Hurricane Fiona or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the storm

 

In the days leading up to her arrival I tried to avoid the news and the weather. I studiously turned off the radio whenever a weather report was forthcoming and I resisted the urge to scroll through Facebook where every newsfeed was plastered with posts tracking her path: Fiona, a category-2 hurricane that was expected to make landfall near my house in rural Nova Scotia.

 

People always think they want ocean views and seaside properties but having grown up with a strong respect for the power of the ocean and having lived through the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004—the one thing I knew I didn’t want when buying a house was direct access to the sea.  

 

I live in the seaside community where I grew up on the Atlantic Ocean. My childhood was filled with days at the beach where my mother would open our front door to call us home for supper. We saw many storms and the damage they could do. A dory flung into a tree, salt spray that had to be scraped off the windows after a gale—but never had we seen anything like what was predicted for this past weekend, not in living memory.  

 

The Saxby Gale of 1869 would have been the last similar event although there was a storm my grandmother had told me about, which had hit the shore when she was a girl, that carried off outhouses and chicken coops.

 

All the big storms I knew of as a child happened offshore although the remnants of the impact did wash up on the beach. In 1982 debris from the Ocean Ranger disaster arrived, a cyclone sank the drilling rig off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, killing all 84 crew that were aboard. I have a memory that my father found a life preserver from the rig on the beach.

 

As people of the sea, we are wary and respectful of it. As Fiona headed up the coast, I watched as boats were pulled from the water and moved to safety, floating docks were hauled in, putting an end to what was a glorious recreational boating season. I cleared my yard of moveable debris, secured my barn doors and took a last walk on the beach to capture the lay of the land before the storm came and rearranged the furniture.

 

Being in the path of a natural disaster is never fun—I can attest to that as I have been within reach of tsunamis, tornadoes, and earthquakes—but hurricanes are the most impactful psychologically as you spend days on edge waiting for the hammer to fall. By Friday afternoon, there was a freight train trying to rip my face off my skull—my headache was so severe I could barely function but still managed to do my job; attended a press conference and wrote the necessary news copy afterwards. Work was good for me. Gave me something else to focus on as my anxiety level skyrocketed.

 

Friday night my housemates, aka my teenaged children, retreated to their various corners in our centuries-old home. Living in such an old house—it was built in 1845—has its pros and cons when you’re facing down a hurricane. On the plus-side, it’s still standing. It survived the Saxby Gale and a hundred other storms since then. But then again, the old girl has seen a lot, and maybe she’s worn out, maybe the nails holding the roof on have seen one too many wind storms. Even without hurricane-force winds this ancient lady tends to shed a few clothes with every nor-easter-- a drainpipe, a window—I had reason to worry.

 

I watched a stupid movie while I waited for doom. I’ll probably always love Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg for taking my mind off the potential destruction of my house for an hour and half that night.

 

Then I talked with a friend on the phone until 11:30 while the wind and rain started to pick up. Putting down the phone, and finally allowing myself to look at the weather report, I knew, we were now in the heart of the storm, the highest winds and rains forecasted had arrived.

 

I settled in and most of my anxiety melted away as the house held and the basement was dry. I nestled into my bed for the night, plugged my earbuds into my head and streamed the audiobook I had downloaded for the occasion—Bill Bryson’s At Home which seemed very appropriate for the occasion.

 

Somehow, I fell asleep before the power went off at midnight and did not wake up again until just after 7 a.m. Saturday morning.

 

The winds were still high. And were expected to stay that way for most of the day. The power was out, as expected, but as I took my very small dogs out for their first bathroom break of the day, the house and surrounding property looked good. No trees were down, the power lines were holding, shingles were all still in place as were drainpipes and the heat pump.

 

But caution remained the watchword of the day. We took the dogs outside through the back door, where no power lines were located, and we stayed as far away from trees as possible.

 

During the second out of the day, I saw one of our smaller trees had come down and fallen across the neighbouring driveway. It could be easily moved but served as a reminder that even though the worst part of the storm was over, damage could still occur.

