The Winds of Change

Let me assure all my readers and friends that PinF has survived Wilma. Thank you all for your inquiries and emails regarding mine and Sophie's well being, all of which I was unable to receive due to the extensive loss of power in S. Florida. PinF has arrived in Pennsylvania to tend to more pressing matters regarding my father's health. My journey wasn't easy as I had to drive 180 miles to Orlando with the possibility of no gas stations open along the way board a flight. My reservation was worthless due to the devestation and loss of electricity in West Palm Beach.

A current posting is long overdue; though the inspiration for such hasn't exactly been there. PinF is very much back in the same "life-limbo" he was in July when he was recalled from Florida to tend to his father, only this time it is much more grave. Couple all this with the stress and worry that comes with a hurricane, and you have a neglected blog. Nevertheless I'm also keenly aware of just how many of you have come to rely on these frivilous postings as much as your morning coffee's, as such I am duty bound to report in. So many of you have responded with words of support and encouragment; many of whom I've never even met which makes your words even more helpful and humbling.

As I was "hunkered" down in my house during Wilma I was thinking two things: 1. How bad the weathermen screwed up the forecast, and 2. How insignificant our trivial worries and responsibilities are. Something about 125 MPH winds make you put your priorities in order, and slowly you become less concerned with bills, salaries, work related issues, cars, and possesions until you are stripped down of your wordly worries and just praying to yourself and to your God that you make it through this. That's where I was one week ago today, in my closet under my stairs with my cat, listening as the roof started to go, and then the fence, not to mention the trees and someone's F-150 cap. It was the first time that I can remember being scared since I was eight and climbed the ladder of highdive at our swimclub only to realize I hadn't any interest in jumping from a height into water I was barely able to tread in.

My thoughts were of my daughter and my family. Nothing else really mattered, I didn't care about the car, the motorcycle, hell I didn't care about the house; all I wanted was for this hideously moaning wind to stop. It did, for about an hour. I was in the "eye", and ever so slowly myself and my communitie's neighbors all started to assemble outside and begin to assess the damage. It was extensive, trees down on cars and houses, broken gas main's- which incredibly were responded to by the emergency officials. My roof was 1/3 ripped of it's cedar shingles, my 6 foot privacy fence was shattered, giving me a newer style of privacy. PinF went immediately across the way to check on his elderly neighbor, an 80 yr old gem of a woman named Doris from Kentucky, she too was fine. We all exchanged stories, had a beer or two and then quickly scattered as the "backend" of the storm began to roar. This was to be far more terrifying and destructive than the first 3 hour session.

Suffice to say PinF made it. He dealt with the loss of power and infrastructure and began the immediate clean-up of his area. Then I attempted to call the airlines to cxl my next day flight, unbeknowst to me that Wilma already had. I was to be thwarted from leaving S. Florida for two more days, my father's condition steadily deteriorating, until finally I took the move of driving to Orlando on what gas I had and catching a flight from there.

None of this was easy. None of this was fun. But as I've told the few people who've asked I still feel only "inconvenienced", and not really destroyed by this. I need only look to New Orleans, Pakistan, and Guatemala to see the depth of complete despair coupled with the loss of hope. For when hope is lost, all is lost. PinF lost some roof tiles, and a fence, and all of his refrigerated goods. What PinF gained was a truer understanding of his own temporary human existance and a much clearer unbderstanding of what really matters in life, and that is just that- LIFE. All the other shit is stuff we choose to clutter our minds with, never really thinking that everthing is a gamble and that we all walk the thin line, and that thin line is likely to snap when all of us least expect it.

My father's current predicament is an example of this thin line. So is my being here again. My priorities are clear: work, bills, and hurricane clean-up can wait. What matters most to me is life, and unlike a week ago it isn't mine that matters now but my dad's.