jodyrathgeb

   Most people understand the paradise dream: living in a hammock under the palm trees. But it's a crazy dream, as many learn, because paradise isn't always paradise. And nothing says "not paradise" faster than a good tropical storm or hurricane.

   All of us who crave the dream need to understand that. If you build or buy a house in any storm-alley location (including the U.S. East Coast!), expect a storm sometime.

   Tom and I did our best to minimize the disaster when we began our venture on North Caicos Island. We visited in every season before making a commitment, so that we understood the island's version of the seasons: wind, dry, rain, mosquito. We observed how each storm changed the beach. We listened when the locals talked about weather.

   And so we bought property a bit inland from the sea and hired a local builder who knew what he was up against. When, in the early 90s, we heard about a spectacular drenching rain that required people to use boats to reach Kew, we decided to elevate our house on pillars.

   There have, of course, been tropical storms and hurricanes since Aloe House was built. We've had to repair the roof a couple of times, replace the garage door, toss a couple of pieces of rain-damaged furniture. And now, because of Cristobal gathering himself over the Turks and Caicos to become a hurricane, we have the same sort of flooding we heard about years ago.

   Photos of the flooding show Aloe House in the distance, past impassable waters. (Thank you, LynnRae, for taking the shot.) We don't know yet what damage anyone will find when they get closer.

   I do know this, though: no complaints. In Weather v. Humans, Weather always wins. Even when damage costs a lot, I firmly believe that anyone who builds in a known hurricane path, floodplain, tornado alley or mudslide path should be prepared to just suck it up when disaster happens, because it's never "if" and always "when."

   As the animated Super Chicken said to his sidekick, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!"

   I've been quite good through this Polar Vortex thing, considering that I usually spend this time of year complaining about the cold and the necessity of wearing layers of clothing. As a Weather Wimp, I am at my most vocal in January.

   But I quietly got through the low digits without complaint. I didn't spend all my time under our big fleece blanket ("the bear"), didn't cry and cling to Tom (trying to warm my toes), didn't eat every carbohydrate in the kitchen, didn't commit mass murder. I even took a walk on the coldest day, almost two miles to look at the frozen edge of the James River.

   My secret? Don't live in the moment. The moment is frigid; you don't want to be there.

   Instead, I stayed focused on the past and the future.

   In the past, as I recall, I actually liked winter. As a kid I would get my Flexible Flyer after dinner and spend hours sledding into the night. And I remember one peaceful moment lying on my sled in the driveway, watching the snowflakes illuminated by our garage light. Just hanging out in the cold!

   I was also an ice skater. We'd listen to the reports on WHJB Radio, and when the ice on Roadman's Lake was thick enough, we'd be in that scene, a multigenerational version of a school dance. There'd be music from the 1940s, the scent of hot chocolate bouncing atop layers of cold air, the clomping of skates on wood in the "lodge."

   I even took up skiing for a while, going on bus trips with my high school friends to Seven Springs and being dazzled by the ice-covered trees of Deer Lane, where I practiced my snowplow and learned how to grab a tow rope without falling.

   It's said that too much of anything is bad for you, so maybe that's what happened to my relationship with winter. After a childhood of cold I went to a college where snow arrived Oct. 4 and didn't leave until graduation. I followed that with grad school in Cleveland, with its Lake Effect, then it was back to Pennsylvania for the early years of marriage. And I was shocked to find out that Richmond, Va., isn't really in the South, not when it comes to weather.

   Enough is enough. The current moment is cold. Don't live in the moment.

   Instead, I look forward to the future ... 19 days in the future, when I will be on North Caicos. I will be wearing flip-flops instead of Uggs, I'll have my coffee outside on the upper deck, then I'll take a barefoot walk on the beach. I will be warm, and I'll stay that way for a month.

   So, no, don't tell me to live in the moment. The moment is cold. Unless a cat comes up on my lap and warms me with purring and furriness. Then, OK. But only for the moment.

    My natural instinct for today's blog would have me whining onscreen about colder weather. I could fill pages about the nastiness of sweaters, the unpleasantness of walking into a cold wind, the dreariness and the clumpy lumpiness of everyone dressed in layers. But people tire of whining (so my husband says), and what would that have to do with a writer's website?
    Actually, quite a bit. My annual growls have me looking for simpatico souls, and I'm finding them mostly among the characters I've created.
    I have populated my fiction with folks who have either never known a North American winter or who have escaped them. Dan Joe in "Look Away" lives on Tiger Cay, "a big difference from Chincoteague and its equal lashings from winter winds and his ex-wife." Rebecca in "A Dose of Spirits" leaves the islands to seek an American life, but complains about how cold Richmond gets. Michelle in "Light," upon leaving her Pennsylvania home for the islands, discovers that sunshine, frequent rainbows and ball lightning can chase away the gloom of her past.
    I haven't written a single character who loves snow, seeks a bracing chill or prefers boots to bare feet.
    Obviously, this is a writerly failing. I am always telling people to get out of their comfort zones to sample new foods, new experiences and new lifestyles. I should, too.
    Perhaps if I write myself into the head of someone who revels in this time of year and doesn't have the desire to hibernate, I will better appreciate the warmth of a fireplace, the patterns of frost on the windows, the added pounds of clothing, the itch of dry skin, the zap of static electricity...
    Or maybe not.

