Walking The Hurricane

Memory is a funny thing. Sometimes something that was once a stressful challenging situation can become a point of nostalgia. Time and distance can do that.  Removal from danger or threat can also be part of it. On /Tuesday when I was out walking my imaginary dog the winds gasped and blew.  The trees shook and then stood still.  Suddenly I was back in my past, the winds were whispering that a hurricane was out there.  Be prepared.

Rarely in the middle of the country do we get remnants of hurricanes.  Most mid-westerners aren't even aware of the special aspects of the winds generated by hurricanes.  Until I moved to the sub-tropics and actually experienced full force hurricanes, I didn't know how a hurricane heading my way felt.  But in the early 1980s I moved to Okinawa, Japan.  Okinawa is in the South China Sea and experiences many cyclones, or as we call them, hurricanes every year.

The year we arrived on Okinawa there was a major cyclone soon after we moved into a cement block house in the middle of turtle backed tombs up near Tori Station.  I was frightened to experience my first hurricane in an unfamiliar house, away from the base, with a one year old.  The winds and the rains blew their worst for several hours.  The thing I found most fascinating was that the public bus service kept going through most of the storm.  We experienced several more cyclones in the 2 1/2 years I lived on the island.  The weather forecasters gave plenty of notice when a cyclone was on the way.  Most of the houses were cement block and trees would fall, electricity would go down, but life went on. We were on day on/ day off water rationing and they would still turn the water off during the storm.  I used to think, water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

One of the things I came to recognize about cyclones was the way the wind blew as the storm approached.  Hurricane/cyclone winds gasp and wheeze like an old unfit lady hurrying uphill. (I know from which I speak.) Then the winds would be still, and then wheeze again a while later.  That is what the winds were doing on Tuesday here in the middle of the country.  I went out to walk in the hurricane winds.  It has been a long long time since I lived the the middle of a hurricane, I don't expect to be in one again.  But, Tuesday, I thoroughly enjoyed walking in the winds of the hurricane that is in the gulf.  It was a stroll down memory lane.  The wind picked up and then died down and then repeated the cycle.

Here in the middle of the country we have many aspects of wild weather.  Tornadoes, blizzards, hail storms, come to mind to name a few.  But, hurricanes need a lot of water and heat to fuel them.  Here we don't have those weather generators. We are far away from the oceans.  But sometimes a hurricane will huff and puff and give us a little taste of its power.  i hope whenever it does, I will go out and walk the hurricane.