Google. Apparently the saying speaks to our need for consistency and reliability, even if it is to our detriment. We resist change, so when things start to change, we do everything that we can to stop the change, in order to get back into and stay in our “normal state.” For any real change to occur, we must first have the most important of changes – a change of heart. Changes of heart are the hardest of all changes, because they require attention, introspection, humility, empathy, realism, and this all has to happen before any action can be taken.

“The more things change, the more things stay the same.” This adage is a good reminder and warning to us. The next time that you go through a “hurricane/bike crash” moment in your own life, take a pause before you just mindlessly clean everything up and jump right back on to the ride. See if any changes have occurred in your heart that need attending to, or if any poignant lessons from the experience, need to be integrated, because if you don’t check in with your heart, you will just be riding back on the path, with the large crowd to “Same Old/Same Old.” Make sure, with your heart as your compass, that “Same Old/Same Old” is really the destination that you want to keep heading towards.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Oh Ian!

It’s a super strange feeling, anticipating a hurricane. You get plenty of warning – almost too much warning. The anticipation is killer. I’m a “let’s just rip the band-aid off, already!” kind of a girl. And Mother Nature says, “No dear, we’re going to make you sit with your fearful what-ifs for a while. It’s good for you.” Ugh.

The last time a big hurricane directly affected our area was five years ago. And we evacuated, with four kids and two dogs in tow. We went to Atlanta and the people there could not have been kinder and more welcoming. Instead of price gouging, they gave us discounts, and extras, delicious heartwarming food and long, caring hugs. I will always have a warm spot in my heart, dedicated to the good, hospitable people of Atlanta, Georgia. But evacuating didn’t come without its challenges. The roads were filled with wall-to-wall, crawling, slowly inching along traffic. We ended up having to sleep one night at a rest stop (six stressed people, including sweaty, ornery male teenagers + two big dogs, in a cramped car = not good sleep), which was littered with cars of people, doing the same exact thing. There were cars everywhere, even on the grass and on the sides of the highway. Most gas stations along the way, were out of gas. And watching the news, wondering what kind of mess we were going to go back home to, was excruciatingly stressful. Media sensationalism is a terribly painful experience, when it affects the people and the places that you most love and care about. On the way home, after the hurricane, we were surrounded on the highway, by brigades of utility trucks from seemingly every state in the nation, heading down to help with our plight. I remember this bringing tears of patriotism and gratitude, to my weary eyes.

We had a pow-wow with our near-by neighbors last night, and most of us have decided to stay and weather this one out in our homes. (Including a doctor and his wife, who is a physician’s assistant, who live across the street. This helped seal the deal for me. We’ll look out for each other. That’s what neighbors do.) This experience will be a contrast to what we did the last time, and I am curious to compare, first-hand, which is the better way to handle these things. Our adult children are all in safe spots away from here, so that is what gives me my greatest peace of mind. Honestly, right now my husband and I find ourselves stressing mostly about inconsequential things, like how are we going to brew our coffee when the electricity is out?!

People often question why you would want to live in Florida, and other tropical spots when hurricanes are a seasonal concern. These perilous storms are the price we pay to live in paradise. Florida rarely has gray days. Sunshine is a given. I can go to the beach for lunch if I want to, and bury my feet in the sand, feeling the soothing gulf breezes, lulling my heartbeat to match the rhythms of the tides. We have gorgeous sunsets, and dolphins are as common as the deer, and the wild turkeys, and the herons and the hawks that we see almost daily. Florida is an inclusive, melting pot. No one feels like an “outsider” because everyone here is from somewhere else. There is something for everyone in Florida, even the kooky “Florida Man.” Our state makes loads of money from tourism. There are many good reasons for this fact. Florida is soothing to the soul.

This may be my last blog post this week before we lose power. I don’t know. Regardless, I’ll see you on the other side of the storm. One thing is for certain – you fully know and understand the people and the things that you truly treasure and mean the most in your life, when you are facing down a life-threatening storm. My dearest readers, I can’t wait to be with you again, after the storm.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Travelling in Your RV

Never forget how unique and wonderful you are in this world. There is only one of you. That makes you priceless and precious. Treat yourself as such.

It was interesting to me, last weekend, when we were driving through a part of Florida that had recently been decimated by a hurricane. Instead of rebuilding homes on their land, it appeared that a few people had purchased large, expensive RVs that they parked under metal RV “carports” on the land that used to be a beach homestead. Many of these fancy RV “carports” actually had screened in porches built into them. It was a fascinating solution.

My husband and I are embarking on that stage in life, where a lot more opportunities are opening up to us, as to where to live and how to live. It’s exciting and daunting, all at the same time. Still, as I ponder these decisions, I have to remind myself that “wherever you go, there you are.” We are all like our own little RVs, carrying around our own awareness and perceptions, our egos and personalities, our thought tickers (kind of like a stock tickers), our hearts, and our baggage.

One beach that we recently drove through is home to gorgeous, multi-million dollar homes where a lot of the Nashville country stars, and Hollywood stars with southern ties, are known to have beach houses. People like Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Trisha Yearwood are all said to have residences there. None of these stars’ lives mentioned, have been “a cakewalk.” Clearly, no matter where you live outside of your own body/”RV”, that outside spot doesn’t protect you from the hurricanes of relationship, mental health, and addiction issues. Wherever you park your own little personal RV, that’s where you are. No matter how fancy the outside of your parking spot is, what truly matters is what is going on inside of your own unique RV.

