Friction

After 102 degree heat yesterday, a front blew through.  I heard a loud snap through my hermetically sealed heatproof windows and doors.  I went out back to take a look and found it was gusty like Kansas.  A  perfectly live branch from our ash tree just snapped and was dangling precariously from the power lines.  I'm sure the summer drought makes branches more brittle, thus more vulnerable.  Patio furniture was being tossed around like little leaves in the grass.  Before I could take down the umbrella, a gale-like gust of wind sent the whole table sailing.  When it landed, the glass tabletop was shattered in what seemed like a million shards across the lawn.  I just stood looking at the mess sort of paralyzed.  The only thought running through my mind was how it only takes a random instant for havoc to be wreaked.  It's a realization that makes me really feel just how small we are.

Then I snapped to it, put on gloves, grabbed a garbage can and started to pick up the larger pieces of debris.  With every piece I discarded, those left only seemed to multiply.  As I sifted through the grass, I was thinking about how this is nothing compared to what some people are facing.  People I love. Nothing.  Nil.  Nada.  In that moment, the smashed to smithereens tabletop was the trope for life.  It was an unsettling allusion to just how fragile it is. The million little pieces were blunt evidence of life's frailty...this quickness to crack and then shatter proof of each day's delicacy.  Uncanny simply because the twiggy, tenuous march in and through each day has been weighing heavily on me.  Mother Nature's timing certainly got my attention. 

Coach and I got much of the glass gathered and the electric company came to untangle the branch.  We never even lost power, and forgive me for seizing on this opportunity...but I still felt powerless. And I think that's just the point.  I am powerless.  We are powerless.  All of us without power on so many levels.     

Yet there was some relief.  There was a palpable reprieve from the heat.  The temperatures dropped 25 degrees in a matter of minutes.  There was a load off in declaring we would head out for pizza at my favorite parlor, which is really a joint.  An extra large with extra cheese.  We drove home along memory lane with the windows open.  Miss Bit and I curled up together to look at old pictures before bed...pictures of her when she was 2 and 3 and 4.  I was so exhausted that I slept like a baby.

This morning it's sunny and it's thundering.  This weather paradox is another illusory metaphor for my mood.  I want to see good and live hope, but there's a rumble of fear I just cannot quiet.