Storms, & the ultimate question: do we really control our lives destiny? this, is a blog of rambles, while out, rambling and surviving one of life's many storms :-)
(TW d34th, dy1ng, trapped, fear, cold/hyp0thermic)
Not all emergencies are filled with adrenaline & heart thumping fear… some are incredibly boring & calm, & oddly, serenely beautiful, if you forget about the fact that the potential of death or injury lurks around the corner. Instead of fight or flight or even freeze, ironically, the boredom stretches on, grimly shining over the numb sense of horror as you wait for the inevitable. Sometimes, an unavoidable emergency is a simple waiting game.
That’s us right now.
I write this on 28th December amidst a storm raging of catastrophic levels, created by mother nature herself. I write because, in this long wait, there is nothing else to do, I cannot be on my phone using up mobile data & battery life, I cannot go for a walk because I am in a wheelchair & there’s snow & inaccessibility everywhere… I cannot do anything but write, to pass the time & express the tornado of thoughts & anxieties within my minds eye. As I write I realise we are powerless to stop the ticking time etching forward to an impossible avoidance. We are trapped at the game of Mother Nature, herself.
It’s Christmas time. Well, it’s the limbo between Christmas cheer & new year; like this strange period of nothingness, we are also neither here, nor there. We are trapped in the limbo too. Sparkling lights, the scent of pine & sea air, fresh mountains on the breeze & the sounds of birds & winds sighing through the many dancing trees; we drive back through the Scottish highlands immersed in the beauty of snow & rippled mountains & waterfalls all around us. We had the most majestic Christmas in a cabin in the Isle of Skye & after many days of mountain, loch & waterfall hunting we had began our 8 hour journey home to our first breaker hotel (which would greet our first of many journeys home south).
All was going well, as we drove home.
We stopped in fields blessed with crystallised white & giggled amongst snow fights. We glimpsed a deer, scuttling with such grace across the icey road & we held our breath as the beautiful creature tucked beneath a fence & leapt to the mountains above. We drove & laugh & chat & have lengthily philosophical discussions - & silly festive chats too, guessing the definition of the strange festive phrases - as it turns out, the term crapulence, is in fact NOT meant to mean ‘when you shouldn’t trust a fart’… who knew?! We didn’t, & in those early hours we drive happy & carefree, enjoying the gorgeous scenery all around us.
We stopped at a petrol station to find it closed unexpectedly. That's okay we still have over a hundred miles of fuel just in case. Let’s go! On to plan B! Plan B is out of fuel. Oh well! We drive to plan c … & then plan d. Then we drive another 85 miles to find The next petrol station is out of fuel. Then, halleyulah! With only 20 miles left & in the middle of the Scottish highlands, we rejoice at finding an open petrol station - just 15 miles away! “That’s lucky!” We mused, in high spirits. “After that petrol station there isn’t another for 3 hours! “ Oh, the sweet musings of an unknowing mind.We drive, counting down the miles, sweat on our brows, only to arrive & find a tree smashed onto the road, blocking entry to the precious petrol station, just yards out of our reach. You couldn’t even walk past it if you wanted to! Not only that- but as we wait, hours go by - & the mighty storm Pia rages full swing around us, hurtling rain & sleet & snow onto our car, rattling us on all sides rocking us side to side, the mighty trees swaying viciously in its winds. We watch askance, & full of the sceptical wonder of the human spirit - we will be fine! We can get through this! But, then CRACK! The almighty roar screams into the hissing air, followed by an ear splitting shriek of wood taring as a mighty moss grown tree uproots & falls heavily, smashing the car in front of us. The crunch was unearthly, blasting out into the icey air as if the planet itself had been crushed in two. Mother Nature, a child playing with daisys, one petal, snap, torn, lifeless, two petals, snap, torn, life, a third… does she love me? Does she not? Will we escape safely before nightfall & the nightly freeze? Or not?
