Storm

Ray is singing "Let It Be Me," in the background. I have his voice turned up so loud that I may not be able to hear our weather radio if it goes off. Hmm I better turn him down.
I has been a long time since I have written in this blog. In fact, it has been a long time since I have written anything at all. It isn't so much that I have had nothing to write about as much as I have had nothing to say. That may seem like a subtle difference, but to me it is monumental. It is huge, gigantic. It is a huge gigantic monumental obstacle, because no matter how cool something is to me, it just does not interest me if it does not mean something.
You see, for a long time I was able to peer at all of my circumstances through a lens that seemed to force everything into making sense. Regardless of the situation I was in, if I just took out my special little looking glass, it all started making sense . Well, that little looking glass hasn't worked in a while.
Many things have happened that are interesting enough to write about, but without an effective looking glass of meaning it is almost impossible for me to start tappin' on the keys. Just to illustrate, I will give you a single example of this from this past week at my camp.
On Wednesday, I noticed that the clouds were gathering, so I hustled to the office to see the radar. It was obvious that a storm was headed our way, but I didn't know how long it would take to get there, nor did I know its severity. So, while I was trying to figure those things out all of the computers at camp froze. My screen would not refresh. The animated map quit moving. The back button did nothing and of course the forward button did nothing either. Damn, after muttering some words that were unheard and inappropriate I bounded out the door to my cart to warn my staff about the storm. My best guess was 40 minutes till it hit us.
Okay, so I knew that in 40 minutes something would hit us, but I had no idea what it would look like. Would it rain out the entire day? Would it have lightning? Would it pass by quickly? I did not know. I found each one of my supervisors and told them my news. Each wanted more info. How long would it last? How severe would it be? Lightning? I did not know I told them, but I assured them I was working on it. My radio was on and I turned it to talk to the office. There was no info from them and at times I was sure I was being ignored, I wasn't, but it felt that way. As I was traveling back to the office, I stopped a girl on a rec cart and asked what information she had. She had nothing except that the busses were only shuttling students back to camp, no shuttles were taking students out of camp. That turned out to be a big something.
Well, that was all I needed. I let all of my supervisors know to not only shut down but to tear down as well. I told them to get all gear stowed away, but I still did not know what hazards this storm had. I only knew that someone, somewhere thought that it was severe enough to evacuate the rec fields. My foot mashed the accelerator on my cart and it seemed to understand my hurry because it seemed faster than usual. I went to the Amphitheater to make sure they understood to tear down as well. They did, so I started helping.
37 minutes after my first warning I walked to the ladder that my last staff member was using to get down off the course. Lightning was flashing, but the thunder was muted. Just as I grabbed the ladder to help her down the wind hit and chairs began flying across the concrete. Trash cans bounded over the stairs spilling their contents to the air. Then the rain hit, and it hurt. This wasn't some little misty rain. This was a curtain of big, giant drops driven by 60 mile an hour winds. We couldn't be heard in anything but our loudest screams. Three of us held the ladder so that it would not blow away. Sarah made it down and we all scrambled for shelter.
The skatepark staff, the amphitheater staff, a dozen or so students and myself huddled by the stage and in the skate room waiting for the storm to pass. I was frustrated. So many times I had worked hard to make sure that we were prepared for the worst weather. A couple of times we had to scramble, but we were always a team. We had always made it, and even if it was close we could say, "Yeah, alright! Praise God!" This time the worst did not happen, and I don't even think that it was the closest call we had ever had, but I felt all alone making that decision. It did not feel good.
Normally at this time I have some insight about how this is a metaphor for life or I have some sort of clincher, or I can make some quick quip and end it. Not this time. I don't know what it means and scarier still, I don't even know if it means anything.
A lot of stuff feels that way right now. A lot of stuff feels fun, or interesting, or scary, but for now, and I hope it is just for now, it does not seem to have much meaning. Maybe the only meaning it has is this, get prepared, because another storm will eventually find its way to camp, and we better be ready.