Storm-gasm Swells, Consciousness Quells

There is a path forward in all times of change

Tuesday I recorded this video on Conscious Curation, a key concept within the KindEdge.com process to drive big life change in small steps. This page was written Wednesday and posted Thursday. Network issues delayed the video upload, so there may be bits of incongruity with references to “today” being either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Please pardon this mess.

Earlier this week I also posted a blog and video about the big picture of things going on right now, from my home being flooded, to the exodus from St Petersburg to prepare for the next big hurricane. Every person in my area is managing stress levels that are high due to the last hurricane, but are ever increasing thanks to the storm-gasm generated by the firehose of storm news and data that is hitting us all.

In order to continue my purpose-driven path of producing blogs to help others achieve big life change in small bite-sized steps, I’ve switched to videos because I can only write so much during this storm. My hands are busy cleaning, or these days, caring for my dog at a hotel and more. So my introverted self has switched from writing to the extroverted stance of video blogging. The tough part is that here in the hotel the video uploads are slow and I don’t want to use my Solis backup global wifi device for video uploads as I want to save it for when the hotel power dies. Thusly, when I push this Tuesday video out, it will likely be Wednesday afternoon or later. But I’m just not giving up on my purpose and on doing what matters before I die. So slow is better than stopping altogether.

Here is the Tuesday video I recorded to explain one of the many life hacks that help buoy progress when one is working to achieve big life change.

 

As I’m managing through a second hurricane, I turned my KindEdge tools on myself. I canceled a 3pm call because my mind is busy on its own big job right now. My working memory is doing 24-7 problem solving and predictive scanning. I could pretend it’s business as usual but I’ve learned through experience that toughing it out to achieve normal productivity yields a lossy battery in the long run. I’ve worked over the past decade to take total ownership and accountability to simply feel, and act on those feelings, so that I can allocate the energy needed to dance upon shifting plate tectonics without becoming drained. Jogging, yoga, ballet, weight training and moderate consumption of wine all help. In these times, I need to let my mind run as it does important things. Be this state PTSD- or Pre-TSD-based, it’s in our DNA because it works. Its part of surviving rapid change. There is a motor we need to let run in the background; it’s built to keep us safe. So I am happy to protect my busy brain from too many exogenous demands. It’s busy doing good work.

Almost two weeks since Hurricane Helene flooded my home, I’m now in lock down at a hotel in Orlando watching the news of Hurricane Milton’s approach to the shores of the gulf coast. I moved my car to a high but enclosed spot in a parking garage this morning. I have officially done all that I can. Every text I receive from local friends makes the bizarre nature of this potential total wipe-out more vivid.

One friend moved her loved one’s ashes to her second car and then drove it to a an upper level parking spot in the Tampa airport parking garage. That critical task was done amidst all the other tasks she was performing to prepare her home and items, pack all travel items, coordinate with her college son whose university was closing down, and so one. Someone else in St. Petersburg posted in a group discussion that she’d drive into St. Petersburg from north Florida on Tuesday in order to pick up friends and drive them out of town. However, upon arriving, every gas station in St. Petersburg was out of gas. This is a truth I’ve experienced in the past. I call it the “people mover” effect. Even without a storm, the effect of announcing a storm to many humans drives all those humans into a survival mode. They fill every car to the maximum and they fill containers with gas as backup for cars and generators. In addition, trucks stop driving in and gas station staff need to care for themselves. In Covid we saw toilet paper disappear. In Hurricanes it’s water, food, and gasoline. So stayers are not just weathering a storm, they are weathering the mass hysteria that comes with it. And it’s not without cause; it’s a logical human action to prepare for danger. When evacuating, one must do it early in order to get a hotel, and to have the gasoline needed to get there. Time is of the essence to stay safe.

When I was doing final prep, at 4:00 a.m. on Monday morning, having check myself (and my dog) out of the Homewood Suites, I scanned all within my flooded home and I fit what I could into my car. I also placed any other important items or documents as high as I could get them. It is against logic to look at something that sits waist high and envision it getting swept away in deeper waters. I scrambled to elevate my most cherished items above my head; the effort, if crazy, helped me drive away knowing I’d done all that I could do. It seems like silly fiction, especially in a home like mine that has never flooded in all of its history.