We sat there in silence for a few minutes shaken & startled, fear silencing the murmur of our hearts. By pure luck the car owners were not inside & escaped serious harm, as they too had traipsed across the icey meadows in search of answers, much like Mac, my husband had done. Very lucky. One petal Picked - she loves me. Mother Nature, toying with us, & yet we so delight to be played, & not discarded, if it’s to be a game of life or death. The Longer we wait, teeth chattering, the more trees are smashing down onto cars around us in the bitter 90mph winds. Fear grips our throats. I forget what it’s like to breathe easy, staring wide eyed & stricken at the mossy strewn carnage around us.
Suddenly, now the issue wasn’t just not having fuel… we were also trapped by several fallen trees blocking all entry & exits for hundreds of miles. The issue was also that even if we could get past the barricade of trees, even if we could get to the petrol station, there was a power cut for hundreds of miles all around. The problem was the snow piling around. The problem was that without petrol you can’t have heat… the problem was that there was nothing but wilderness, snow, mountains, lochs, & a few cottages for miles all around. We were trapped; Thousands of people impacted, just like us, pick, tare, pick tare, Mother Nature strength shines as she plays & muses among the beautiful diversity of the human daisy tree- which human petal will survive? Who will fall? Does she love me? Does she not? Do they respect me? Do they not, perhaps? The mother we share, often wonders. As minutes turn to hours & the warm glow of good humour & resilience fades, we realised that perhaps we hadn’t respected her enough. We should have better prepared for her masterful storm. We should have better shown our love, for her. Instead we were trapped here, by mother natures gracious charm. I start to tremble, shutdown settling in. Pain rippled cold through out me, & suddenly with my muscle & bone & organ pain of my rare diseases , followed by the skin & overwhelm pain of autism - it suddenly became clear, the gravity of what that meant.
Stuck.
Trapped.
Isolated.
Alone.
SCARED.
we could be stuck here. This storm has raged for days- days of power cuts & disrupted travel, trees uprooting all over the roads just like people’s travel plan uprooted into chaos. we thought we had escaped the storm & the forecast told lies of sunny days & cloudy skies for our journey home - certainly not this level of danger. The storm had raged for a week & it suddenly became apparent she wasn’t stopping anytime soon. Mother Nature, picking petals, who does she love? Me, or you? Who will survive, me, or you? Who will live to tell the tale?
Me?
Or
You.
It’s been 6 hours & The day light filters away & darkness settles around us, our car has been on & off, reserving heat & fuel but now. The inevitable was a long wait, yet finally… it was here. The cold hard truth. We have to sleep in these icey cold snow filled roads, trees falling all around us, & in the morning, there may not likely be any help either. We had some provisions left over from our holiday - some water, popcorn, & shortbread & a few isotonic drinks. We had clothes & a blanket, yet still, the chill was something else entirely. The wind screen is condensated & thick with grey, the winds batter the car, shadows morph & change as the trees dance the song of horror in front of us. A chain saw sounds on the horizon as they attempt to cut down some of the trees blocking the path. It’s not enough, though, it’s cold here… & time for recovery is running out.
Pick, tare, pick, tare, which human petal lives another day, & which is left spiralling into chaos as it falls from the fragrant embrace of its comforting world?
On that day we shiver in our car, the frost - once a beautiful pattern on our windscreen - now submitting a harrowing essay of human vulnerability - written in the frosty pen of white & grey. As the day descends into the embrace of a dark velvet night, we drift into the realm of dreams, surrendering to exhaustion. We are at the mercy of Mother Nature, & today it became abundantly clear, as I close my eyes layered up & fur tickling my ice cold nose, swallowing down bile on a dry throat. Sickness heaving, pain slaughtering. How long will it be before I am the chosen petal? It’s impossible to tell. We close our eyes that night, still cold, stiff rigid, & wonder what the world will look like when we wake up, realising that, we too, have changed with the howling storm fluctuating all around us. Mother Nature making us as resilient as the storm that wreaks havoc. Pick pick pick
She loves us, she loves us not, she loves us.
Mother Nature with her total control over our destiny, made a poignant cautionary tale that day, while we had been unlucky - we must never forget our strength & we should be grateful to how lucky we really were. It could have been a lot worse & it was our human endurance & team work & sheer love & good will that got us through that storm, still smiling & in good spirits. Our tale, is testament to the beauty of resilience found in the human spirit that hides within us all.
