"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." --Rainer Maria Rilke (©julenisse/Fotolia)

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Tornado Theology.


I could tell you it’s been one of those days...
Then I’d remind myself that I don’t live in Moore, Oklahoma.

I could say I’m exasperated, waiting for movers who still haven’t left LA, even though we’ve been cooling our heels in a Kansas college town for days. Then I’d remind myself that my daughter’s bike and bed and boxes are not in scattered in shards across the windswept plain. Her things are intact. Dry. Safe. Out of the elements.

Hell, forget the stuff.

We are dry and safe and out of the elements. We are not fishing through debris, panic-stricken and brokenhearted, listening for the jangle of tags on a dog collar.

Sure, we met some challenges on the trek east, weathering rain and snow, lightning and hail through Colorado and Kansas. But we were never anywhere like Moore, Oklahoma. For eighteen years, we lived in Kansas and managed to dodge the twister bullet every time, surveying the aftermath in
Greensburg, Kansas (May 2007) and Joplin, Missouri (May 2011) from the comfort of our still-standing home, with dinner on the stove and the family pictures on the mantle, right where they belonged.

Tornados, hurricanes, school shootings. How do I know?  I can barely begin to imagine a mother’s terror on those nights and the nights that follow. My family is here with me, happy and healthy. My son is engaged and my daughter is ready to start college. They are not drowned in the basement of an elementary school in Oklahoma, their dreams and mine for them forever submerged.

How dare I complain about one thing today as Moore, Oklahoma, reels, suffering and devastated, one state away? Oh, you can be sure I’ve found plenty of human, first-world things to carp about today… I’ve been impatient… I’ve nit-picked my husband… I haven’t been nearly grateful enough… I woke up cursing a chronic, painful ailment… But, I woke up. And so did everyone I love.

A strange dog actually peed on me today... but I was not shit on by a killer tornado.


Count your blessings. Look for the helpers. Say a prayer. Donate to the relief effort. Forgive someone. Love one another. 

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

California Dreamin'

Call me, maybe?
There was a handwritten, cardboard sign in the front windshield. "For Sale: Call when you have cell service." A 203 area code. Had to look that one up later. Southwestern Connecticut, although the plates were New York state. If it belongs to a Yalie, he must be one of those artsy, drama school types, not the Wall Street variety. Still, someone who appreciates fine vintages… in this case an old VW bus but definitely NOT a beater. Gleaming red and black, practically smiling at me, winking at me even, in the parking lot with the waves crashing in the background. Beautifully restored from the looks of it although, really, I know nothing of such things.

I’m not a car person; I’m a romantic. And this just stirs up every running-away fantasy I’ve ever had. It wasn’t the only fantastic thing at the beach today, either. Actually, I think most everything at the beach is pretty darn fantastic any day, but there was a pod of whales today and it doesn’t get much better than that. Didn’t see a full breach, but I saw enough… and plenty of spray coming from those blow holes. One of them, a baby maybe, flirted for a while with a kayaker. Anyway, what I want to do is call that area code 203 guy, take that VW bus off his hands, and follow those whales up the coast.