Don't mess with Mother Nature

We're having a blizzard in Chicago. Maybe you've heard? My grandma, who lives in Southern California, sure did. She called me earlier today to thank me for the wedding photos (so glad that project is done) and to ask if I was safe. I assured her that I was home on my couch, watching the snow drifts through the living room window as the wind picked up speed.

The blizzard reminds me of when I lived in Miami and I used to lay on my bed and watch the thunderstorms. My studio apartment, barely 500 square feet, had floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls, which gave it the feeling of living in a fish bowl. But in a good way.

The windows overlooked thick bunches of palm trees and the clear blue Florida sky (except when it was raining) so I never had to worry about catching a neighbor naked or putting on an inadvertent show of my own. I had both privacy and sunshine, a winning combination in my mind. 

My studio apartment wasn't much to look at, but it was cheap and on South Beach within walking distance of the ocean and nightlife. It had white-tiled flooring that made it look like an over-sized bathroom, shower doors that were rusted and screeched and a kitchen you couldn't really call a kitchen. It was more like a couple feet of counter space, some cabinets and a sink.

Oh, and I had cockroaches. At first I thought it was gross and squealed like a girl when I saw one. After awhile I got used to them and would interrupt phone conversations for mini assassinations.

"Hold on a sec," I'd say, pulling off my flip flop. I'd hover over the intruder, take aim, then SMACK! I'd wipe it up with a paper towel, toss it in the garbage, put my flip flop back on and sit down.

"Okay, I'm back."

"What was that?" the friend or family member I was talking to would ask.

"Oh nothing, just a cockroach," I said. "If they're going to live here, the least they could do is pay rent."

But anyway. Back to the rain. The storms in Florida were amazing. It never just rained, it poured. That tropical rain that is a force of its own. I'd listen to it thwack the leaves of the trees outside my windows and watch the lightening flash across the technicolor sky. Thunder would follow with an ominous boom. I'd lay there for an hour, my hands tucked behind my head, humbled by the beauty and power of it all.

Weather has a way of doing that, you know. Putting us in our place. We humans think we're so powerful with our cars, computers and big fancy jobs. But when it comes to weather, real weather, Mother Nature is still in charge. Floridians learned that the hard way when Hurricane Andrew blew through in 1992. From what my Miami friends told me, no one paid much attention when newscasters started pointing out a fiery red ball making its way up the Atlantic Ocean toward the Gulf of Mexico.

But ask Miamians about Hurricane Andrew now and you'll see them exhibit sure signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. It leveled entire neighborhoods, causing mass destruction everywhere. One friend told me she rode out the storm in her bathtub, where she had pulled a mattress on top of her and clutched her radio.

The only company she had was the voice of a meteorologist at a local radio station. The meteorologist, Bryan Norcross, became famous for his 23-hour marathon broadcast during the storm, when he guided South Floridians through the worst of it with his calm, steady instructions -- their only lifeline to the outside world. 

By the time I experienced my first hurricane warnings in 2002, Floridians weren't messing around. There were long lines at Home Depot to buy plywood (to board up windows) and runs on the grocery store for bottled water and canned goods.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury of watching the storms from my bed. Each time I had to evacuate, especially during the crazy hurricane season of 2004, when they just kept coming one after another: first Charley, then Ivan and a bunch of others whose names are a blur.

The best part of the hurricane, of course, was getting days off work. It was sitting with friends watching the storm approaching on TV with nothing to do but make a sandwich, pop open a beer and hope the storm windows hold. There was nothing to do but wait until it hit, wait until it passed, then go outside and assess the damage.

It's the same with this blizzard. Sometimes there's nothing left to do but sit on the couch, let Mother Nature do its business and wait. At least this time there are no cockroaches in sight.