It wasn’t long before exhaustion took over & the dance lulled me into a restless nightmare. Wishes for warmth & safety took over as my vision builds, the sun, hot & bright, a sunny beach, the sea inviting & cool, I want to go into the sea, peel off my layers & splash in the depths, but something tugs on me & tells that I shouldn’t. Even my subconscious – so sound asleep - was warning me not to endanger myself by getting colder. The lure of the cold is at its most shocking to look back on, you wouldn’t think that being so cold, you’d wish for … more cold, but that’s the lure that traps you. the trickster that burns your skin with cold that you think you have to cool down to survive, utterly deluded with desperation & hypothermia. As I dream, lucid & in control I remind myself, I am not dead, yet, & to keep fighting those tricksters for control of my sanity & body.
The power of yet works both ways.
If you’re in a downward spiral… sometimes it helps to remember…
I havnt lose my home. Yet.
Keep making decisions to keep your home.
I havnt been to prison. Yet.
Keep making decision to keep you out.
I have not lost my sobriety-yet.
Keep making decisions to stay sober & healthy.
I haven’t lost my privileges yet.
Make decisions to make sure you don’t
I dream of the power of yet. Whispering to myself through lips so frozen they could hardly move “I’m not dead, yet & so I will live & dream in a world of hope”. I tell myself as the horror spirals, that sometimes, the hard times can teach us how to dance, how to grow from the darkness & replant ourselves amongst the dirt & darkness & mulch. Maybe, just maybe, even if all goes wrong, even when alone & cold in the wilderness with no help on the horizon, maybe, we can grow from this too.
Pick, tare, dance & grow.
Ours was a story into the abyss - the void of neither here nor there - trapped in the limbo of life & death - our tale of trauma hissing like those howling winds, a stark reminder of human endurance. The cold made time its puppet, dragging on minute by minute, gasping & frozen & too rigid to move or blink. We felt it all in that car. So cold that we didn’t stop shivering. The cold was so severe that you can barely breathe, only for it to burn your skin so ferociously that, through fits of consciousness you wonder if you’re actually on fire? Stripping away those layers. Dampening the heat source, trembling out into the cold force of Mother Nature herself & screaming to the moon - “let me survive” when you have no idea what it even means to survive anymore. The essence of life has been drained with this new limbo, trapped in the ice age of the cold that never warms. That’s what it feels like to nearly die from cold. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever experienced, & while I didn’t experience it in the car that day I experienced something very similar trapped unable to move & unable to access help in a different terrifying soul searching scenarios that like this also made me ponder my very existence & mortality. We made it! The golden rays, pink & yellow, streak the sky, as the dawn's symphony, gently caresses & awakens a brand new world - a warmer world with light & greenery & purple red heather peeping through the white frosted sheets. A symphony of light banishing the shadowed whispers of night, birds singing, dampened by the snow, standing, & waiting, watching, on the mountain peek of a brand new day, & brand new hope. The snow, is like a painters canvas, as of yet, fresh & clean & ready to be creative, every footprint & scrape of snow, every peeking grass patch or branches swaying in the wind from the depths of a snow loom, a story, telling the wonders & horrors of the time before. Mother Nature, an artist, I appreciate now much more than before. Mother Nature helps us too, & as I open my eyes, heavy & itchy, gritty with fatigue I gaze out to the lightening skies around me, the trees dance, the sunlight streaks & the glistening stippled mounds of red & gold mountains tipped white watch over me in the distance. Mornings, like the fresh fallen snow, so clarified & pristine in their innate glory, are like blank canvases, offering a fresh start, a new beginning, where the potential of the day lies fresh & ready to be sculpted by the artist within us, painted by our thoughts & moulded by our actions.
As we step into the new day, let us be the sculptors of our destiny, yet sing a song for acceptance at the hands of fate. Let us make our mark on the world, with our good attributes & inner beauty – while respecting the true artistry in mother nature, & remembering our time is borrowed & we are entitled to nothing. Let us be moulded & sculpted by mother natures plans & learn to improve & rectify & recover, let us appreciate the beauty we miss in everyday life – the scuttle of leaves in the breeze, the grass swaying in the breeze on the side of the road, the flower pushing through concrete. Let us love, & let us learn. Let us use those experiences, our senses & the intricate threads of our lived reality, & together weave those experiences into the tapestry of life, unrolling to the future selves we wish to be. Like mother nature, we are the artists of our future, too.
