Stormy Night

I used to have a blog for my writing called Typewad. Hopefully I'll get it working again soon, but til then I'll post my little story here. It doesn't seem at first to be about cancer, but everything kind of is effected by the big C now, so you decide.

I am of the people who lived in the lands of great and dangerous winds. Only those who could survive a 70 mph wind were able to reproduce. My genetic code carries their experience.
Some of you are of the people who lived in the lands of mild and comforting winds, never having to be afraid that something as wonderful as a soft breeze might suddenly act like it is going to kill you.
So I understand, if it feels to you like my fears are unreasonable.

But I'm not stupid and I know that it's possible that the storm coming towards my house with 70 mph winds might hold together and arrive destructively. It HAS happened before. Just not right here where we live, but our neighbor had a giant tree knocked over in a storm like this.

I ask myself if our house can withstand 70 mph winds, and wonder what kind of damage is possible. I know it's reasonable to be scared and might be dangerous, but we just have to hope it doesn't hit us. I also know it's okay to take reasonable precautions in dangerous situations.


So I take my blanket and sit in the kitchen away from the big windows facing the direction the winds will come from. And I hope they don't come cause it would make a mess. And I know this because when I was 5 a bad storm blew out the picture glass window of our living room. And I can still see it in slow motion. And I remember before that being in the yard with my Mom trying to bring the laundry in before the rain hit. And the wind lifted her 1962 dress up over her head like I'd never seen. And I didn't understand how we would be safe in the basement because I thought a tornado was like a dragon and just come down the stairs. I waited, sure it would kill me. Til my now dead brother David looked through the little window and said our roof just blew off, and we didn't go back up til the sirens stopped. Dragon warning over, I thought.

A lot of life is that way. We have to trust that things will be okay because we can't live in bunkers even though it would be safer, but that's not really living. I also know I'm capable of living with fear, even though it is uncomfortable.

So, I will stay up late to check the radar instead of going to sleep now, because I am of the people that get in the closet when a 70mph wind hits a trailer. I am of the people of the land of dangerous winds.

But I do love how when the storm is passed, and the fear is gone, the world feels so intensely real and beautiful. The dangers of life make it more meaningful. I embrace that truth with gratitude, tonight.

Fear fuels beauty and truth if we let it.

Posted with Blogsy