Older cultures all had superstitions surrounding adverse weather: hurricanes are one of many weather improprieties that could be predicted in a folkloric-- lyrical, almost--manner, by observing animals, clouds, stars....
I doubt they might have prepared anyone not used to such weather, and such was the case two days ago. I've lived part of my life in the South. There, the hurricanes had names you would remember. Opal, Hugo, Ike, Katrina; the devastation they left behind would not be forgotten, spoken in both reverence, fear, and incredulity for generations to come. This are the types of hurricanes that don't quit.
And here came Irene, a Southern hurricane, touching down in North Carolina, and not stopping 'til she barreled across the Northern American hemisphere. This particularly set up a strange precedent for New York City, where I live, simply because NYC hadn't had a hurricane in three quarters of a century (though, to be fair, ina as late as 1985, Long Island had seen one in "Gloria").
I kept wondering: how would the locals take this? And, because of my historophilia, there were other questions ogling my brain. What was it like to worry about a hurricane in Gotham City in 1938? Since the buildings couldn't possibly be as tall or as numerous, was it easier or more difficult in the realms of safety? Or perhaps without early detection systems, were our early metro predecessors overwhelmed with no warning?
Little time could be squandered on such thoughts, though; soon enough, our own version of disaster adventures would happen. Sure enough, on Friday, while the sun deceptively created it's tranquil facade, my landlord began part of the huge responsibilities of our organic beekeeping stewardship. As I mentioned before, beekeeping ain't for sissies, and this was put to the test as we LIFTED 7 hives to bring them closer together, so they could be tethered together, then weighted down with heavy rocks. Did I mention that each hive, now full of Fall honey, can weigh about 200 or so pounds? There is a strange sort of irony in trying to wrestle a structure that weighs more than yourself, all created by creatures that each register less than half an ounce!
After THREE hours of sweaty work securing bees, harvesting last minute honey, and saying a secret prayer to some hoped for or imagined bee saint (by the way, the Patron Saint of Bees happens to be St. Bernard, I understand)....there was running to the market for the requisite trifecta of all basic emergency supplies: canned goods, batteries, and bottled water. Check!
Oddly, observing the streets around me, I noticed little concern, even skepticism, about the seriousness of this hurricane. This would all change...somewhat...
Saturday's sky loomed gray and dull as an elderly spinster's face. There had been notices that the New York City transport's buses and trains--basically the heartblood of the city--would shut down. I can't recall, now, if that had been a precedent, but it brought an ominous mood to some of it's residents. Since I had business early in Manhattan, it was interesting to see the city reaction: the streets were oddly less packed, and those in the city seemed to walk with purpose, some packing up cars, and gas stations freakishly last-minute-jammed. Where were they planning to go? Outrun a hurricane? And just now, was it decided?
This last minute dance was seen everywhere--stores were flooded with people, perhaps brought to their senses, or playing cautiously, to be safe rather than sorry. Outside, I heard a small group of men heatedly debating whether the sidewalk on their street was shaped so that it would help reduce flooding, or alternately make it worse. Such is the life of New Yorkers, feverishly concerned about the trivial.
By the time I got home, the wind had picked up. By the time it started raining that night, I knew I had batteries, food, a charged phone and water, plus a ton of projects I could finish, and eleven new frames of honey to put into jars. It was going to be a long night.
Of the details of the storm itself, I can thankfully say there is no more than heavy winds and rain, though my landlord and lady were flooded by the fat driven rain, in their basement apartment. At one point, Sweetheart and myself went down, all akindered in large hooded rain gear, to help them bucket out a huge watery mess. Their patio drain simply failed in the fast water. A huge pool of water bubbled, ankle high, threatening to slosh into their low level apartment. We yelled over high rattling winds and massive blinding rain--I remember a crazy thought in the midst of all of it: this is like a scene from Moby Dick. Except we're not on a ship in the middle of stormy seas. Are we?
Needless to say, we bucketed out the place and eventually the rains gave way to calm, and in the end, for all of the ill weather, only small tree limbs suffered in our neighborhoods. Miraculously, no one's power went out, no trees or powerlines, or cars were damaged; it simply was a bad storm coming through.
Unfortunately, I know many other places, below and above us, have suffered much heartache and loss. Power outages occurred within a few miles of us. Such is the madness of the Southern storm.
I think the most surprising of this strange weather journey is not so much the storm itself, but the strange responses online and elsewhere, bemoaning the Mayor's advice to buy emergency supplies, and shut down trains, in a prepared effort to stay safe. Shocking, the strange jaded comments online bemoaning the "waste of money" and "hype" for the storm that blessedly left New York City untouched. Have the metropolis dwellers become so disconnected from nature that they believe they can now predict it, control it, and simply no longer stand in awe of it? Sady, I do believe this sort of thinking is part of so much that is wrong with us, here and now.
WE do not control nature, we cannot command or bend it to our will. It is not us that hold Nature, but Nature that holds Us. All we can do is stand, grateful for when the Universe provides for us, and sit trembling, reverent, when it does not. Like a great religion, we are here to witness its might in awe. We are here to sing it's songs, ancient and wise, and try to make sense of it's strange language, the messages that it sends us. To besmirch its doings as something to "hype," to dismiss it, is as sinful as any flagrant vagrancy against it.
In my heart, I know that is True.
There is a gypsy belief that storms, as bad as they may seem outside, really herald a new change and direction, the old is swept out with the storm, leaving a new slate upon which to start. This storm raged during a New Moon--a greater foretelling of stark change. The world threatens to be Stormtossed, always. There are changes happening here, too. As you shall soon see.