 

With the wind still moderately high, my daughter and I built a small fortress to shelter our camp stove as we attempted to make some hot food for supper. Luckily we had a pile of stack stone on hand for the retaining wall we are in the process of making, and it was easily repurposed.

 

Tea was made, canned soup was heated and cold, pre-cooked noodles were refreshed with a shot of boiling water. We carried our outside cookery to the inside table and sat down to our small comforts. That’s when the hum of the fridge kicked in, the clock on the stove began to blink and power returned to our home.

 

Since that time we have maintained power but for a brief blip, this while some parts of the province are not expected to get power back for at least a week after the storm. It’s taken a lot of work to get the grid up and Nova Scotians are thankful for power crews that have come to our province from outside of our borders; provincial and national.

 

For the time being we are living in a very small pocket of the province where internet has not been restored which makes life uncomfortable and business almost impossible. Somehow, through almost impossible odds, we managed to get the newspaper out only a few hours late.

 

Many parts of the province will need months to recover from the damage of Hurricane Fiona. We were lucky. And we know it.

LWS Social

 A simple writing prompt can lead to unremembered places--created during the London Writers' Salon Social. 

An experience of dance

 

I never thought of myself as a dancer until nostalgia and an ache for home made me one. Like most kids in my hometown – I took Highland dancing as a kid—it was the proper thing to do here in New Scotland – aka Nova Scotia. But I didn’t take to it. Mainly it was the teacher I didn’t like. I hated her. I hated her so much I wet my bed every night—that is until my mother threatened me by telling me she would not let me go to Highland dance if I kept wetting the bed. Which I did – as the behaviour was beyond my conscious control. I was yanked from the class and miraculously, once again, had dry nights.

 

Strangely enough I came to dancing in Taiwan—and it wasn’t exactly Highland dancing – it was Irish dancing. My Chinese colleagues decided to watch a video of Flatley’s Riverdance and as a team building exercise – all gave it a try on the stage after imbibing the steps of the Irish.

 

It was never my plan to get up on the stage—but as the only foreign teacher there, and the only one with red hair – my boss pleaded with me to get up on the stage. And as much to my surprise as that of my colleagues—whatever combination of environment and genetics created —I was a natural. And I danced for the next five years in Irish pubs across Asia.

 

 

 

The meal

 

It was what I had been dreaming of—and still dream of today—a lightly toasted onion bagel from the bake shop at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok.

 

For four weeks no food had passed my lips, I was tethered to an IV that I pulled along behind me in the hospital corridors knowing that until I got better, this would be my only source of nourishment.

 

I consumed books, but those only heightened my hunger, especially The Life of Pi- I felt we were going through similar struggles although there wasn’t a tiger keeping me from my food – but a nurse who laughed at me when I could understand her rapid fire questions.

 

Finally, the day came – the Lois Can Eat Party—all my friends came to the hospital and one of them brought the precious bagel. The one thing that I still crave whenever I’m sick.

 

 

Something your great at

 

 

The thing I am consistently great at is procrastination. I can procrastinate for an entire hour about getting out of bed in the morning. Lay there and work my way through a few exercises, listen to a podcast and make a list of things to do once I finally do get up.

 

I can procrastinate over breakfast, lunch and dinner – to the point where I usually miss one of those meals every day.

 

I can procrastinate about writing – of course.

 

But my best procrastination effort was saved for my master’s thesis. Over the time span of a four-year program, I handed the final copy of my thesis into the Graduate school office, two hours before deadline, and one day before I found out I was pregnant with my first child.

 

 

You will do foolish things but do them with enthusiasm. –Colette

  

Who among us has not done a foolish thing—so long as no one dies or goes bankrupt –it usually all comes out fine in the wash.

 

The most foolish thing I did recently was print copies of my memoir—the wild years in the Kingdom of Thailand—and give it to my kids.

