Hurricane days feel like lost days.

I look at my calendar and feel like crossing out this whole week. After I crossed out all of last week, too, I feel exhausted. Maybe it’s because when I was in school, hurricanes that cancelled class added days onto the end of the school year.

Can I add these days onto the end of my life?

how many days will I get, anyway?

like

I’m considered a “quarter-lifer” which I find comical because in the Anthropocene, it’s so clear to me why humans would just choose 100 as the round and perfect number everyone will live to see… the ages around 25 are “the quarter-life” because we are all obviously entitled to 100 years. And it’s, “what a shame she died so young,” if someone passes away before they have, like, 70 years on their life but like,

who gets to decide?

who spun the wheel and landed on 100 as the goal ? as the end of the road ?

I am supposed to celebrate my birthday this week.

I am supposed to celebrate this week.

this week that I have crossed off in my calendar. the week that I was supposed to do the things that last week I was meant to do but had to move to this week — I now must push those things to next week and hope that another storm doesn’t steal that time and those tasks from me, too.

who is to say it won’t happen?

I haven’t been out to the beaches. I haven’t brought myself to see all the devastation from the last storm. My home is under attack and I get this feeling that I shouldn’t know, so readily, how to soothe myself. I shouldn’t know, intellectually, that I must and breathe well and hydrate well to free up the space for my nervous system to handle the real threat of this storm. I shouldn’t be this accustomed to handling panic.

Today is Monday and the atmosphere in town is reminiscent of Covid lockdown — the collective anxiety, the scarcity mindset and empty grocery shelves and dry gas stations, the worry for my family, the emotional weight, the guilt of undeniable privilege, the nagging pain in the fronts of my hips.

Tomorrow is Tuesday and the storm will have surely changed in some way between now and then but everyone wants to say they know what to expect and even what to hope for. Things are supposed to get bad Wednesday. Storm surge is supposed to double what we saw two weeks ago and winds are supposed to reach gusts of 120 mph. When I lose power all of the chocolate-covered dates in my fridge are sure to melt and I’m going to have to find something to do with the cauliflower in my freezer.

Thursday I am supposed to turn 24 years-old. I am supposed to be a new age.

Friday the sun is supposed to shine.

It’s 9:47 AM and these next three days will feel remarkably long.

With nothing purposeful to do.

Somewhere along the way I started believing that there was a hierarchy to a conscious existence:

having

doing

being

in that order, I evolve to a higher state of being by placing value on how I am, not what I have or what I do.

When faced with the threat of material destruction, I find it difficult to separate my sense of self from what I have in my apartment. My new old couch that has been under me since 7-years-old and my framed artwork that just made the trip from Tallahassee, south toward the storm.

When faced with the threat of boredom, I find it difficult to separate my sense of self from the office work I have just begun to do. the marketing and the selling and the story-telling.

Is there anything I can do that may ever actually matter?

as the weather woman drones on, I can’t help but wonder about truth. about how there is

what is projected

and

what happens

and how we can never know

and how we all pretend to know because we want so desperately to know

and how I just want the storm to happen already so that I can stop wondering about what might happen, so that I can stop thinking that each of these projections are maybe the truth. Because for as long as I have been alive in Florida, hurricane season has been a cascade of projections, one of which may be true but 101 of which will certainly not be true.

I’m also going to insert here the coldest take of all time:

access to clear and concise disaster prep information should hardly be rare, should not be laced with paralyzing phrases like,

definitely

devastating

life-threatening

and I’m not sure there is anyone to blame for the lack of access to clear and concise disaster prep information

It is fascinating, though, the fascination of the abomination at work here and now

it just can’t be normal, this feeling of helplessness so often

the news is just killing and hostages and hurricanes

Is there a boundary where awareness turns to information-overload?

Do I have a responsibility to know about all of the terrible things?

to whom do I owe this responsibility?

I haven’t been able to cry lately. But I can feel something unlocking as it is meant to, I think.

This morning, just before 6am, more than 1 hour before the sun is rising these days, the neighbor’s rooster started doodling. I chuckled and rolled over, my alarm not set to ring until 6:30 and the sun surely not making an appearance today, silly rooster. He continued on for longer than usual, I thought, but I went on with my morning. After pranayama, after meditation, before sun salutations (knowing I would see no sun, silly me), I slipped into my Birkenstocks to brave the cloudy outside and retrieve my yoga mat from the car. I opened my door and a flash of black feathers startled me backwards into my apartment’s hallway. I crept forward to peer around the pillar and identify the creature; I found that the neighbor’s rooster had somehow made its way over the wall, beckoning the morning from just outside my window, just some feet closer to me than usual, one less wall between us.

I laughed as the property manager, Jaime, scooted in and gestured toward the bird with his head so as to say,

“how good is this!”

our conversations usually a mix of smiles, nods, broken Spanish and broken English.

I found my mat in the trunk of my car after a brief conversation with Jaime, the rooster having found some hiding place around the corner of my unit, between his house and mine. As I started toward my door, the animal ran from stage right to stage left, chased by Jaime, a treasured scene in the tragic comedy that is this week, my birth week.

safety to your loved ones, Alex. That is real and true.

xx

Until You Know Better

Fill the Bathtub with Water, I guess