A Fourth of July twist!
When I received notice late last night that my flight from Tulum to Miami was canceled, I immediately texted my sisters to express my outrage. Hurricane Beryl isn’t supposed to make landfall until early Friday morning! What were they thinking cancelling flights on Thursday afternoon? Surely it would still be sunny then (it is, but I will admit the wind is picking up a lot). My sister Holly laughed at my shock and brought up this infamous scene from The Devil Wears Prada. Touché, Holly.
While a part of me is upset that my plan for settling into my apartment in Miami and getting ready to start work on Monday is getting thrown into the spin cycle, I am also grateful to be able to help prepare our home. The house on the north coast should be fine. The mangroves really do help and it won’t get a direct hit. Although since it is being cast locally as a war between the gods (at least the memes are), you never know what could happen.
And if you have been reading my past few updates, then you know that we have not yet had all the windows installed at our house yet (for strategic reasons). We knew we would need to address that at some point, but it turns out that day was today.
It is definitely much darker in the house now. My mom and I were reminiscing about that experience. Our family lived on the Gulf Coast and experienced many hurricanes. The moment when the shutters went up and the house got so dark was kind of like the real beginning of the storm. Like we were all safe and protected now. Just had to wait for it all to start blowing over us. It’s also a good reminder to gather all the candles! Charge all the phones! Buy ice! Extra water! Clean up all the debris from the yard! All the last minute things.
Even the power company was out trimming trees back from the pówer lines before the wind picks up. Nice work, CFE!
Some people really hate this part where you are done preparing for the storm and now you just wait for the hurricane to do its thing. And it takes a much longer time to happen than most humans are ready for after hearing about a violent storm approaching for days. A lot of people are like, get it over with already!
It is kind of how I felt about my flight getting canceled. Hopefully, I fly out this weekend when the storm passes, but I spent the last few days preparing to leave today. My bags are packed. My goodbyes are said. I ate Yucatecan meals that I knew I would miss eating.
And now, I just wait. And feel grateful that I get to spend more time with my man and the dogs.
And maybe I’ll do what many southerners waiting for a hurricane to arrive do: make a gumbo.
See y’all on the other side of the storm wall.