I prepared to leave my home, not knowing if it’d be there upon my return. I thought through my to-do list, took a breath, and locked the front door for the final time. I turned around, shining my iPhone light, and saw before me a not-shy frog. Frogs have been a recurring theme in my hero’s journey as they have visited me in bizarre places at key transformative moments. They seem to be there to speak for my intuition, and for the thing that my gut knows needs to be done. My story of “Three Frogs” is scribbled on papers that reside within a plastic storage bin that currently sits on the highest shelf I could find in my home. I will share the story of Three Frogs in the future as part of my Adventures of Hannelore Watersmith series. It don’t consider their appearances mystical magic, but it’s hard to explain these events without thinking there might be some intervention from a mystical power. The strange appearance of each frog simply pushed me out of my normal reactive way of thinking, and I sort of let them remind me “You’re right, frog. You’re calling me out on my BS. I’m allowing things around me to mis-use my life because I keep being so damned useful. And you are right. I’ve got important things to do before I die. And if I don’t push back now, and if I don’t master being difficult, disruptive and driven, I’ll die with my gifts still wrapped in their packages. This is a moment of change. I will answer this hero’s call. Things will be different. Thanks for reminding me of the good deep inside me that I can trust more than anything else in this world.”

A few years back I purchased a pendant which shows the image of a girl sitting, perhaps conversing, with a frog. If that pendant is salvageable when I get home–if you remind me–I’ll post a photo of it here.

So as I left my already flooded home Monday, and turned to see this frog, I though “Ah, yes, of course. You are right. You, frog, are here to remind me: this is another turn. And another gift. And if I own this fiercely I will find these changes are opportunities to live even more ‘out.’ The door I’ve just shut,may disappear with the water and wind, but anything important in my life is within me.” With that, I believe this fourth frog gave me a wink and a nod as his way of letting me know I was on the right track.

Hurricane Playlist

On a lighter note, ironic songs keep popping up. Perhaps we need to just embrace this and compile a playlist for this hurricane. A friend in the Sarasota/Bradenton area said she was getting final items in the grocery store and realized they were playing:

The Tide is High by Blondie. Ugh.

Then I saw news reports that were saying that back in my home towne, St. Petersburg, they are alerting any stayers to watch our for falling cranes. Our world was not built for the

winds that will come with Hurricane Milton. It was not imagined that the many cranes that currently sit atop high rises under construction would be subjected to such extreme winds. Thusly, there is no plan for those items. Their fates is now left to the will of the wind. So humans below are being notified to avoid being crushed by raining cranes. Upon envisioning such madness, my mind leaps to something silly and impractical, the song:

It’s Raining Men, Hallelujah by the Weather Girls (My mind hums “it’s raining cranes”)

Other tunes that have stuck with me include:

I Got Friends in Low Places, the Garth Brooks anthem, as everyone is talking about their elevation and the elevation of any place to which they might evacuate

Should I Stay or Should I Go by the Clash as Facebook is filled with the undecided who are still back in St Petersburg, asking the internet what they should do (go, my friends, go!)

Another Day in Paradise by Phil Collins, which has a maudlin tone. Yet I don’t feel maudlin is the current running through each of our hearts here. There are many tough emotions, but the fallen victim never seems to fit the spirit of my community.

And here is a tune that came to me at 6am, Thursday, as I awaited sunrise and hopefully news from any stayers near my home.

Morning has Broken by Cat Stevens

I evacuated to a hotel in Orlando for the second hurricane. Wind last night sounded light a freight train. My room was fine and I’d already moved my car to a high but protected floor in a parking garage the day prior. However, the rooms on the opposite side of the hotel all took in water. The cross section of searing winds and ample water seem to find the spots

where any two molecules can be split and the water gets in. Tomorrow I will leave Orlando and return to St. Petersburg. Currently there is a stay-away request as there is little electricity, no potable water, spotty sewage, no gasoline, and dangerous debris in roads. However, our city works fast and I feel by tomorrow night my dog and I will be ok in the hotel I booked. I will first tend to my home. Neighbors have shared photos. Every yard is still covered in mounds of flooded, rotting, demolished household materials removed after the first hurricane-tsunami. Many neighbors are returning to homes where the roof and ceiling have dropped their wet mucky matter onto the family room floor, re-flooding and ruining anything and everything that remained in the domicile or had been safely stored in their attics. Ceiling fixtures obviously crash on the floor right along with the ceiling. So I’m returning to a hillbilly sort of world that brings to mind this song:

