Hashtag Fiona2022

Fiona - Hurricane Fiona - took her good sweet time roaring through Atlantic Canada last Saturday, September 24, 2022. The intensity of the wind was about 150 kph, or 90 mph... a Category 2.  I know others have had worse, but it's the worst this little corner of creation has ever seen. In a hurricane, there are mini-tornadoes that twist around such things as tree trunks and transformers and literally rip them apart, leaving them looking like some giant hand reached down and broke them like individual matchsticks. 

The next-door neighbour's 100-foot-high maple came out by its roots, crashing  over power lines on both sides of the road, its crown landing on another neighbour's lawn across the street. With it, it took out the power pole that his, our, and two neighbours across the street were connected to. Lines severed, pole smashed into four pieces. Fortunately the power went out a few minutes before that.  

Neighbour's maple -
its roots exposed for all to see.

Base of the power pole
shattered.

We were spared the tragedy that so many experienced: damage to their homes and vehicles. In both cases, there were close calls! 

But we lost a good third of the trees on our property, mature shade trees and evergreens alike. And in the wake of that kind of devastation, seeing that other still-standing trees were weakened so the next storm might bring them down on someone's house - perhaps our own - led to the decision to cut down a few more of them. And yes, we have been grieving the loss of these, our dear tree friends, tall sentinels of our home and providers of shade and privacy. 

Yesterday, as the sound of chain saws filled the air from power company crews and others working in the neighbourhood, I noticed something that hadn't been there before: there was more light in our back yard. Those shade trees, while providing protection from exposure, had been blocking valuable sunlight from reaching our backyard garden and fledgling apple trees. 

And since the storm had demolished our neighbour's privacy fence, the sunlight could reach his beautiful landscaping. 

But the most amazing thing for me was that I could look across the neighbourhood and see something I wish I could bottle and sell: the people who live in these houses were helping each other, pitching in and sharing information and resources, and reaching out to connect with each other.

Fiona took away.  She took away a LOT; there is no doubt of that. The topography of our landscape and of our communities is forever changed. Some things will never come back; others will take decades. But Fiona also gave. She gave us a renewed sense of community. She gave us friends we didn't know we had. She gave us compassion and empathy for each other. She spurred our generosity. 

If there is a light in this darkness, I think it could be that.

The Long Dark

Ever since I was a child, I have been afraid of the dark. It held unknown things, monsters, the bogey-man, and shapes that in the daylight would never have bothered me. In the dark, though, those familiar shapes transmuted into my deepest fears: being eaten, being buried, being hurt or killed. My dreams haunted me, and when I awoke there was nothing in the dark but those fears. My heart thumped in my chest like a caged animal trying to get out. 

The band-aid solution when I was a child was to leave one of the lights on outside my room (usually the bathroom light), with the door ajar to let everyone else sleep. Yet the fear of the dark followed me into adulthood. 

As I have been "growing up on the inside" the last year or so, one of the things that has been coming to the fore is this fear. I'm finding that somehow, unbidden, it is less than it was. I awaken in the middle of the night and listen - not for monsters anymore, but for the gentle sound of people sleeping, for the furnace coming on to warm up the water in the pipes, and other 'normal' noises in the house. 

Free Image "Northern Lights Aurora"
by Hans Braxmeier at Pixabay

Plus, I am beginning to notice the things that can only be seen in the dark. The stars, the moon, the Northern Lights, these are all invisible at noon in full sun. Slowly I am arriving - I know not how - at the notion that instead of running from or railing at the darkness, I can appreciate the gifts that are available to me at night: the heavenly lights, the odd meteor shower, even the space station if it is overhead. 

I can remind myself that the morning comes. It always comes - whether gray and misty or bright and sunny - the day follows the night.  Being in an atmosphere of acceptance and love, as I have been lately, has a way of bringing with it clarity, purpose, and confidence. And the dark ... doesn't seem so bad now, even if (in the winter) it lasts longer than I would like. I just settle myself down and focus on some small thing - the ticking of the clock, the sound of my husband's breathing as he sleeps, or even my own breath - and before I know it, I'm waking up again, morning has come and the sun is not far from rising. 

Such an attitude helps me when I am waiting for some much-anticipated thing, or when I am undergoing some difficult experience, or when I am sick or lonely. The morning always comes. There is hope. There is something positive even IN the experience, even if I don't know what that is at the time. And I focus on my breath, and I am grateful for the things and the people that are in my life, and the darkness passes. It just does. 

Funny how that happens.