wind & sea, moon & Sky

Tug heading west last evening as we sat out on 7H porch, glass of wine. Linda likes a sweet white riesling. I like a dry red, just opened a tempranillo. Someone will correct me that it's equiv to cabernet sauvignon, shiraz or malbec, but this bottle reminds me more of a merlot or pinot noir, seems lighter, lighter color and this tempranillo seems dryer than the last I had. And as my mother used to say about several of her special dishes, it'll be twice as good tomorrow. 

Robert suggested I resume my post as Harbormaster, keeping track and posting the ships that pass by, and I'll look forward to doing just that, but for now the scaffolding gets in the way of decent photos and, oddly, of even noticing when ships pass. 

Couple minutes later that tug and barge were just beyond the red buoy that Robert but not I, seventy years ago but not anymore, could have hit with a shell or rock sailed toward it, it's that close and so're the ships that pass it.

Today's the day though, and it's the same place in my mind as December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, a Day of Infamy. Born and bred in th' briar patch, if this is not your hometown you cannot possibly understand the emotion, don't expect to. The metaphor, or simile, I've said it before, Alma Mater, returning to Panama City from Pensacola after the hurricane was like coming home to find one's mother lying beaten, ravaged, raped, bruised, broken, bloody and left for dead; and one's sobbing, murderous fury directed at whom, at Whom? Well, the Sky, dammit. The Sky. The gardenia Sky. Our trust is broken and we are wary and uneasy. I pray that in time, even in my own Time, this will pass. Even for me. But it keeps on keeping on.

Sitting out here on 7H porch and looking south across the Bay and left toward lights in The Cove to the east and so near - - having grown up in The Cove I remember and know and understand the sociology of it, the "tribal" of it, of being there, Of there and From The Cove -- it seems impossible that the storm could have so ravished The Cove, and on east toward Callaway and Parker and Bay Harbor, and I think Lynn Haven, even more violently than it did us here in StAndrews, though it was bad enough here. But just down the shoreline and round the bend they got it much worse. Color images of the hurricane moving ashore clearly show the horror of the west, left, side closest up against the eye, churning southward, and we are just barely almost out of that or at least near the edge of it. Anomaly I don't understand, but I know some weather person can clarify why that happened when we expected the worst of it to be on the PortStJoe side. 

After the storm had passed here and was moving into Alabama and north, there was a post online, a government photo, may have been from a satellite?, showing the damage; and one could spread it, expand it, and get right down on top of each house. Looking at it with Kristen while we were at Sacred Heart Hospital with Malinda, I expanded it over Malinda's house, where Kris and Ray grew up, and Kristen asked, "What's that white triangle next to the house?" I didn't know but it wasn't there before the storm and it didn't look good. It was in fact the entire west end of the house and part of the roof lying flat on the ground, knocked off by a huge falling guess what, pine tree; baring the three story house itself completely open to the weather from sky to ground. That has turned out okay for us, with Tower Hill, an excellent insurance company and policy enabling Malinda and family to get into a new house at Breakfast Point, PCB. Mortgage that we didn't have before, but out of the disaster and soundly relocated.

Yesterday the advance team came in and got our condo ready for this morning, when the SouthernCat crew, which prove themselves competent and conscientious, organized and courteous in restoring Harbour Village, are due to bring in our new sliders and install them. They're ten feet high, at least I think it's ten. I'll get a shot in the next day or so.

This evening, 6:00 pm at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, a Service of Healing and Thanksgiving to commemorate the first anniversary of Hurricane Michael. Matthew 8:23-27 "... even the wind and sea obey him ..."

Last evening the moon and Sky were doing lovely things, as if offering to make amends and heal broken hearts and homes and families and lives. We'll get back to you on that, moon and Sky. Don't wait up.

RSF&PTL anyway

TW+