    Right now I am waiting for yet another summer rain. They've been coming regularly this week, and all the signs are there. When it comes, I'll close the windows that need closing, make sure each cat has a comfy place to curl, and let myself drift into dreaminess and peace.
    Summer rains have always been special, a short stay against time. People pause and watch them, in an indulgence that a cold rain doesn't get.
    I have many warm-rain memories, from Mom letting us put on swimsuits and run around the yard during a storm (different times, young parents!) to getting drenched with my husband on a beach walk as a tropical low worked itself up to become a hurricane.
    As a kid, I would either walk or sleep when the rain came. I took long walks, kicking along through puddles and dawdling past swelling streams - sometimes worrying my mother into driving around looking for me. Or I would pile the outdoor lounge-chair cushions on our roofed picnic table and curl up with my dog and a blanket to let the patter put me to sleep. (Years later, I reprised that cozy feeling under the house on North Caicos, curled with Kit in our boat.)
    The best way to enjoy a summer rain is to be close to it, almost in it but protected by an overhang, an open shed, an umbrella or a tree with thick foliage. (Yes, I ignore those old admonitions about lightning and trees.) That's where you can experience the ambient mist, the waterfall wonder and the hushing of all other sounds. There's nothing to do but stop, look and listen. Life will go on, but not until the rain lets up.

    Hurricane season, which officially begins on Saturday, has inspired a number of songs, many written by Jimmy Buffett and other Parrot Head favorites. Without even checking my CDs, I can name "Surfin' in a Hurricane," Sunny Jim's "Hurricane Party" and, of course, "Tryin' to Reason With Hurricane Season."
    The songs for "my" hurricane, though - that is, the music that brings back memories from the first one I experienced on North Caicos, Hurricane Irene in 2011 - are a bit different.
    First, there's the 1936 Matty Malneck song, "Goody Goody." Why? As Irene strengthened, a hurricane family gathered in my house: me, my Bahamian friend Aggie on a visit, and neighbor Addison, who thought it might comfort us to have a male around. While the electricity stayed on, we watched old movies. "Mrs. Henderson Presents" from 2005 was on when the power finally went out. "Goody Goody" was one of the last things we heard before the sound of relentless wind took over.
    "So you met someone who
    set you back on your heels,
    goody, goody!"
    In retrospect, it was appropriate, since hurricanes do set you back on your heels.
    We'd expected most of what happened, but not the endurance of the storm. When there was still wind and rain after a full 24 hours, Addison began to sing, "Goodnight Irene." Yup. Perfect, even though I was surprised that he knew the song.
    Then there was the aftermath. Although we, and Aloe House, had come through safely, island life in general was disrupted. And Tom was due to arrive in Provo! His first flight, the day after the storm, was canceled because of the airport closure. The next day was a mishmash of conflicting information and shaky communications. Would he make it? Would I be able to get to Provo to greet his flight? Would I be able to get from the ferry dock to the airport, given the reports we were getting about flooding on Provo? As I kept trying to get online and figure out which local phone service was working, I was getting more and more frustrated. Suddenly Aggie slapped a drink in front of me and began singing Bob Marley's "Every little thing's gonna be all right."
    It was, and the song still resonates as a buffer in a difficult time.
    I'm pretty sure that most people associate major life events with songs. I remember working with a compositor at a newspaper in Pennsylvania who would mist over at the first few notes of Glenn Miller's "In the Mood." It was, for him, both a war song and a courtship song.
    But the association must be organic. Tom and I were both dismayed that for "our" war - the first Gulf, when we were waking at 2 a.m. so Tom could do his grisly-necessary job of making sure that guys on the flight line to Kuwait had made and signed a will - the songs forced upon us were Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" (I wasn't, when this all seemed to be about oil) and "Wind Beneath My Wings" (which is aerodynamically incorrect). So I had no war music. Just the question, "What are you doing here?" when I'd appear at work at 4 a.m., too awake to go back to sleep. Even newspaper folks were kept out of the loop of what was really happening. And I guess that's a song in its own right.
    So. Hurricane season? It's going to happen, no matter how much we worry or prepare. What might be new is what's on the soundtrack.