Embracing the storm within & finding strength within the inner chaos. We are all children of this great Earth, our roots as deep & branching as the trees that aid our survival, & yet we still cut down. Mother natures presence in our lives of often not pondered - we get so used to the sights, the smells the routine of what we experience in nature & the natural order of life. We don’t really sense it anymore. Mother Nature & her majesty is like a painting - made of a billion strokes of genius, capturing the never ending breath of what makes all of this exist. When I stop to ponder, it is a silent reminder of the diverse threads that create our patch work tapestry of life. Mother Nature, speaks of a world intwined - a world where the whispers of the forest & the wisdom of the river run strong - yet in reality a long lost city, nearly forgotten in the burning embers of the modernised bricks & mortar towering over the ruins of what was meant to be. We are like that too as we ponder our own mortality in this natural world with its natural order- & when things go wrong, we wonder what good will come, what hope there is, what we will see as our lives flasher fore our eyes. Nature. That’s what we will see. We will see those moments where we were most at peace with ourselves & people & nature. It is the natural order after all. Yet we so often forget in this capitalistic hell hole. Mother natures gaze tells stories as ancient as the stars - yet they mirror the existential beauty within us while we marvel of our own crisis in mortality- mother natures eyes are like ours, they reflect a world of power & beauty & courage, a testament to the rich tapestry of human experience. Our eyes, ever seeing & perceiving are jewels of nature, if you look closely at the iris & pupil, so in-depth you can see the grains & mountains & pathways under microscopic lenses, our eyes are in fact like a network of forest & oceans & deserts & leaf veins & tree roots - we are at one with the strength of nature too. Natural order.
On days like today (29th December) when the world is a perfect storm of chaos, a beautiful, mesmerising disaster of howling winds & pounding intrusive rain, I like to curl up with a hot drink & soft blankets, gaze out the window at the rain & ponder how I can leave the storms of my minds eye behind, instead of always surviving at the eye of traumas storm... Yes, just like the power of yet, & us not yet being our future selves, the art still being created moment by moment, with every tick of every clock, with every word & action & good intention, there’s nothing quite like the storms of Mother Nature both in our world & our minds to make you evaluate your life & your life choices, your relationships, values & priorities. Finally I know what I value most of all- kindness, love, consideration & empathy- & these values really haven’t changed, it’s just now, I feel stronger to be able live within these values. Now I don’t feel so lost, as if they don’t matter. They do. They do matter, they always did. So now we can weather the storm together, & after the storm clears, a rainbow will brighten the skies.
You can’t have a rainbow without a little rain. You can be the rainbow to someone else’s storm... even if it pours, stick to your values & trust in you- because you got this.
Yes, in the power of yet, it’s easy to take Mother Nature for granted, as it is to take advantage of anything in life. We don’t appreciate, yet. But we will reevaluate everything when that time comes. When faced with this reality-I like to get back to basics & admire the beauty in life: Mother Nature & her most spectacular of sculptures - mountains & hills & landscapes of forests, paintings of seas & rivers & waves & waterfalls. Trees, unique like the DNA on our fingertips sculpted as if hand crafted by her loving hands themselves. Thinking how they grew from nothing but mulch & air & water & earth & seeds into the powerful beings they are gives me hope in the power of yet. I love trees! Thinking of the weather - the raindrops that smatter our face in the storm are the same rain from the same water repurposed that has dropped on centuries of humans & harmed & helped billions of creatures survive or die.
Does she love me? Does she not?
The same sun that’s been beating down on us since the beginning of time. The same cold & heat the same clouds & crust that we stand on. It’s all an art gallery testament to Mother Nature herself. Yet it is so easy to forget who’s really calling the shots. Mother Nature, & us, of-course.
