perspectives

the past week was a stern reminder from mother nature about just WHO is in charge here.  we humans have meddled enough with her.  i doubt that anything WE did had any bearing on these events...i think she was just being all showy...flexing her guns.   she certainly did shake and then bluster right here on this little slice of the earth.  funny how the destruction we cause ourselves (like bombs ripping apart villages) goes virtually unnoticed by us and we only to snap-to when SHE wrecks.

i have survived many a hurricane.  once while huddled in my closet crammed with mattress food (which was more on the order of snacks for the nervous) water radios a cell phone a girlfriend and two big hounds listening to the WHOMP WHOMP of trees crashing against the outer walls of my brick home.  the energy bleeding from that little closet from four terrified beings was palpable.

there was of course katrina and i was fortunate enough to be in baton rouge at the time she hit instead of my beloved new orleans.  surprisingly though the hurricane that disturbed me most was gustav who hit his mark directly on top of baton rouge.  his rampage ripped apart the infrastructure and left even the most prepared quite surprised.  i was situated in the parish emergency operation center.  i had the most intimate view of this hurricane and how it so thoroughly disrupted human life.  i was the fixer and rescuer in this case and i have never felt so small and helpless in my life.

needless to say the earthquake last week was a little shocker...a curious anomaly.  but the hurricane in the days before it passed virginia flipped a switch that put me on high alert ready-set-go...  i suppose it is exactly how soldiers at war react.  it is completely subconscious and requires no forwarding conscious process.  oh i knew that i was completely out of the danger zone...but i could smell and feel her approach (and that is NOT metaphorical.)  i had not realized initially how much energy was flowing through me...adrenaline at the ready.  

as irene passed the coast of virginia a felt suddenly quite exhausted and i began to process my reactions.  i realized that EXACTLY 3 years after gustav i still had that...well ptsd sounds so victim-ish...lets just call it that trigger.  truthfully i am hard wired that way anyway.  i assess plan respond reassess and go on.  then i pass out from fatigue when it is over.  i am for all intents a self confessed trauma junkie... it is what i have done most of my career.  that it included disaster management...well you understand.  

i had a hearty and frankly healing laugh at myself the very next day.  it was beautiful out.  the sky was blue and the air crisp and fresh.  i went on a hike to a waterfall with a friend.  i did not consciously realize that along our hike i was taking note of how many groups of hikers we passed on the trail and how many vehicles i saw at the trail head.  as we drove away i noted a huge cloud of dust coming up from the road ahead.  i was fully engaged trying to solve this puzzle because after adding vehicles and groups i could not account even for an extra vehicle stirring up the dust in the road ahead.  i had not even seen another vehicle in any case.

it seems i was a 99% focused on this problem.  tunnel visioned i remember seeing a box turtle in the road made a mental side note of it and also made certain i centered my vehicle over it so as not to crush it.  i had not taken my eyes off the dust cloud.  i became aware of a soft voice saying “stop”...then some words i did not process then again “stop”...i finally did and said, “oh you want me to stop...for the turtle in the road?”  “yes.”  we backed up and she rescued the turtle.  embarrassed at my inattention to her i tried to explain my distraction.  

we drove on and to my shock discovered the source of the dust cloud.  a huge pine had fallen across and blocked the road.   i started laughing...  it immediately validated my hyperaware and en garde state of mind.  you see i had just realized sitting there in the truck as we approached this new problem that out perspectives and thus our priorities had veered completely in two different directions.  hers was no less important than mine.  in fact i probably should have been tripping the lighter side of this out of doors nature excursion.  we were both tuning in to it...we just had different channels playing.  

i am far removed from the gulf coast presently.  the danger to me from a hurricane is quite remote.  how i view them should be obvious to anyone who knows me or has experienced them for themselves.  how those around me view them is completely different.   the beauty of human experience is that our perspectives as individuals will differ even when placed in virtually the same situation.   it is what makes us a unique and rich tapestry of varying weaves.  seeing it of course is in the eyes of each of us.

note: this was posted august 31, 2011 however through some operator error the post was inadvertently deleted.