 

Of course, there were a few things I didn’t write in that book. There are some things from those days that I can hardly admit in my mind, let alone put them on a page. But there’s still plenty of foolish things which I hope my children, now in their teens, don’t try to replicate.

 

The hundred million times I rode on motorcycles—side-saddle. The one-night stands. Bribing police at roadblocks. Dancing drunk on tables; which got me fired.  Buying beer and condoms in front of one of my students. Kayaking in snake-infested mangrove forests. And about fifty more pages of adventures that I never want them to repeat. Or at least if they do—tell me long after it’s over.

 

My foolish twenties were a response to my extremely cautious teens. I lived precariously in that decade though not due to my own negligence but that of my mother’s, who all but disappeared from my life save for money in the bank and the occasional week at home.

 

When other kids were sneaking out, I had no one to sneak out from. When other kids planned parties when their parents went out of town for the weekend, I forbid people from coming to my house when they knew my mother had just left. When I did have friends over, and they started to get a little rambunctious—I cleaned up behind them and scolded them until they stopped and acted like the reasonable people I believed them to be.

 

I took care of the money. Paid the bills. Mowed the yard. Let the dogs out and the cats in.

 

By the time I was in my twenties - I was ready to be young and foolish before the time passed and I would be old and foolish. I never liked old and foolish, I’d seen it sometimes at the LiquorDome in Halifax—more mature women vamping it up and lounging on the arm or lap of young men who were half their age.

 

There was one lady I remember well. She was a fixture in one area of the LiquorDome and she was there most weekends but not usually in the crush near the dance floor. She’d be upstairs, near the bar, handy the pool tables. She had big hair, as you could in the early nineties- all the 80s hairspray had not yet been completely consumed-and she wore some of the first spandex pants I’d ever seen. Looking back now I realize they might have been hotpants from the 70s which would have been her rightful time frame.

 

Skin-tight, black, shiny pants that had a full body, in colour, drawing of Mickey Mouse on the outer thigh of one leg. That’s what she commonly wore. I don’t remember the shirts as the pants were so fetching.

 

She was a regular and though she tried, I never saw her leave the bar with anyone. Us young folks watched her with a mix of scorn and admiration. Wasn’t she too old for this shit? Wasn’t it great that she didn’t give a fuck what we thought?

 

The older I get, the more I realize how foolish I was to roll my eyes and share snarky glances with my friends when I saw the lady. If you're 40 and you want to go out wearing Mickey Mouse hotpants and think that’ll pull a stud from the bar some night—power to you.

 

I did other foolish things then too. I could not take it when guys were too nice to me. I guess it was a bit of a creep-factor when it came to some of them—but others were just genuinely nice and fumbling through trying to express an attraction through imprecise words and hormones.

 

I passed up so many princes. Sad to say it’s mostly true—at least in your twenties; nice guys finish last.

 

There was the guy from The Mira who invited me back to his place after a Northern Pikes concert and as a foolish move, I went. Nothing happened. Nice guy.

 

There was my friend from high school who I knew didn’t want to be just friends. I gave him a week of being my boyfriend but ended it when he showed up at my house with flowers. He had seen someone outside working in their garden and commented on how lovely the flowers were and asked if he could have some for his girlfriend—nice guy, they gave him a tremendous bouquet. I kicked him to the curb.

 

Somehow, we’re still friends—which only proves what a nice guy he is. I often wondered how foolish I was to leave these guys in the dust. Where would I be now if I hadn’t? I’m satisfied in this life—but those are untravelled roads that I suspect would have been good trips.

 

And then there was my first long-term relationship. Made some beginner mistakes in that one. Faults on both sides but some great times—both of us foolishly took for granted the good thing that we had until it was no longer good.

 

For many years after I thought, foolishly, that my boyfriends should be a listening post for all my emotional crises—I‘ve learned running, psychologists and massage therapy are the correct vessels for such concerns and stress.

