Michael has come and gone. Everything is "back to normal." The debris that he left in the yard has been cleared and piled next to the street. The generator packed away in its storage shed, power having been restored to the neighborhood. The bird feeders are reattached to their poles, and garden beds inspected for damage to the freshly planted baby vegetables.
A few nights earlier, sleep having eluded me at 3 am in the morning, I stepped outside and sat down on my front porch. In the stillness of the night, I could feel the pulse of my neighborhood slowing down, allowing me also to slow down from all the stress and worrying about the storm. The sky was awash with stars, their magic permeating my being. with the lights of the neighborhood now off. A myriad of emotions enveloped me, from gratitude for all the blessing I have in my life, sadness for the misery of those who bore the brunt of Michael; and anger over the fact that my daughter and her future children will inherit a world where more intense future storms and other natural disasters will become the norm.
Back to normal. I'm not sure I want to go back to normal if it means continuing on our current path of ever increasing environmental degradation and the acceptance of policies and actions that contribute to earth's destruction. Will Michael and all the other future named storms not teach us the folly of our present path? What will it take to acknowledge that we need to change our ways? How many more Michaels will it take for us to learn our lesson?
Back to normal. For me, it means going back to the stars.
