~ From Jill

Sunday:

Preparing for hurricanes has become like preparing for an out-of-town guest. I scrub and sweep, change the linens, buy scented candles and potpourri.

Monday:

The hurricane: the wind shrieks and branches scrape at the roof. The doors and windows clatter. During the eye, the boys run outside in swimsuits, there are trees down, lights, awnings and pieces of roof. For the second half of the storm, we watch out our side window; the lake is rolling with waves, the air full of mist, debris flying everywhere. Things seen in the lake: cooler, couch, cushions, lawn chairs, metal roof.

When it’s all over neighbors converge outside, and help each other take limbs off of rooftops and branches from lawns. There is a pile of coconuts in the yard next to us, and we return a baby squirrel to its mother, unharmed.

Tuesday:

I take a bike ride with a neighbor to Winn-Dixie, and buy two Milky Ways and bottled waters for us while she watches our bikes, (feeling about ten years old). Drive past dangling power lines, uprooted trees, and shattered glass from traffic lights. See a business with its side windows blown in; office chairs and stacks of copy paper are being pulled outside to dry.

Wednesday:

Steve goes back to work: home with kids. The neighbor kids come out to play; unfortunately, their idea of play is to float on a metal rooftop in the lake, using sticks as oars. Steve makes our boys promise not to do this, then as soon as he is gone I find them in the middle of the lake. Their response, “He told us not to ride on it. We stepped on it, and it took off!”

That night we notice Brandon’s legs are bitten up by fire ants. Thursday:

I hear something through our window, and look outside. It’s our next-door neighbor, leaning against the screen, asking if I have any idea when the phones will be working again. I don’t, and something about her manner, and the way she is talking starts to really bother me.

The boys start to get stir-crazy, so I drive over to a friend’s house. She and I talk while our kids roast mini-marshmallows with candles, make tiny smores, and eat them for dinner. I can’t believe how smoothly her household is running with no electricity; cooking and cleaning and washing of clothes all seem completely under control.

We find an open grocery store, and in a spaced out mood I spend $90. On groceries we don’t need: tins of Swiss mocha, crackers, slim Jim’s for the boys, boxes of Smore and Cookie Dough Pop tarts, and bug cream that Brandon promptly washes off exclaiming that it’s “too sticky.”

My friend calls late to say she has power back. I am so happy for her, and jealous. I fall asleep with the ceiling fans switched on, imagining being woken by cool breezes. It doesn’t happen.

Saturday:

My friend comes by in the morning to pick up my oldest for a day of play, and insists on taking my laundry to wash. It’s like a game; I give her one small pile, and she says, “Are you sure you don’t have more?” and I give her another batch, until finally both kids are dragging bags of laundry behind them, and she has an overflowing basket. It occurs to me that I should be embarrassed, giving her our dirty clothing, but really, who has time for this kind of thinking?

Steve realizes our roof has a leak, and it’s scheduled to rain tomorrow. While he is fixing it, the boys fly a kite, and lose it in the branches of our front tree. Steve goes for the Father of the Year award and hits the kite out of the tree with a pole-saw, then chases it down the street. When he catches it, a truck speeds by, the driver doesn’t see that its string is tangled up in his wheel, and pulls the kite, and string around Steve’s legs. Steve returns home with crumpled kite in hand and rope burn on the backs of his knees. Now we need Neosporin and bug cream.

Around this time, I decide one of the kids has heat exhaustion, and want to give him a bath but he refuses to get in the cold water. I make four kettles of hot water on the camp stove before Steve goes out and turns on the generator. He uses 3-1/2 gallons of gas to generate enough heat for two baths and one shower. It is a huge thrill.

Sunday:

I keep wondering when the power will come back on, obsessing about it. I ask the neighbors if they’ve heard anything new, I call and ask my mother in CA if she has heard anything new. I try to imagine not caring about having power, that this is all fun, (and of course it has been fun in many ways.. cold showers aside).

Steve makes chicken and pineapple shish-ka-bobs for dinner and corn on the cob. I peek over at our neighbor’s Florida room, which is now an outdoor sitting area, and see that the same barrage of old newspaper, plants, cushions, and palm fronds are still inside. She is sitting in her nightgown, and I suddenly decide to walk over and say hi, then invite myself in and grab a broom. She sits down on one of the cushions and begins to thank God, as I sweep and attack the debris. She’s a fan of TV evangelists, so this is probably not unusual, but I start to feel larger than myself, focused and powerful, as I pick up soggy newspaper and magazines with my hands to stuff them in the garbage bag. I can’t believe how good it feels to be allowed to help someone.

I tell her I am going to bring her dinner, run home, a get a plate of food. When I get to her front door, she hugs me and starts to cry. I think it’s because of the food in my hands, but then notice how brightly her kitchen stove is gleaming. You would think I made it up to illustrate a point, about how neighbors need each other, or how good it is to get outside yourself, even if it’s just long enough to sweep a floor, but it really happened: at that very moment, the lights came on.