Gustav...Post 4 - The forced retreat

When it was all over, I just knew. I knew that it had been bad enough (without seeing or hearing any reports) that we would not be going anywhere the next day.

I made coffee in our antique French drip pot (which probably isn't an antique since we use it every day). Then I heated up some of the milk that was bound to go bad and made au lait in a left over thermal carafe someone had left at our house. I dunno - when I have nothing to do...no direction, no plans...I always end up in the kitchen thinking of how we're going to get fed over the course of the day. The morning of the hurricane, Shelly had gotten up and fixed coffee and cinnamon rolls prior to the electricity going out for good. Tuesday morning, I just made coffee and we sat and looked at the wreckage; trees either downed or broken in half we had not noticed the previous evening and we spent some time worrying about the fence line on the left of our property, wondering if the cows would pay heed to a single electric line that no longer had current.

I vaguely remember speaking to people who called to find out how we were, to tell us how they were, etc. My sister called to say a transformer had fallen on their trailer roof (above her bedroom) and the impending tears could be heard clearly. Everyone I knew was safe, everyone was okay, but apparently the devastation was going to be more than we imagined sitting in our secluded section of the world with the Mississippi River levee on one side and cow pastures on the other 3. We heard 'through the grapevine' that Shelly's sister up the road from us had a tree on their house and two trees pinned against one another on the carport. One tree had flattened the car of some evacuees from Metairie staying with them.

Shelly went out on the porch Tuesday and began sweeping up the "leaf confetti". There was a leaf confetti everywhere - plastered to the cars, canoe, house, everywhere. Eventually Shelly just cleaned (with extra water and all) the porch because once you clean one little corner, well...

I was inside listless. There was no point to doing anything. I got out books I am supposed to be reading/studying for my A.C.E. Certification. When I couldn't concentrate on that I took out my 'Breathing' book. When I couldn't concentrate on that I took out projects. Making an overcoat out of my left-over 'No New Casino' signs...that one got started and not finished. Then I just decided to read. 'Pleasure' reading I believe it's called. I have not just read for the heck of it in over a year since the final H.P. book came out. It felt like time. Shelly was hard on the task of straightening out the outside world when it began to rain again.

We were unaware at the time that Gustav hadn't broken up but had stayed in tact as a tropical storm, then depression, and was hanging out over the North/Central part of Louisiana. So, we got out the mini-disc recorder and waited for the rain, thunder and lightning that had not been prevalent for the storm the day before. We were not disappointed. It stormed like no man's business and threatened to flood our yard even worse than the hurricane winds and rains had.

I kept reading. Shelly will tell you I ignored him, and there is most likely a lot of validity to that statement. I needed distraction and Shelly was still here on this plane of reality with me...the characters in M.Z.B.'s book were not. At any rate, it did stop raining later in the afternoon and Shelly resumed his clean up. I did think of asking if he wanted help, but instead I just continued to read. I kept right on reading until Shelly was on the porch side of the house turning limbs into firewood; at which point, I moved my papazan onto the porch because it was so nice outside, but I did keep reading.

There was a bit of tension in that Shelly wanted help in cleaning, but wasn't saying anything, and I still kept reading. For a study in this bizarre behaviour, I encourage my readers to meet my family - it will become amazingly clear where I get this attitude, but baffling as to how a group of people can actually live, function and maintain relationships like this.

Needless to say, the day went along, I heated up rice and blackbean soup from the previous day. We are hardened campers and own a single burner Coleman propane stove, which has saved my butt more times than I can count. At any rate, I had made the soup and rice the day before and there was only a small amount of soup left, so really, we had 'rice with black bean soup flavoring'. That was a nice distraction/break and afterwards I pulled out my oil pastels, which I haven't done in better than 15 years and started coloring. I just needed to be creative...anything, but cleaning up.

Later I got out and did help Shelly drag some of the bigger pieces around so that he could just hack away with the axe. Not a wood chopping ax mind you - we don't own any of those. He was using his bearded viking axe...meant for viking...you know. That night, Shelly lit the fire pit up and I got to hang out on the porch coloring into the night.

It wasn't until much later - perhaps another day or two that I realized I had been put into a kind of 'forced retreat'. I've been on a vision quest and several week/two week long retreats, but I've always known I was going. This was like, "Whoa, here ya go, insta-retreat, yup - figure out quick how to spend it cause it'll be gone in a flash." And I did wake up Wednesday morning bright and early to call anyone from my office, but no one answered and when the office answering machines didn't even pick up I knew we didn't have power.

At any rate - I had a whole week...in which I had little or no connection to the outside world. I couldn't even check my email from Shelly's Blackberry! I can't say it's been nice to spend the last 8 days of my life without electricity, but it does seem to put the world into perspective; the things that are important, the things we waste our time with/on and the people we are with from day to day.