Listening to the Quiet Before the Storm

I haven't written much these last few days.

So many thoughts rolling round in my head and somehow unable for various reasons to really share them with anyone.

Sometimes I talk a blue streak and prattle on and on and then other times... I can be so bottled up and quiet.

Quiet like the Atlantic Ocean storing its secrets up waiting for the next episode of tropical madness... waiting for something to happen again and have everything spin wildly out of control.

Hurricanes you see are a real time experience.

Fluid, changing, evolving and exciting.
They are passionate and intense.
They have their own thoughts and their own designs on the map and landscape of our world. They go where they want to go even though men in little rooms playing on little computers think they understand their every move. They don't.
They only know from past experiences and 100s of years of storms recorded where they "should" go and all the members of the Best Track Team can come close based on the past but each new hurricane is really a new entity.

You set it up with a defined circulation and you drop it down into the atmosphere which is like a river that races across the surface of the earth in wide rivers at various angles that show up on the Water Vapor Loop. They "should" go here... they "should" turn there... but its not set in stone, its the air.. the wind... and it evolves as you watch it, an every changing situation... unfolding, twisting, turning...amazing and beautiful to behold.

Sometimes... something happens and you can throw out the window all of the previous information of "shoulds" and "woulds" and watch what is really happening. Many times.. scientific types think that if they wait it out... calmly and detached sort of..in just another few hours or even six or more.. the storm will do what is expected. It will make the turn, fall apart, intensify and follow the plan.

So many do.

But the really memorable ones like Georges who chugged his way across more Caribbean real estate than is politically possible for most of us kept going west north west despite all forecasts to turn more to the north. Betsy went north and then came back south and danced her way across the Keys and off towards Louisiana. Despite all predictions otherwise.. she refused to catch the trough. Andrew.. a distant relative from the same gene pool refused to catch the trough and danced across South Florida on his way to a Louisiana vacation. Across the same air base in Homestead that another storm in the 40s danced across. And, Camille is the hurricane that sets the bar for so many of us who for the first time really saw the damage a storm surge can do upon the shore. Before we had fancy imagery and could stare down into every little band with the NRL site... we had little Nimbus snapping away voyeuristically at Camille catching it forever and recording it for us to look back at remember.. a beautiful, intense, exciting... very photographic Storm.

We don't own them.
We can't predict their path perfectly.
We can't force them to form and we can't stop them from forming.
They hit us with the passion and intensity of a storm surge washing over us and forever changing the past and the present and the future.

And, we wait through the quiet times like today when nothing is happening and no matter how many times you go online and look.. there is nothing there. An eerie silence where we are lost in our thoughts and we remember the power and awe of a storm named Camille.

I've always loved the unpredictable ones like Betsy.
When I was a little girl... a small little girl who believed in all things being possible I wanted to know why the big bad storm wasn't going to hit us? Were we sure it wasn't going to hit South Florida? Couldn't it turn? Why not? And, I was told lots of reasons about when storms get that far north they HAVE to go north and ... The Miami News or Miami Herald published those great little charts that they used to show in the news... with Betsy tracking off for the Carolinas and the headline read, "Betsy Gone For Good" (takes aim at Carolinas).

After cleaning up from Betsy's victory dance across South Florida... I found a wet, tattered newspaper that read "Betsy Gone For Good" and I'll never forget it. I smiled and victorious ran around the house annoying tired parents with my find.. 'look look they said it was gone for good but it wasn't!" Betsy came back... Into our hearts, minds, memories forever.

The Hurricane Center does the best it can and they get better and better but its a learning process...ongoing. And, very cool scientific types watch from their homes on their laptops writing away on their message boards very sure of themselves. But, things can change and they change fast in a hurricane. Especially a Major Hurricane.

And.. people are like hurricanes or hurricanes are like people.. and our lives are fluid and fast and unpredictable and over before you know it. And, somewhere someone will give you advice and expect you to do what they have decided you will do. You can listen. You can follow the predictable path. Or...like Betsy and Andrew you can decide not to take the trough.

It's very quiet tonight. I'm listening to music in a quiet room without loops looping or TV blaring... and I'm thinking about what I want and where I want to go and with who or not with who and wondering what tomorrow will bring.

Will it bring passion?Will it bring rain?Will it laughterOr a Hurricane?

:)
Bobbi musing in Miami during the quiet time before the next storm that waits in the wings.
Happy Anniversary Camille.Andrew's Anniversary is around the corner..
Waiting...Bobbi

~~~~~~
Where do we go from here
This isn't here we intended to be
We had it all
You believed in meI believed in you
Certainities disapeers
What do we do for our dream to survive?
How do we do keep all our passions alive?
As we used to do
Deep in my heart I'm concealing
Things that I'm longing to say
Scared to confess what I'm feeling
Frightened you'll slip away
You must love me..You must love me..

She had her moments.. she had her choice