I am on vacation in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula while most of my loved ones and all my most memorable stomping grounds are in the eye of a storm. My son Jonathan has been chased by Irma from Tampa to Blue Ridge, Georgia. Kim is laid-up in Jacksonville while several of her roofs lifted off their moorings. And Lauren and John are hosting, without power, her father and a plethora of potted plants (outdoor items must come indoors lest they hurtle on high-force winds through plate-glass windows).
I am familiar with tropical storms. I have evacuated. I have thrown porch furniture into the pool and rolled up carpets. Moved artwork and valuables to higher ground in preparation for storm surge. So I am not insensitive to my loved ones’ lot. It almost seems sacrilegious to think of anything else.
Even while experiencing the UP in unseasonably warm weather…
The wellspring of my alcoholism…
The thing is, I have always weathered storms – from hurricanes to romantic breakups the same way. Pour a glass a wine, throw a lounge chair into the deep end and c’est la vie. There is not a single storm of consequence I have experienced, where I wasn’t three sheets to the wind. It’s hard to deny – hard to think about.
But I am on vacation.
And as it turns out, I am on vacation in my alma mater – the very place I had my first drink. So, you see how this all connects – full-circle – cosmically? And how restorative it is to be legitimately anxious about one’s family, without getting drunk to anesthetize the anxiety? To be nostalgic about the wellspring of my alcoholism without feeling the threat of a relapse…
And the hiking my sober friends…
What’s a girl to do? There is nothing I can impact a thousand miles from the storm. Nothing I can change. And so I took a hike – contemplating the beauty sculpted by God’s gentler hand.
Dappled sun in Presque Isle
Today I’m not drinking, because I am thinking of my friends in harm’s way, but hiking in clear blue UP…
How come you’re not drinking?
E2E – Look up!