 

And then there was Italy—I accepted a ride from a stranger on an island I did not know, on a road where I’d seen no other pedestrians or vehicles. Foolish but fun; luckily. Giovanni took me all over the island, down the steep hills and shallow stairways, through one small village to another, the crest of a hill overlooking the nude beach, the ruins of an ancient empire, and home to the Villa where I was staying for a few days. We communicated by sign language as neither could speak the other’s language and it was a day the likes of which kicks off romance novels. But that was where it ended, at the beginning.

 

He did invite me, through our limited communication skills, to meet him at the dance club that night, but I didn’t go. I was cautious in all the most foolish ways.

 

As I get older, the opportunities for foolishness have decreased. I’m searching for a few right now. But I’ve mostly passed the baton to my children, who are entering their peak foolish phase.

 

Be foolish, be enthusiastic; I’m here to catch you.

 

 

 

Vacation Anxiety

Think of the long trip home.

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

Where should we be today?

-Elizabeth Bishop

I will soon embark on a vacation the likes of which I have never had before.

 

While it is almost a full four years since I last had a vacation day, let alone week, I have boldly booked myself into a house, for one full week, alone.

 

Such aloneness is not something I have ever experienced before – it’s an experiment that I hope will unleash creativity although it may possibly result in madness.

 

I am not used to being alone. In my house there are kids, pets—outside there are neighbours and a village I have known and that has known me all my life.

 

I have travelled alone a great deal, before I had children, but never lived in such seclusion as this promises to be. Here I shall find no breakfast companions silently sitting at adjacent tables as you might in a guest house or hotel. It’ll just be me.

 

There’ll be no one there when I take a break from my purposeful struggle at the keyboard. No one to say good night to as I shake off the day's work before I go to sleep.

 

I’m sure to be lonely at first, I’ll miss my children, I always do—even as they walk out the door heading for school – I miss them.

 

It may take a day or two of adjustment, settling into what will be a kind of monastic lifestyle except for the provision of kitchen appliances, spare rooms and beds.

 

This will be an adventure, one where nothing much happens, yet keeps you tight with anticipation about what will happen next. How will it end?

 

It is my proposed goal to excommunicate the world while I see what alchemy solitude presents. No news, no social media, no email. What precipitates from an unusual mixture of concentrated time and empty space?

 

My career is sodden with the weight and necessity of the tools of modernity, my mind overheated with the endless input of data.

 

I am afraid of silence- in silence there is nothing to hear but yourself. What will I say, will it be worth saying?

 

Despite my plan to plumb the depths of my mental and creative capacity—some allowances must be made. I plan to take walks, read books—finish War and Peace for the third time, hit the reset button on my attention span which has been greatly diminished by the pitter patter of too many monsoon seasons of information.

 

There never seems to be enough time to think. I try to carve out one hour of the day – no radio, no email, no social media—just me and a hundred more like me, tapped into a collective silent space on our computers where we do our best to think and write big or small things in the London Writers Salon.

 

Sometimes this is difficult; there are distractions—many of them internal. Knowing this foretells the difficulty I may encounter during my vacation. I will need discipline of purpose to fend off the urge to engage with social media, to starve myself of the affirmation of views and likes for whatever it is I create that day. To keep writing beyond my inner critic, beyond the certainty that it’s all a useless pursuit.

 

A week of reflection may be a lot to endure. This will be the strangest vacation I’m likely to ever have. I am both anxious and excited to see what will transpire behind that door and in my head.

 

And I do hope that I can rest—that is something I am not good at. I have a hard time stopping. That may prove to be the biggest challenge on my vacation itinerary. I’ll soon find out. My vacation is only two weeks- and two hours drive away.

