The scenes left behind are overwhelming.
It is some sheet of twisted metal contorted then hurled through space before landing straddling an electrical line dangling a hundred feet off the ground. It is pieces of wood splintered apart then left in a heap as if someone with a bulldozer had been on a mission of destruction and this mound was the conclusion of that plan. It is a whole roof lifted from a house as easy as a twist-off bottle cap and then set down just as easy as a tossed Frisbee so as to lose not one shingle. It is a house foundation now standing vacant, wiped clean and left behind between two houses that went unscathed from the swath of ruin. It is the giant live oak tree, older than the memory of the neighborhood’s oldest residents, with roots mightily anchored in the earth suddenly unplugged from the ground and then left laying there, roots, trunk, body and limbs all, as lightly as if it were a pencil.
It is a full grown man whose shaky voice simmers with raw emotion after doing all he could to best protect all he has; especially what he values the most, his loved ones. It is a church that mobilizes at such a time to offer just a cold cup of water in His name although that water also comes with a prayer and the hope of better things. It is the wide-eyed children describing sounds and sights beyond any description they ever read in any book before now. It is the neighbors who have lived next door to each other for more years than they care to recall but who stand in the only clothes they now have left embracing each other unsure how they made it through but thankful that they did, somehow, someway. It is the wearied yet wise woman who knows without consideration that moving forward means thinking about what all this means will have to come at sometime other than the present because working toward getting things back to near what they were begins with this moment because anything else would just be wasting time.
I spend a lot of time in this space writing down remembrances. Sometimes I rhapsodize and write about the glory days. Sometimes I romanticize and write about the good ole days. And now and then, I resuscitate and write about things which weren’t necessarily the brightest shining moments of my life. But occasionally I remember and write about something just so I won’t forget it. Writing a thing down encases it somewhere outside memory and allows a revisit at some point.
Many ravaged by the big winds of spring 2011 will have no problem remembering the day life was altered for them. They will have no trouble recalling the date, maybe the exact time on the clock, maybe even the taste in their mouth or the feeling deep in the pit of their stomach. They may also remember odd, weird details that for some unknown reason sticks in consciousness then stays stuck there like gum to the bottom of a shoe on a hot summer day. While I know I won’t remember those big winds from the spring of 2011 the way those directly affected by those winds will I have no doubt though I will recall that time in some way.
I was reminded of this this morning. The wind blew strong and hard enough to break off fragile limbs from treetops then scatter them across the yard and the driveway. The rain fell on the roof in loud splatters and also splashed against the side of the house. Thunder rumbled from the earth’s gut while lightning popped in quick blinding bursts like a flashcube attached to some old camera.
For that moment it was like it once was before. I felt like I had been here at some earlier time.
Then, just as quickly, it wasn’t that way anymore.
That brush with familiarity though opened up young memories already stored away after those big winds had blown by, after time had moved on, after life went on, after normalcy had returned for most of us.
And because memory is a fleeting thing, I wrote down what I could remember before it slipped away.
I remembered how I rode one of the storms out in a bathtub with a towel over my head while pleading with our pet cat to come into the room and away from the bottom of the stairs. I remembered how we rode other storms out after opening windows and stepping away from the glass and into the hall silently praying that this simple act would somehow cause the whipping winds to pass around us. I was reminded how we read books by candlelight and flashlight while the blue-black night sky exploded with lightning like fireworks on Independence Day. I remembered the feeling of inconvenience when the electricity didn’t come back on right away and how suddenly disconnected we felt because we were separated from instant entertainment and instant communication and then realizing how spoiled and selfish we are after learning how deadly these storms really were and then how the little bit of inconvenience we felt was nothing compared to the destruction others experienced. I recalled looking at a small strand of insulation in our backyard the day after the storms and a few days later in another part of the yard discovering a piece of a shingle and both times wondering how far each had traveled to land where they landed. I remembered opening the weekend newspapers and reading page after page of names, ages and hometowns of those who lost their lives in the storms and the feeling of sorrow that washed over me as I realized I was reading in black ink on white paper life stories condensed to 250 words or less.
It all makes me understand what a gift memory is but also makes me realize how memory is sometimes a fleeting thing and how at times we have to work to remember things just so we do not forget them.
It all makes me understand what a gift memory is but also makes me realize how memory is sometimes a fleeting thing and how at times we have to work to remember things just so we do not forget them.
