Journal Entry 9.15.23

Hurricane.  Tropical Storm.  The perfect metaphor for emotional unrest.  Chaos caused by hot and cool air coming together over the Atlantic Ocean, swirling from the hot tropics to the cool North Atlantic waters.  Order caused by focused attention to imminent threats. 

Everyone is watching the weather, pulling boats, making plans, gathering food, water, firewood, and candles in case the power goes out.  The excitement builds.  Hurricanes are rare and as in this case, usually downgraded to a tropical storm before it hits Maine, so there is a celebratory quality to their arrival.  What will happen?  Will the seas be dramatic?  Will there be floods and trees down?  Will the power go out?  Or will it be a tempest in a teapot?  Much ado about nothing? 

There is something cleansing about a storm.   The tension builds beforehand.  The weather shifts throughout the day from hot to cold as the arms of the storm swirl by in introduction of what comes after. 

There is also joy in a storm like this.  Nature is not in our control.  It is the one thing we have not mastered, limited, pillaged, and emptied of its power and resources.  The weather is the one thing that remains out of man’s hands.  Storms and weather make us small and mortal, vulnerable to the raging wind and the fierce power of water joined with other water to create a cataract of runoff where there was dirt before.  Trees felled by the wind and the rain tear up the earth, tear out powerlines and internet access and leave us alone to our own devices (but render our devices useless in exchange).

Unlike grief, a storm has a beginning and an end.  A before and an after.  Once the rain and wind have stopped and the waves have died back down there will be power lines to reconnect, and flood damage to repair, but the next day will dawn bright and clear with high pressure and cool, clear air, a sunny autumn day.

Grief is a different process, a back and forth, a mixture of before and during, an infusion of pain and hope mingled together at the same time.  There is no clearing sky, no high-pressure weather system to wipe about the trauma of what came before.

The weather carries the weight of the low-pressure system, but the effect on the sunset is dramatic.  I watch the sun explode into reds and waves of yellows.