In the face of all these overwhelming questions, I truly surprised myself & I have my disability & diseases to thank for it. I chose my life today, as uncertain as it was, over taking actions based in fear. I’m not hiding anymore-I’m growing.
building a life by the ocean, choosing to swim twice weekly despite my disability, has made me so much happier & more capable. Walking & rolling under trees has made me joyously appreciative. My disability & disease made me this way & allowed me a baseline to practise within my beliefs-living in harmony, with wisdom, justice seeking & loyalty to my loved ones & connecting with my mind body & spirit. Being close to nature allows me to create magic; the forest, the beaches, mountains & lakes- they are all dreams that I had never thought could be. How does our tiny efforts make a difference? We are just one person in a storm of chaos. Don’t forget Mother Nature. One tree can save the lives of an entire ecosystem yet it’s the forest that people praise. You are one among a forest, you can still help too even in storm. In the law of the butterfly effect- something as small as a butterfly's wing can sometimes summon the hurricane.
Small things can coax great change. An act of kindness can change a life. Natural order is art there is art in all of us because our natural being is one of hope & resilience & survive & team work. You got this. The world is an intricate eco system & we all play a part so even though one little person can make a difference, all of us can, too. Mother Nature is not discriminate as she pluck daisy petals & decides who good fortune will shower upon. Does she love me? Does she not?
She does. She just remembers that you are part of an entire universe of hope. You are the beauty of nature you are good & hope & resilience no matter what petal she picks, even if it’s the very last petal. Even if it’s time to say goodbye our minds eye with it natural order will show us a reel of flashing images in a never-ending resilience of human spirit to try & save us one last time. Even on our dying breath our mind & body work really to save us because we are the essence r of hope & beauty & life even at the very end.
All in all? The journey took a horrifying 15 hours… & it was slow & scary because not all horror is immediate. Sometimes it creeps up on you, a slow burner. Sometimes it’s so slow while you wait, that you question your entire existence. Sometimes, it’s a horror that haunts you; a kind of chronic tale, as old as time, & yet so often overlooked. The horror that never seems to end. A nightmare you can’t wake from. That was us not long ago. If you listen to the whispers, sang within the winds, open your eyes to the heat & the cold & the shakes & the drops; the day dream & the nightmare, you can see the truth of mother natures game. She loves us, but she is indiscriminate. She doesn’t care for privilege, your race or ability or wealth. She will build us all from sticks & stones & water & earth & destroy us with fire too. It’s not a choice, her game- it’s a random process, whichever person you happen to be, plucked from the flower of humanity. Trusting her game, is to make preparations & appreciate. Planted in darkness, to grow, torn from a flower & sifting amongst the mulch, there’s hope for us too. As long as we hold onto the inner strength & resilience of all nature, observed by the mother we share herself, we will survive & maybe even thrive.
Like the mountains that have been around since the dawn of time, eroded down to the sands that embrace our wiggling toes at the beach, just like the rain howling down on us, blessing us, saturating us with the reminder that yes - we are still alive - & therefore, we have hope. Just like the mountains & sands & waters of our earth, mother natures love for us is non discriminate, & all consuming too. She does everything to empower, yet we destroy.
The mother we share is within us all - that fighting spirit that survives through concrete or the harshest winters or hottest summers.
Together, we survive.
And that’s beautiful.
Pick, pick, pick.
She loves us.
She loves us
She loves us
Yet, we often love her, not.
It’s time we better prepared to love our Mother Nature, & the natural wonder & storms within us, too. Peace x
(This story is based on a true story I experienced - a true story that has been merged with 2 other true lived experiences of mine, for the beauty of artistic license and story telling. The aim of merging multiple true stories together, is that while all of what I say is true, & had happened, you wont know in what instance or when or how, to not distract from the point I am trying to express. For example, the sleeping part is from one true story I experienced and the dawn and the mountains and the feelings and the fear are from another or the same story. I am a writer, and story teller, and the whole story merges many stories and emotions and experiences together to illustrate the point that we are the artists of our future, weathering the storms of mother nature and our own mind, in a way that the life lesson of one story on its own couldnt do, but multiple stoires with the same life lessons learnt over time, can …)
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