    It is said that as we get older, we don't change. We just become more of ourselves. The fussbudget gets fussier, the shrew gets more shrewish.
    Funny, I don't remember being a grumpy child. But grumpiness is my tendency now. Maybe it's because there are so many things to be grumpy about. Following in that shallow magazine tendency to make everything a list of 10, here are 10 of them.
    1. Customer service is mostly nonexistent, robotic, overly fake-cheerful or downright rude. Genuine helpfulness is rare.
    2. Traffic. Even those of us who walk more often than drive can grouse about all the idiots on the road. "Hey, Nutcase! Ever hear of a crosswalk?"
    3. Erosion of social skills. What, when someone smiles and says hello to you, is it too much trouble to return the greeting? Or maybe, Miss Nose-in-the-smartphone, do you not realize that this is how real humans interact?
    4. Weather. It's either too hot or too cold. There's too much rain, or too little. When it comes to the weather, we are all farmers.
    5. Technology. To paraphrase Bob Dylan: How many gadgets will it take till we know that too many apps are useless? And how complicated can they get; remember when ONE on-off button operated a TV?
    6. Politics. All that energy that goes into blaming the other side rather than leading!
    7. Celebrities. Comparing the salaries of teachers and football players, or police officers and Vegas headliners, is a sure route to grumpiness.
    8. Slobs. Hello-oh! Do you really expect someone else to pick up your PBR can or your dog's poop?
    9. Volume. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have a conversation in a restaurant? Or to be on hold (another grump) without being blasted?
    10. Deteriorating written standards. Spelling! Punctuation! Usage! Clichés! Overuse of exclamation points!
    It looks as if I have a fine old age as a grumpy old woman ahead of me.

    After the rain and the fog came the snow, and after the snow the sun finally reappeared. I took a walk and discovered a new world of sounds.
    Melting snow dripping from the eaves and roofs of buildings: plikety-plikety-plikety-plikety. Or sometimes slower: plik. plik. plik. plik.
    Brushing snow off car windows: schawuff! schawuff!
    Walking over unmelted salt cystals: schkit, schkit, schkit, schkit.
    A car moving over cobblestones that have gathered tiny pools of melt: Shakoosh! Shakoosh!
    And the water thrown off my Route I-95, far overhead as I cross the plaza in front of Main Street Station, after it has gained the momentum of its long journey and lands on my head: plop. Yeah, that's right. Plop.
    

    Loss and recovery, loss and recovery. It is the rhythm of the weather: tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes. It's what nature does.
    My recent visit to the Turks and Caicos reminded me yet again of this rhythm. Hurricane Sandy didn't "hit" the islands, but her effects were still there in the changing beaches of North Caicos. Hollywood Beach has been scoured, the high-water line pushed back and big amounts of sand missing beneath exposed tree roots. The beach at Hollywood Hill is nearly gone; it's now impossible to pass by without getting wet feet. And all the sand that was there has traveled east, creating a beach where there used to be just rocks in front of the Habersaat and Jacobs homes.
    This is no cause for alarm; it simply is. Through 22 years, Tom and I have watched these beaches change, in turn sandy, rocky, shell-littered, clogged with beach grass, then back to sandy, etc. Change is the only constant when it comes to the seashore.
    These observations convinced us to avoid buying and building on the beachfront. And they made me understand the folly of beach replenishment, of developing barrier islands, of basing an economy on shifting sands, of trying to "own" a beach.
    By all means, fellow humans, enjoy the beach! Lie on and play in the sand, explore the life of the low tide terrace, fish at the edge and launch your rafts and boats. Just don't expect it to be the same, always. Don't put up structures that you can't afford to lose in a storm, and don't complain when sand becomes rock or vice-versa.
    Most people on North Caicos know that the sand that disappears in one storm will be back with the next or the next. A handful of property owners don't get it. One neighbor, I know, will soon be trucking in sand to replenish Hollywood Beach, too impatient to wait for the natural process. I just shake my head and sigh, much as I do for those who rebuild on the Outer Banks or replenish Virginia Beach almost yearly. What a waste of money and effort! What hubris, to think we can force the ocean to our will!
    Loss and recovery: It will happen without us. It is the rhythm of the weather, and of life itself.

