Day 84: Storms

While the rest of the Northeast was covered with snow, it rained in Maine.  Nearly 6 inches of rain and winds that gusted up to seventy miles per hour.   The house shook last night, the way my kitchen aid shakes when it's on the high setting.  An outside rumble that makes you wonder if the whole thing is going to come off it's hinges.  There was lightning and rain and high tides and when Micky climbed onto the bed I didn't kick him off.  We instantly noticed the tree lying across our backyard.  The kind of tree that takes over the backyard with it's fall.  A few weeks of firewood, I thought.  If we had a stove... or a chainsaw.  We didn't notice the roofing until we left for work.  The passenger side of the car was riddled with shingles, the scratch stretching deep from front door to bumper.

Storms are incredible things.  Some are predictable and some are not.  They tear at the foundations that our homes are resting on.  They shake us to see if we're stable or if we just might tip over, with all our guts and possessions exposed.  And today the roofer will come and lay a tarp over the roof.  He'll gather the shingles and start the patching process.  Next week the handyman will show up to bust apart the fallen tree.  And soon we'll be back to where we started, minus one tree and two dozen shingles.  

Sometimes it feels like love is just one long string of bracing for the storm and rebuilding when it's over.  And these storms are more likely to come without warning.  Sometimes they lead right into each other.  Even now, as I'm writing, I'm asking (telling) Rich to (please) stop talking to me.  And he isn't. He's going on about some website he saw and then something he heard on the radio at work. And I can't think and I can't write.  Now I'm raising my voice, to just please let me finish this.  Just ten minutes. But his feelings are hurt and he's walking away. 

One storm after another.   And so we rebuild in the moments of peace.  We peer through the missing shingles of each other, seeing glimpses of our guts.  Then we patch and hold together and somehow end up a stronger unit rather than a mismatch of glue and staples.