The Beverly Hillbillies

You may think of more songs that are fitting. Humor is acceptable even in tough times. My siblings and I deeply loved our father and we were beyond distraught when he died many years ago. And yet, in planning his funeral, one of my siblings chirped “Well, it IS January in Chicago; with 20-degree-below-zero temperatures, there’s no rush; he’ll keep.” You see, even in the face of horrors, the truth can be a little funny. Even if only a little.

Another lighter aspect of these pre- and mid-storm days here in Orlando are that I’m able to actually sit and log in to my PC. Events like this become all-consuming hands-on detailed projects. I am saving and uploading documents, data and receipts, making insurance lists, responding to myriad requests etc. Staying in one hotel for a contiguous four nights with full power and WIFI is a joyful pleasure. Since the day Helene flooded my home, I’ve been on the move from hotel to hotel, shuffling my dog about, living out of my car, and spending most days at my flooded home where I’ve worked to the degree that I wore my fingernails down to nubs. I need to be there to meet with critical contractors. You can’t prioritize your own agenda until the electrical safety contractors shows up to evaluate your salt-water-soaked electrical system. It is a hurry up and wait mode because thousands of other homes are also in need of many types of skilled workers to put their homes back together. I might wait all day, while working and cleaning, only to receive a call at 7pm alerting me that a given contractor will not be coming and will have to try again the next day. Nightly I either return to a hotel and begin making calls to book the next night, or I transfer to a new hotel and lug my items into a room for a one-to-two night stay depending on what I was able to negotiate. Friends whose homes weren’t hit have offered to have me stay, but I have my own needs, as does my dog. And I need a better view of the long game before I settle into any such arrangements.

So for now I’m enjoying having the same outlets each day in which I can leave my chargers. Easy peasey lemon squeezy. With a hurricane ahead, everyone in the lobby is chatting away and petting each others’ dogs, the heartwarming hum of humanity. It’s all good.

In addition, kind, sneaky friends from up north sent a care package to my hotel. Initially I felt that uncomfortable twinge of being a charity case. I’ve worked hard over the years to grow my skills in showing grace when receiving such gifts, so I’m awkwardly testing out those skills here and now. I’m grateful for the kindness and thoughtfulness everyone has shown.

Just me and my dog, waiting out the storm. Happy as a clam at high tide and grateful as all get-out. My decisions today are simple: safety. When I return home there will be another set of one-day-at-a-time decisions. Until then, I will enjoy the reprieve that comes with this storm-imposed distance from the demands of my flooded home. Onward ho. She who dances last wins. Just keep dancing…

@MarySueIRL

Post Script: Hurricane Milton left St Pete in bad shape. From downed power lines, to halted water and sewage, to no gas available from St Petersburg to Orlando and beyond, it’s pretty third world. We’re told no to come back for now. My neighborhood said many windows a broken, lanai enclosures are gone, roofs have lost tiles, and any cars left there have been ravaged. So it will be some time before a new normal is achieved. All. Is. Well.

via GIPHY

WAYS TO HELP ME:

I often get asked how folks can help. Here are several ways.

• Take a look at KindEdge.com and sign up for my mailing list.
• Follow KindEge.com in social media channels.
• Forward KindEdge.com to others by posting it (or sharing this blog) in your social media pages or share it with friends.
• Take a look at the https://kindedge.com/totems/ page and see if there is anything that inspires you to make a purchase. “Totems” are objects that carry meaning in order to bring your intentions toward change into daily life. You can also find many of these items on Amazon.com if you search KindEdge.
• And if you can’t handle more stuff (I’m living out of a car, I get it) you can make a donation here: https://kindedge.com/product/donate-to-kindedge/ … despite this hardship, I want to continue this passion project which is to document the entire methodology I created for myself to drive big life change in small, achievable, bite-sized steps that bring the life that you imagine out of your head and into real life.

Sending you hugs and love. Thanks for joining me here. @MarySueIRL