Behind the headlines

 

The phone rings

Ignored on the table

 

The house jumps to the rhythm

Of incoming mortar fire

 

The vacant swings are caught

In the squalling blast wave

 

The volleyball net shimmers

With cushions of concrete and glass

 

The hammock billows

With ghost weight

 

Sirens blare warning

To absent residents

Another unanswered call

To the dead and displaced

 

The door hangs moodily on the frame

Like a mother before morning coffee

Head hungover from incessant shelling

 

The child who

drank milk

ate breakfast

and blew out birthday candles

At this table, in this chair, behind that door

Now sits with a blanket, wearing donated clothes

Surrounded by unfamiliar walls and floors

Safe but uncertain their luck will last

I wrote the beginning of this poem at a Writers Room evening hosted by the Mulgrave Road Theatre with guest author Andre Fenton. Revised this morning during LWS Writers' Hour. Grateful for the time and space to get back on track.  

Capital gains

Nothing survives capitalism

Even my consumer driven

Advertising influenced

Teenager

Bemoans this fact

As news spreads

About the sale

Our daily respite

From the COVID

World

Subsumed by the amoeba

Of market forces

 

I cannot blame

Mr. Wardle

Who could refuse

Unexpected millions

But

I do blame

The Times

We live in

Where everything

Must be monetized

Capitalized

Owned

 

Happy New Year

It’s the same

As the old

Exchanging an Ox

For a Tiger

Has done little

To assuage

The machine of greed

That consumes the world

One

word

at

a

time

As it was—once again

When is a negative a positive—two years into the global pandemic, many people know the answer to this question. But it was an answer I had forgotten until my household was ensconced in the floor-pacing, nail biting experience of being in close contact with a case of COVID-19 last week.

We in this house, and in this corner of the world, have been very lucky over the past two years—there have been very few cases in this province of Canada, and even fewer in this area of the province—the eastern tip of the mainland. But that all changed this month and now we are the epicenter of an outbreak covering the entire province.

 

While we were waiting --and eventually breathing a sigh of relief after we received our negative test results – a friend of mine commented that the world was a strange place when a negative was a positive.

 

Upon thinking about this comment, I concluded that personal and cultural memory was fleeting, like the pain of childbirth, we quickly forget about past plagues or perhaps we were young enough, naïve enough or lucky enough not to be touched by them.

 

And by this I am not talking about the 1918 Spanish flu – which is a complete misnomer as it was neither Spanish nor confined to that year --what I am talking about is AIDS, the most recent global pandemic before COVID.

 

When I was 12 years old, my family moved to Vancouver, B.C. It was 1985 and the city, to my memory, was the focal point of the emerging HIV/AIDS pandemic in Canada.

 

Although it might have been odd for a kid of that age to be cognisant of this disease, for me it was part of the household miasma. My mother was a nurse in the city and there was suppertime talk of needle sticks and blood borne pathogens. In 1986 a co-worker and friend of my mother’s died of AIDS.

 

My mother had a few accidental needle sticks; one of which happened while she was tending to a known IV drug user. I remember her waiting for test results to come back and the relief that flooded through our two-bedroom apartment in North Vancouver when the word ‘negative’ was delivered over the phone from the hospital.

 

A decade later I moved to Thailand – a country that was well-known as an HIV/AIDS hotspot due to the thriving sex-trade. And equally well-known for combating the disease with a public health campaign delivering condoms and safe-sex messaging across the kingdom.

 

I lived in Thailand for most of my 20s and with my background and knowledge of HIV/AIDS I was cautious in my approach to sexual encounters but there are always missteps; a few too many drinks, fumbling hands –etc.

 

Inevitably, I found myself at an HIV testing site doing the right thing and freaking out while I waited for the results. Fortunately, the blessing of the negative result was mine.

 

That wasn’t the last time I had an HIV test, but it has been over 15 years since the last time I had one. That's a long time to hold onto the memory of the relief a negative test result can deliver.

 

Since this COVID-19 pandemic became reality – I have, on more than one occasion, compared it to the AIDS pandemic – likening the contact tracing to the sexual partner notifications of that earlier era.

 

Now we’re back to negative thinking in the positive, and at least here in Nova Scotia, being asked to contact those we’ve had social intercourse with to notify them of our disease status.  

 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.