[pelblog] moments in nature
It's late afternoon Friday, and the worst storm of the season is currently pounding the island. I'm in the front lobby of the hotel with about a dozen other staff, including Joe the conference center director, Sumar the fire marshal, and most of my crew. We aren't on the front porch because it isn't safe to go outside. But the reason we're all looking out the windows is because there are two guys, who sailed in to Star with their families this afternoon, out there attempting to rescue their boat that's washed up against the rocks. The weather is severe enough that the mooring they were tied up to in the harbor has dragged, basically letting their boat float free again. The wife of one of the guys is biting her fingernails and just staring out the window. I'm concerned for the two guys out there, but I'm also waiting for my next assignment and trying to figure out how I can be helpful.
It's Wednesday night and I'm sitting out on East Rock with Johanna. We've had the best weather of the season all day - sunny and blue, but not too hot, with a nice breeze to keep the heat index down. The nighttime sky is perfectly clear, the moon is bright (due to be full on Friday), and the moonlight casts a highway on the water. It's one of my favorite lighting effects ever; you can watch the individual waves out to the edge of your vision, twinkling as they reflect the silver moonlight back at you. "It's a shame the moon isn't full until Friday," one of us says. "I bet it will be even prettier then."
It's Saturday. The weather is hot, muggy, incredibly humid, and I'm sick with a minor throat infection. I am sweating like a pig. I wipe my forehead with a cloth every thirty seconds and thank my stars again that I wore an undershirt today. Black silk might not have been the smartest choice for overshirt though. Another thunderstorm threatens to break all afternoon, but ultimately sputters a few raindrops and fizzles out. But the humidity is oppressive, and nobody sleeps very well Saturday night.
It's Thursday around midnight. I've just gotten off of work and I'm hanging out on Shack Deck, not really paying attention to what's going on with who. The moon is out again, but this time from my angle the highway of reflected moonlight is playing at the edge of the tides. Water slides up onto a smooth, gently pitched rock, and as the tide recedes and it rolls off it reminds me of mercury; silver, smooth, metallic, dangerous.
It's late afternoon Sunday. Just as the conferees go into dinner, another potentially epic thunderstorm rolls in. By the time we get the proverbial hatches battened, the rain has kicked in. I'm glad that I stopped in my room to fetch my full rain gear, because otherwise I would be soaked to the bone right now. Instead, I'm carrying on business as usual; towing a garden cart full of racks of dirty glasses from Social Hour down to the dish room. As I arrive, someone sticks their head out the window and tells me my boss is calling for me on the radio, so I step a little quicker. Picking up two full racks of glasses, I walk up the death trap of a ramp into the dish room, lose my footing in the water rushing down the ramp towards me, and slam into the ramp. Only one glass breaks, but I'm bleeding from just above my right eye and I bumped my knee pretty hard on the way down. My boss catches me coming around the corner to the front porch, but I cut her off. "I'm bleeding," I say. "Can it wait two minutes?"
Friday. "Evacuate the Pelican areas. Get everybody inside." It's only a couple hundred feet, but I run anyway. Twenty people are out on the truck trestle, smoking and watching the storm roll in (and getting drenched). A couple of grumbles, but everybody goes inside. The wind picks up as I hit the ramp by the powerhouse, and by the time I pass Engineer's, the sand and gravel is blowing in my eyes. Shack Deck has a few hardy souls, including someone with a video camera. They're watching a pleasure boat that's sitting in the lee of the island, but can't fight its way past the wind-driven tides. Engines churning, they succeed in turning back and forth but aren't making any progress. I chase everybody inside and run back to the lobby to report the all-clear, not knowing what's going to happen to those folks on their boat.
Saturday. I've hit the wall; I've started work at 6:00am, had three or four hours off to sleep until noon, then cleaning crew until the conferees roll in. We're in the midst of another storm watch, and the adrenaline just isn't doing it for me any more. Now it's just annoying. The contagious effect of the heightened alert doesn't work for me. Joe's overreacting and high-strung, my supervisor is barking orders at me, and all I want to do is strip naked and lie down on the front lawn and let it all wash over me, sink into the dirt and let the rain rinse the sick out of my body. Instead, I turn over another rocking chair and work my way back to the lobby.
Sunday. Three storm watches in three days. Tonight's chapel service is in Newton instead of the chapel, which is just as well because the storm could break at any minute and we might get stuck here. Better to be stuck in a building with bathrooms. The rain never comes, but the cloud lightening is impressive. It's like flashbulbs going off at the Super Bowl - not just one or two, but a steady stream of bursts that come at random intervals, some bright, some dim, some close, some far away. I watch from a dark room, warm yellow lantern light spilling through the door separating the two rooms, cold blue electricity shining in through the windows. Three or four bolts actually hit the ground (or water) in the hour I'm watching, but ultimately the call comes on the radio that it's safe to send people back to the front porch.
