This storm too shall pass

Photo credit: @Mahkeo via Unsplash

This morning as I rummage for my warm socks and shuffle through the living room to close the cracked windows, I already know something is off. I check the messages that have piled up overnight on my phone, and sure enough: cancelled plans, closings paths, tasks I postponed now getting urgent.

The island is completely isolated today. The wind has built overnight. No ferries arriving or leaving. The drawbridges are up, the rain pounding on my windows, the trees jerked and pulled in all directions. It is weirdly light, though, not the dark grey purple that usually comes with a storm. This gives me hope.

I think of my early twenties, when my response to bad news usually was to continue as if nothing had changed. Drawbridges up, feelings ignored. I can’t do that anymore. Perhaps more to the point, I won’t. Nothing is gained by pretending all is well when it isn’t. And also: feeling into frustration and disappointment allows me to feel all the rest too. Quiet. Certainty. Purpose. This is not all or nothing. It rarely is. My life flows towards wherever it needs to go. Sometimes it hits a rock and must flow around it. Sometimes it takes an unplanned route to the sea. Either way, I am present. Either way, I am alive.

The storm is raging. Still, I make coffee. Still, my mother helps me build the fire for warmth. This is where we are right now. A favorite poem by Galway Kinnell says it well. “Distrust everything if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven't they carried you everywhere, up to now?”

This afternoon, tomorrow, next week, things will have shifted. I don’t even have to move, and they shift. We are all flow, all the time.