Three Weeks Ago
Written on October 18, 2024
It was three weeks ago today that the hurricane came. Three weeks ago today the hurricane came and washed everyone and everything away that was no longer for more. Three weeks ago today the hurricane came and took away everything that didn't really matter. Three weeks ago today the hurricane came and left me wet, muddy, and standing beside the few things that do matter. And now today is my birthday. A planner at heart, I was planning an elegant garden party outside my house with a long table and flowers and homemade food and beautiful people and vintage china. But when the flood came, it took away my choices, took away my plans, dropped me to my knees and had me howling like a widow at my windows. So much destruction. So much death. Are people seeing this? Un-fucking-believable. Then I close my eyes and open them again...and then so much beauty. So much grace. So much giving. I don't think I've seen generosity until now. Not really. Seeing is really believing. And I got to see it all. And in the mud in front of our house, a single yellow dandelion emerged a few days after the storm. Such an overused and almost saccharine image - but when you see something like that in real time - not staged - there's nothing trite about it. It becomes the hope you hold onto. Nature, God, The Universe, whatever that force greater than me - that's the teacher. There is no authority greater, wiser, or more powerful. Government is irrelevant (and always has been really). Your neighbor becomes the living beating heart-extension of nature and you realize for the first time ever that you would literally die without one another. And people and nature are all that there is and ever was -- both extensions of pure love, the only usable currency in this world.
And when I sat down this morning to the birthday breakfast I hadn't planned, surrounded by people who were not on my original guest list (but are beautiful), I sat outside on my parent's porch with a long table and there were flowers and homemade food and there in front of me, was was my mother's vintage china. And I thought to myself 'I couldn't have planned this better myself."