Late Sunday night, I'm sitting in the kitchen with a couple of friends. "These conferees drive me nuts," one says. "They're just sitting there on the back porch, watching the storm and intellectualizing it all. 'Oh Bob, are you getting this on the video camera? It'll be the most boring movie ever. The lightening only strikes every 15 seconds.' People, this storm is fucking awe-inspiring. You don't get this shit on the mainland. Set your damned brains aside for a minute and just be."
And of course, all I can think is "Wow, this weekend is going to make a great post for my blog."
It's Wednesday night and I'm sitting out on East Rock with Johanna. We've had the best weather of the season all day - sunny and blue, but not too hot, with a nice breeze to keep the heat index down. The nighttime sky is perfectly clear, the moon is bright (due to be full on Friday), and the moonlight casts a highway on the water. It's one of my favorite lighting effects ever; you can watch the individual waves out to the edge of your vision, twinkling as they reflect the silver moonlight back at you. "It's a shame the moon isn't full until Friday," one of us says. "I bet it will be even prettier then."
It's Saturday. The weather is hot, muggy, incredibly humid, and I'm sick with a minor throat infection. I am sweating like a pig. I wipe my forehead with a cloth every thirty seconds and thank my stars again that I wore an undershirt today. Black silk might not have been the smartest choice for overshirt though. Another thunderstorm threatens to break all afternoon, but ultimately sputters a few raindrops and fizzles out. But the humidity is oppressive, and nobody sleeps very well Saturday night.
It's Thursday around midnight. I've just gotten off of work and I'm hanging out on Shack Deck, not really paying attention to what's going on with who. The moon is out again, but this time from my angle the highway of reflected moonlight is playing at the edge of the tides. Water slides up onto a smooth, gently pitched rock, and as the tide recedes and it rolls off it reminds me of mercury; silver, smooth, metallic, dangerous.
It's late afternoon Sunday. Just as the conferees go into dinner, another potentially epic thunderstorm rolls in. By the time we get the proverbial hatches battened, the rain has kicked in. I'm glad that I stopped in my room to fetch my full rain gear, because otherwise I would be soaked to the bone right now. Instead, I'm carrying on business as usual; towing a garden cart full of racks of dirty glasses from Social Hour down to the dish room. As I arrive, someone sticks their head out the window and tells me my boss is calling for me on the radio, so I step a little quicker. Picking up two full racks of glasses, I walk up the death trap of a ramp into the dish room, lose my footing in the water rushing down the ramp towards me, and slam into the ramp. Only one glass breaks, but I'm bleeding from just above my right eye and I bumped my knee pretty hard on the way down. My boss catches me coming around the corner to the front porch, but I cut her off. "I'm bleeding," I say. "Can it wait two minutes?"
Friday. "Evacuate the Pelican areas. Get everybody inside." It's only a couple hundred feet, but I run anyway. Twenty people are out on the truck trestle, smoking and watching the storm roll in (and getting drenched). A couple of grumbles, but everybody goes inside. The wind picks up as I hit the ramp by the powerhouse, and by the time I pass Engineer's, the sand and gravel is blowing in my eyes. Shack Deck has a few hardy souls, including someone with a video camera. They're watching a pleasure boat that's sitting in the lee of the island, but can't fight its way past the wind-driven tides. Engines churning, they succeed in turning back and forth but aren't making any progress. I chase everybody inside and run back to the lobby to report the all-clear, not knowing what's going to happen to those folks on their boat.
Saturday. I've hit the wall; I've started work at 6:00am, had three or four hours off to sleep until noon, then cleaning crew until the conferees roll in. We're in the midst of another storm watch, and the adrenaline just isn't doing it for me any more. Now it's just annoying. The contagious effect of the heightened alert doesn't work for me. Joe's overreacting and high-strung, my supervisor is barking orders at me, and all I want to do is strip naked and lie down on the front lawn and let it all wash over me, sink into the dirt and let the rain rinse the sick out of my body. Instead, I turn over another rocking chair and work my way back to the lobby.
Sunday. Three storm watches in three days. Tonight's chapel service is in Newton instead of the chapel, which is just as well because the storm could break at any minute and we might get stuck here. Better to be stuck in a building with bathrooms. The rain never comes, but the cloud lightening is impressive. It's like flashbulbs going off at the Super Bowl - not just one or two, but a steady stream of bursts that come at random intervals, some bright, some dim, some close, some far away. I watch from a dark room, warm yellow lantern light spilling through the door separating the two rooms, cold blue electricity shining in through the windows. Three or four bolts actually hit the ground (or water) in the hour I'm watching, but ultimately the call comes on the radio that it's safe to send people back to the front porch.
Late Sunday night, I'm sitting in the kitchen with a couple of friends. "These conferees drive me nuts," one says. "They're just sitting there on the back porch, watching the storm and intellectualizing it all. 'Oh Bob, are you getting this on the video camera? It'll be the most boring movie ever. The lightening only strikes every 15 seconds.' People, this storm is fucking awe-inspiring. You don't get this shit on the mainland. Set your damned brains aside for a minute and just be."
And of course, all I can think is "Wow, this weekend is going to make a great post for my blog."