How is maintenance going on your own personal RV? Are you fueling it up healthfully? Are you shading it from the hot summer sun? What about that thought ticker that is constantly scrolling? Is that thought ticker stuck on repeat? What are the quality of thoughts that are constantly being played and replayed on it? How’s the windshield on your own little RV body? Do you keep it clean, so that your perception is clear and wide open? Is your RV carrying too much baggage? Are there things/habits/relationships that need to be kicked to the curb and let go, so that you can ride to your destinations, freer and lighter? How about that heart engine of your own beautiful little RV? That’s what needs to be protected the most, because, otherwise your RV isn’t going anywhere.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday-Funday

i i i i i i

i i i ii

i I i i i

ii i i

i i iii i i i

About a week ago, I was reading magazines by my pool. Ralphie, our swimming-obsessed yellow Labrador was thrilled to have me out there with him. He jumped out of the pool to greet me, and he shook all of the water off of his 100-pound self, which landed all over my magazines. This has happened before. I know the drill, but this time, I had barely even begun to read my magazines. I almost considered it a loss, and tossed them unread, into the recycling bin, but something made me hold on to my Spirituality and Health magazine. I let it dry off, and I am so glad that I did. This weekend, I got to read (albeit on extremely wavy, wrinkly pages) an article by Kevin Anderson, who is a regular contributor to the magazine. And it turns out that this particular article is just what I needed to read, right at this very time in my life. Isn’t that how the Universe works?

Kevin Anderson explains the visual, which I rudimentarily created above. When you are in the middle of a sh*tstorm in your life (for lack of a better term), and everything seems chaotic and overwhelming, it is best to stay in the “I” of the storm. If the above visual represents one of life’s hurricanes which we all go through from time to time, we must be like birds. We must learn to stop fighting against the storm and to stay in the “I” of it, in order to be safe and to be centered. Kevin describes each version of the letter I/i’s this way:

i/i = “The small-i version of us is quite expert at generating fearful, stressed-out, depressing thoughts. The small-i self becomes part of the swirling storm in which we are caught when life feels like too much.”

I = “The large-I version of us is the eye of the storm. That self is capable of observing the storm swirling all about us both in the outer events of life and in our small self’s stressed-out approach to them. The large Self is the only version of us that knows how to return over and over to “I accept that this is here now.” But the large-I does not stop with noticing our judgments that life should be other than it is. It has the wisdom to act on whatever needs to be acted on from a centered, non-reactive place.”

Kevin then goes on to talk about birds who are migrating in the winter and inadvertently get caught up in big storms. Birds are wise and intuitive enough to stay in the eye of a hurricane, versus trying to desperately fly against it, or out of it. Even if the hurricane takes the birds a little off track from where they were originally planning to go, the birds know that they will eventually, safely reach landfall. He suggests that when our fear thoughts are swirling like a storm, we need to think of these thoughts as “a bell calling us to a brief meditation practice. When we notice fearful thoughts, we can breathe as if we have a direct connection to the highest virtues available.”

Just the reminder that the “I” part of us is always with us, and always available to us, in the steady, deepest center of each and every one of us, is such a comfort. The “I” part is the only part of us which is eternal, peaceful, non-judgmental, wise, and clear. The small-i versions of us are ego-based, and they are constantly changing with the winds of our outside circumstances, and the different people and the unique situations in our lives. The small-i versions of us are not eternal. They change with the winds. The bottom line of the article is the reminder to always stay with the “I” when you are feeling off track. Notice your small-i “freak outs” and gently move back to the “I” as often as needed. “I” will never steer you wrong.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Name It

There is so much to a name. Ask any “Karen” these days. These poor ladies share a name with a viral meme associated with being an entitled, narcissistic, middle-aged b%tch. When Hurricane Elsa came through a couple of weeks ago, I was honestly relieved by the name. Who doesn’t love Elsa from Disney’s Frozen? I felt instantly safe, knowing that she would not be a very destructive storm. I think that we should be extremely careful to name all hurricanes only with names that have nice connotations. On just one website, I perused a list of 89 names that all have the meaning of “soft, kind and gentle”. Names like Aura, Angel, Clem, Emmie, and Feather are all good choices for names of hurricanes and tropical storms. Don’t ever be alarmed if they ever name a hurricane “Gungun”. Apparently that name actually means “one who is soft and warm”.

When Hurricane Irma came through, I knew that it was going to be horrible, just by its name. Supposedly, way back in my family history on my mother’s side, there was an old, immodest, crass distant cousin named “Irma” who always sat in a bold and brazen and indecent manner. So, if we little girls were ever caught sitting in an unflattering, shameless position, we were called “Irma.” I literally shuddered when I heard about the storm named, “Hurricane Irma”. And sure enough, it proved to be a doozy.

William Shakespeare seemed to think that we place too much importance on names:

Name Quotes - BrainyQuote

Dale Carnegie disagreed:

Name Quotes #20: Joffrey, Germaine, Gust | Name quotes, Business motivational quotes, Country music quotes

I like Auden’s take on names. A name is just a very small part of the essence of any unique entity on this Earth:

They Represent Our Identity: Quotes About Names - EnkiQuotes

When someone says your name, you recognize it, but everyone is saying it in a slightly different tone, accent, and with different feelings attached to your name, because of what you mean (or don’t mean) to them, in their lives. Your name isn’t just one thing. It is a convenient way for people to label “you”, but the “you” that comes to every person and circumstance in your life is completely unique, because of their own distinct perspectives of you, and the isolated experiences and relationship that they have with you. So, in that sense, your name really means an infinite number of people. Ironically, the only part of you that is truly authentic and timeless and changeless, is your nameless and peaceful Awareness that you bring to every person and every situation and every experience that you ever engage in, during your entire lifetime.

Do you like your name? Are names important? Do you any pet names for yourself?

I have a name for you, my dear friends and readers. I call you “Cherished.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.