A rare dark and stormy morning

It was a rare dark and stormy morning in Charleston.

August, like every other suffocating August in the small seaside city, had drawn on for more than the 31 days it had been allotted on the calendar. Each day passing had moved like a snail, lazily canvasing the steamy, boundless hours from dawn to midnight. Days drenched in salty humidity, Charleston's storied endless summer treated all organisms dwelling in the lowcountry to a non-stop, month long sauna.

But not this day. This day was different. September was tomorrow. A large depression manifesting out across the Atlantic had pulled a bunch of clouds up from out of the warm gulf waters, and then whipped them up into Hurricane Bill.

I had awoken before the sunrise, and could sense the heaviness of the sky outside my bedroom window. There was a different color to the pre-dawn. The mockingbirds were quiet. The crape myrtles were not gently tapping against the gutter. It was a still morning. It was the kind of stillness that all coastal residents understand as the prelude to the beating, battering winds of a waxing hurricane.

And so, the rare dark and stormy morning called me out into the world as the sun rose somewhere far above a thick cover of clouds. In the place of the oppressive August heat, a cool, steady drop of pressure fell down from sky and painted everything living in a more soulful hue. The oak trees were greener and grayer, the carolina wrens were browner and whiter, the crape myrtle blooms were a hotter hot pink.

The blue-on-blue; sky in ocean. The powerful harbinger of sheering wind; heralding the inevitable chaos created by ocean swells and the clash of warm and cold. The horizon was a visual masterpeice.

Dark, losing blue. Deep, swifting blue.

Ocean in sky. The birds did not take flight. A storm approached.

Montague to Rutledge, cross Calhoun

On the way to the hospital, she walked westward on Montague. Victorian house after pink-yellow-blue victorian house, sequential private gardens in waning September bloom warmly radiated with the subtle perfume of roses. Soft, blush pink petals littered the stone slab sidewalk. Sounds of a drill and someone dropping a large peice of wood startled a gathering of sparrows, and they flitted away into a shady row of unruly ligustrum.

She knew this street so well, she could have walked it blind-folded. Stepping over an up-ended block of gray slate, she thought about an article she had read the other day. Something about the gravitational wave detector GEO600, at Fermilab. Something about a theory that the universe is just a gigantic hologram. Anecdotally, this foggy notion of some crazy physics theory suddenly made a lot of sense. Afterall, it did seem like she had been doing the same things for years. Either working or being sick. One or the other, chasing each other around the loop of time, like two little butterflies playing in a field of dandelions.

The routine drive into town. The same 14 traffic lights. The same parking garage. The same winnowing rose bushes. The same cluster of doves. Sameness ruled her every waking moment. She may as well have been a hologram on this day, again walking alone to the hospital. Again chasing an unknown pain, following it to an unknown end.

As she entered Rutledge Tower, the claustrophobia-inducing smell of unwashed human flesh took her by surprise. An immediately pungent presence, it was made all the more so because it was experienced in such bold contrast to the fragrant smells of the neighborhood she had left outside the glass revolving doors.

Slate sidewalk slabs baking in September sun, radiating a sublime scent of warm iron. Rose scented September wind, tinged with salt, shrimp, and pluffmud. A building full of people who have not bathed, nor brushed their teeth, nor washed their hair - it was not a polite greeting.

Her gaze pinballing from one face to the next, to the wall, to the carpet, to the flourescent lights - she methodically scanned the lazy seascape of infirm bodies. The confines of the room were brimming with people who were aged, in wheelchairs, morbidly obese, walking slowly by with canes, scooting down the hall with walkers, falling in and out of consciousness while sitting, head bobbing, in a chair.

Infirmity pulled like gravity on everyone wandering the first floor, near the entryway. In the face of each diminished soul, she noticed with increasing panic, the tell-tale lack of the life-spark. That delicate glint and glimmer of electric, animal energy, erased from their eyes by the sucking forces of illness.

She felt distinctly not of them. She was not like them. She was there, in a state hospital, but she was not one of them. She was different. She was healthy. She was strong. She was very far from falling apart; far from falling to the earth in a helpless heap of ailment.

A short elevator ride to the sixth floor, and she found herself at the reception desk of the Neurology Department. After signing in, and nervously surveying the room for a clock, she slid into a chair, trying not to be noticed. It took a few minutes for her to realize the obvious defensive posture she was carrying around. Her arms crossed over her stomach, clutching her purse too close to her body, her eyes downcast, staring blankly, defiantly away from all the others. It took her a few minutes to recognize that her withdrawal was hurtful to the rest of them. One by one, the other patients eyes were darting to her face, and quickly away, back down to their feet. It was a sad game of hide and seek, in a room full of people wanting to be seen, needing to be heard.

Humble.

It is a humbling experience to be sick and not know why, nor how to fix yourself. Of all the people in that room, it was safe to assume, they were each suffering - wrestling with physical pain; but even worse, confusion. Fear.

When a person finds herself in the vulnerable position of being a patient in the waiting room of the Neurology Department at a state teaching hospital, she will instinctually find herself depending on the kindness of strangers. Without really knowing why, she will find herself depending on a smile, and the nonverbal acknowledgement that everyone present is in this together - that everyone present is in pain, and afraid, and that the reality each person is grappling with is difficult and unwieldy.

She will come to understand that, in this place of uncertainty, while yeilding to the sheer, brute force of nature upon an immortal soul quivering within a mortal body - this is where the human heart will grasp - with hands shaken by glee, gratitude, and abiding hunger - any amount of kindness, even if it is just a smile. The human heart will search the room, just for a smile.

A smile will be enough to tarry the fear for just one moment longer.

Swamp Thang

Here in the lowcountry, born-n-breds pronounce the word "thing" as "thang". It's just the way they roll, and you can't help but be charmed by it, despite your best efforts to the contrary.

Last weekend, I visited a cypress swamp. It is one of those places that is just splendid in every way. 9 years ago, in October, while I was working as a part-time bartender and server for an event planner, I worked a wedding at this swamp.

The bride's first name was Sarcanda. This is me, though, not Sarcanda.


They let us take a canoe out into the swamp to tool around. I love, love, love, the reflection of the trees in the water. To give you an idea of just how peaceful this landscape is, imagine lying under a tree on a warm, yet cloudy, summer day. Little yellow butterflies are floating around sparsely. You are miles away from any civilization. There is no wind blowing. You just had your favorite food for lunch, and maybe a beer. You're sort of sleepy, and you are drifting in and out of consciousness.

So quiet, so peaceful, incredibly beautiful.


Wildlife present: Aligators (pictured below) were swimming around in the swamp, uncomfortably close to where we were rowing. They weren't huge - 4 to 5 feet in length at most - but something about them is just instinctively frightening.



Pea Soup: this is my favorite part of the cyress swamp. The small leaflets of water plants (perhaps of the water lilly genus) that completely cover the water in some areas. Below is a photo of a magnolia tree branch hanging over pea soup. Magnolia blooms, open in June, smell like lemon chiffon. The swamp smells like brackish water and mud.

Notably absent: grizzly bears.

Needless to say, we were all quite pleased about that.