#hurricanehelene

We’re headed today to a beach outside of Charleston, SC, for a much-needed respite.

Forty-five minutes into the drive, there are no signs of devastation. The warm weather and brilliant day allow me to notice, for the first time, that the leaves on the trees have changed color.

All of my memories from the past 3+ weeks are associated with place, yet it took until today for me to even notice that the brilliance of autumn here in our mountains has already arrived.

These are some of the places th…

Jeff and I attended church together today, a first for our marriage.

I’m a Quaker minister and Shamanic practitioner; he’s a lapsed Catholic. We went to a Baptist service, at the only church in our small community.

The pews were filled with several members of the Disaster Relief EMS, as well as North Carolina Highway Patrol, one of whom even served as pianist during the service.

The pianist, a gentle black man, joyous to find himself in church among strangers, led us in a beautiful hymn about…

This is a superficial post because you know what? I deserve it.

The week of the hurricane I was due for a haircut.

I attempted to call my salon on Jeff’s working cell phone three days after the hurricane hit, to cancel my appointment. We were still trapped on our mountain and couldn’t get into town.

The call wouldn’t go through. The error message said the phone line didn’t exist anymore.

I eventually got an email from my salon two weeks later saying the salon was completely flooded and was t…

I am not a survivor.

To be honest, I’ve grown to hate that word.

There is no part of me that wants to be known as the person who survived four immediate family members dying by suicide.

Or surviving a 30,000-year hurricane event that devastated our area.

Or surviving rape. Or my childhood. Or whatever.

Surviving suggests that those experiences become the basis from which I operate, make decisions, and function. Surviving keeps me tied to the past. I am not enduring, suffering, or withstandi…

Yesterday my 48-year-old brother Bryce died by suicide.

Bryce was a gentle soul. He struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and overdoses, for nearly four decades. My prayers are with his three children, who lost their father way too early. I understand their pain. Our father also died when he was 48.

May Bryce rest in the peace he’s been searching for his entire life.

Less than 3 months ago, our 40-year-old brother Alex died by suicide.

Three years ago this week, our 35-year-old brother …

Hurricane Helene was a 30,000-year storm event.

This was the most catastrophic tropical cyclone event that has happened on our continent, according to NOAA data.

Here in western North Carolina, we had 31.3 inches of rainfall in three days, causing massive flooding and mudslides.

At least 230 people have been declared dead, with hundreds more still missing, according to NBC News.

Helene is the deadliest hurricane to strike US mainland since Katrina in 2005.

CBS News called this biblical deva…

Here are some things that have helped significantly as we’ve been navigating this brave, new world.

Right before our power went out, I filled 17 quart-sized Ziploc bags with water and froze them. I divided those bags of ice between our two freezers, and between them and running our generator for 5 hours a day, we were able to keep all our frozen food frozen. Nothing spoiled, which is miraculous after 17 days of no power.

We have dinner every night with Erik and Kate, our next-door neighbors. …

Yesterday we got power.

Up until today, we spent 17 days managing our propane consumption and running our whole house generator for only 2 hours each morning, and 3 hours in the evening.

We timed everything from showers to cooking to pooping to laundry, to communication with the outside world to fit within those 5 precious hours.

17 days with a total of 5 minutes of phone calls with the outside world for me, because service is still so spotty on my phone.

17 days of getting to know so many m…

Our next-door neighbor Kate, who is a chainsaw specialist, has been leading recovery teams in our community for 2 weeks+. A few days ago she led a crew in clearing 200 trees off the road that goes to our friends Stan and Dave’s house.

This is one of the roads we were most concerned about, as it was taking Stan and Dave two hours to walk to the Fire Station, in what is normally a 20 minute trip.

The poplar trees on their property are some of the largest that have needed to be cleared in our com…

I spent most of yesterday in the company of strange men.

Will and his crew of lineworkers from Kentucky, with their beautiful white electrical trucks lined up along our road, and accents so thick, that even my 12 years of living in Appalachia couldn’t decipher.

The lineworkers apologized for taking so long to restore our power. I countered with my shock that they had made it to our road already. We thought it would be months before we saw them.

Aaron, a firefighter and paramedic, who owns a c…