    Writing a nonfiction piece, such as a magazine article or newspaper feature, isn't always easy, but the process is straightforward. You do the interview, visit the site, do some research and take notes, and then you gather up all these "construction materials" and build something from them.
    Many think that fiction must be simpler because you just pull the story out of your head, but actually the building process is more complicated because you don't find the construction materials all in one place. Getting ready for a magazine article is like going to Home Depot. Getting ready to write a short story is more like beach combing.
    My current story-in-progress explains the metaphor more fully. It began with a conversation Tom and I had while driving to Pennsylvania for a visit. The day started out foggy, and instead of the sun coming to burn off the fog, the weather just got gloomier. Hurricane Sandy was on its way. We talked about how often there were such gray days in the Western Pa. town where we grew up, and we wondered if the weather had affected our outlooks and attitudes. Did so much depressing weather lead to a tendency toward depression?
    Interesting topic, but no short story ... yet. The conversation merely got me to thinking about the weather in general and extreme weather in particular. I remembered North Caicos nights spent watching lightning storms over the ocean and the island's frequent rainbows. One night I'd even experienced ball lightning, an electrical disturbance similar to St. Elmo's fire. Hmm, said my mind, that would make an interesting scene in a story.
    As our weekend went on, the weather got worse. An event was canceled, and with the Weather Channel predicting dire things for the entire East Coast, we decided to head home early.
    We were on the road again, traveling through valleys near where I once lived in near-poverty just after school. With dark mountains reaching up to dark skies around us, I remembered bits and pieces from those days, wondering when my life was ever going to start yet happy with a small circle of friends. The bars we used to frequent, filled with plaid shirts and hunting gear at odds with the disco music. A friend's mother lying on their sofa, dying of cancer. Hearing about an acquaintance who shot herself in her car, parked in front of her friend's apartment. Everyone knew they'd been more than just friends.
    As Tom and I passed yet another wall of rock, something clicked and I knew I had a character to experience the ball lightning: a native of these towns we were passing, gay, alone, grieving. She began to take life from other pieces in my memory: a friend who'd taken care of her ailing aunt, tending bar, the times I've thought how difficult it must be to be gay and living on North Caicos, my sister still living in our childhood home, the feelings of being completely myself when I'm on the island. Thoughts and feelings that span almost 40 years.
    It's all going into this story. Maybe things will be cut, definitely things will change, but these are my construction materials. No one-stop shopping but a gradual accrual.
    Whenever it's done, someone might ask me how long it took me to write. Would they believe me if my answer was "40 years"?

    Bits and pieces of news and commentary from a writing life, an island life.
    Local Authors Day at Fountain Bookstore, 1312 E. Cary St., Richmond, is this Sunday, Aug. 19, from noon to 5 p.m. The day celebrates books that are published independently and with small presses, and is divided into themes: Paranormal Parade, Inspirational Stories, Strong Women and Richmond: Sun and Shadow. I'm there with Fish-Eye Lens for Strong Women, 3-4 p.m., sharing space with mystery writer PJ Woods. Come on out!
    Finally tired of seeing our language mangled, I launched a new Facebook page, Watch Your S, in the hopes of bringing at least Richmond into a new era where plurals are not formed with apostrophes and possessives get them. I've already posted a couple of examples of both good and bad usage; feel free to join in and post your own.
    It's been almost a year since I lost my hurricane virginity in North Caicos with Hurricane Irene. (Inland experieces, such as Agnes in Pennsylvania and Gaston in Richmond, don't count; that was just heavy petting.) Now that we're in the thick of the season again, I've been keeping an eye on the systems coming off the coast of Africa. You may have noticed that in the U.S. hurricanes don't seem to exist unless they threaten these shores, so for those who would rather watch weather than political ads, I share the National Hurricane Center site: www.nhc.noaa.gov
    For the record, I don't even try to tweet anymore. I actually joined Twitter after I heard it described as a cocktail party where you can listen in or join in the conversations taking place, but then I discovered I'd rather just stand at the bar and get drunk than get involved with people who talk like crazed blends of Hemingway and 15-year-old girls.
    Even as I mute the TV and ignore phone calls to avoid the slimy scramble known as our political process, I nevertheless have a Current Cause: the To The Bottom and Back Bus. This is a perfectly brilliant service that ferries people between Richmond's universities and the clubs of Shockoe Bottom on weekend nights, effectively taking drunk drivers off the roads. (You don't have to be a party animal to ride, though; I caught a ride home from Carytown on a recent Friday night.) But it operates totally on donations, and in the summer especially needs a boost to keep going. So I made an extra donation, and I encourage others to do the same. Visit www.2bnb.org and give a few bucks for safety.
    And speaking of causes, the Turks and Caicos SPCA is planning another spay and neuter clinic at my house on North Caicos Sept. 5-9. This is going to be an especially important one for education in the aftermath of a woman's death after she was attacked by wild dogs on the island. If you live there or will be visiting, please talk up the importance of responsible dog ownership to keep the stray population in check. Thanks.