halfway through hurricane season 2020

 

Don't know how you spent last evening, I watched HLaura live on television until two o'clock this morning, watched the eye swirl ashore, hoping for all those folks and their animals and property. Saw farm anmals, cattle in low-lying pastures ahead of the storm, hoping they're okay this morning. 

Hoping too that we aren't living into climate-change-natural shifts in the ferocity of hurricanes from here on out? HMIchael was a surprise indication, then last year HDorian hovering over the Bahamas. We've known Category 3 as a tolerable norm, but is this the way it's going to be, and worsening? What brings it on? Ocean temperatures? Melting polar ice? Next time I'm going to be a meteorologist. Maybe start working on it this time if covid19 continues keeping me shut in thinking up things to do? 55 years ago I read myself into an amateur astronomer, can I read myself into an amateur weatherperson? IDK. 

As I sat watching, the announcer said the storm surge may go 40 miles inland, and from driving miles and miles on bridges above that low area, I can visualize that. I remember Audrey 1957. The worst I remember is Hurricane Camille in 1969, sustained winds 175 mph and a storm surge of 24 feet. I was told or read at the time that the surge went thirty miles inland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille

Camille. In the Navy, we had just transferred from Newport RI to SanDiego CA, driving across that Mississippi and Louisiana low swampy country en route. At the time my mind was on other things, but I remember Mama writing or telling me on the phone, that a family friend had driven her new red Chevrolet convertible over to Louisiana to visit relatives, and got caught in Camille. That the storm surge rose so high they climbed out an upstairs window into a tree, where she was bitten by a snake. And that the next morning the red convertible was gone, carried off into the Gulf. Somewhere out there sits a low mileage red convertible waiting to be raised and driven back home to Panama City. When we drove through that part of Mississippi two years later, the damage was still seen, buildings gone, front sidewalks leading up to concrete steps where old Southern mansions had been.

A friend pointed out to me, and I went online and confirmed for myself, that Black Lives Matter as a name is attached to a couple of incorporated fundraising organizations, one or both questionable. I'm not cheering for any organization. Like most Americans I support the plain and simple fact of it: Black Lives Matter.

Violent anger begets violent anger in return, and begets and begets. News from the Kenosha situation reported alarming events. One that a teenage boy took a rifle into the rioting crowd, shot and killed people; he's ruined many lives, including his own and the lives of those who love him. Two and potentially far, far worse, that the commander of a local militia warned local law enforcement that his armed militia would be called up and deployed, and cautioned the law enforcement authority not to interfere or arrest his militia members, threatening We greatly outnumber you. It may look Oh Yay, Tit for Tat, but angry and self-justified local militia are not law enforcement people trained in patient confrontation and anger control. It doesn't say Round up your angry and frightened neighbors, it says "A well regulated militia". Even calling up armed national guard can turn disastrous, as was shown at Kent State. Everyone is human, and little is more dangerous than a frightened, certain, and angry man with a gun. 

For all that, we're only halfway through hurricane season 2020 but I'm done. With all that's going on in life, much change, changing, looking back but not going back. Not exactly doubting but examining my place and direction. With lots to think about. As blogged yesterday, I find myself in an Interlude. Intermission, Interlude. Not bored, no boredom, though there's a tiredness, an ineffable, illusive tiredness. Linda watching and telling me about a presentation by Also Retired Also Self-aware Also Self-appraising Also Aging Also Episcopal priest Rev Barbara Cawthorne Crafton helps ratify that it's okay to be where I am, clarifies what's going on. Contemplating self: callings, Being, vocations. Interests. Cheer what Was, face that it Was not Is, unapologetically let it go. Wonder what I can and am to be now or next. Something, but what. What might be helpful to those I love most. What's in Time for an old man! Cogitate. Muse. Contemplate. Maybe contemplate my navel, my mother used to say that I was born thirty-five years old; and I notice that I've always kept myself too busy occupied to look down and see if lint is accumulating. Birthday 85 looms, so beyond Interlude it's Elderlude (if you don't see the word you need, create one). Not as long as my grandfathers, but three years longer than my father. So, this is what this paragraph is about: early birthday gift to myself, today, right now, press Publish and then Relax. Pause. Except for communication with members of my Sunday School class, I pause daily public +Time and daily public Facebook posting. Stop, Look & Listen. Contemplate. Read. Maybe resume "Teach Yourself To Read Hebrew" (Simon & Anderson). Walk. Think. Nap. Yes, Nap, best part of Shelter In Place is the Naps! Eat oysters when I DWP. Go places in my mind. Learn. Discern. Study. Write. Be a better Helper. Remember. Reflect, but not too much. Watch another film. See, maybe see. ὁράω.

BLM&PTL

T+

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