Eyes Open to the Storm


The storm arrived on Thursday night and it was a doozy.

We had been sufficiently warned and that was good. There was a bit of a worry that a little of the ‘Boy who Cried Wolf’ syndrome might slip into the equation. There had been storm warnings aplenty upon previous occasions and the storms had, thankfully, been less than feared. But no. There was something portentous about this storm. It was big, it was on its way, and it was no joke.

And so it transpired/turned out/happened. There isn’t a house on my street that hasn’t been impacted by that storm. Rooftiles are off, fences are blown over, power is cut, cats have upset tummies… and that’s just my own place. But all in all, it’s not too bad. No mortal damage was done to the homestead and that is a good and a lucky thing.

But I don’t really want to write about the coming of the storm or the aftermath of the storm, even though I have clearly already done both of these things. What I actually want to mention briefly is the time that passed during the storm. Right in the thick of it. Let’s say 3.00am until 8.00am when, even though the storm continued unabated, the dawn brought at least a little visual relief.

What do I want to say about it? Well, I can pretty much do it in three words if you like. I may expand on them afterward, you know how I tend to go on. But three words, yes, here goes.

I didn’t sleep.

The wind woke me at about three and then the power went, so it was hard to know the time. All I knew was that I lay awake for most of the remaining hours of the night. I vigilantly listened to the wind blow hard, to random things fly past the window, to rain and hail clicking and clacking on the pane. I imagine I could have engineered some kind of a sleep. I could have put my earphones in and played some white noise or I could have maybe put two pillows over my head and hid beneath there. But I didn’t.

I think I felt a duty to stay awake. Strange I know. I felt that my witnessing the storm unfold was somehow helping to keep it under control. That even though there was nothing meaningful I could really do against the force of the gale; I could somehow do something just by remaining awake and listening.

So, I did.

And the next day I was tired and ineffectual. Worn out and a bit deflated. If I had slept, I would have been better equipped for the day after, and the storm would still have done what the storm was always going to do. Obvious, really.

Except perhaps it’s not so patently obvious. Supposing, in my wakefulness in the dark, something bad had occurred. Suppose a tree had fallen on the house or someone’s errant shed had come crashing through the window. At least I would be partly awake in order to respond more quickly and effectively than if I had been roused from deep sleep. Perhaps I could have done a little more good than if I had chosen to be totally asleep on the watch.

I’m sorry to be obvious but it’s hard not to draw comparisons with other aspects of life from the past week. A storm is clearly brewing and perhaps it’s fair to say that it has now fully arrived. Do I pull the blanket over my head, as I am so tempted to do? Ignore the clamour and flying debris and save my resources for a time when the storm has passed over and some work will need to be done. Or do I remain vigilant to all the junk that is flying around, in the hope that my vigilance may, in some small undefinable way, contribute to the integrity of the levy that tries to hold the flood back.

Being witness to the worst of the storm is scary and exhausting. It can leave you worn out and unable to be useful. But while you hide under the duvet, some pretty serious damage can be done.

It all bears a little thinking about. And, besides, there’s not much else to do at 4.30am on a stormy Friday morning.

1 comment:

Jim Murdoch said...

I'm typically awake between 3am and 8 so I was looking out the window at the appointed time waiting on the storm. It actually hit about two hours later than predicted and I've seen worse. A tree—a decent-sized tree—got blown over two blocks down but the only other evidence of the storm was a rubbish bin on its side and a liberal scattering of litter. Carrie was worried next-door's fence might blow over, and it did get a fair shaking, but her white-mesh-plant-holder-thingy-that-I-can't-remember-the-name-of provided the necessary support. I'm not really sure I felt a duty to witness the coming and going of the storm though. It's like Hogmanay. We used to sit up for the bells and then go to bed and then one year we just went to bed at the usual time. There was no discussion. We simply went to bed. I have several poems called 'Observer Effect' (four I think) and am quite fascinated by the whole thing only observing a situation or phenomenon in my experience rarely changes anything: 2024 became 2025, the Berlin Wall fell, Charles became king. I, honestly, felt no need to witness any of them. To be honest my absence would've improved many of the situations I've been privy to.