A post-storm choreographic masterpiece

The storm has passed, and in her wake she has left destruction, but also a great sense of humanity. Strewn all over my yard are the bright Key limes from Carla’s tree, beautiful crimson red magnolia seeds from next door, broken peanut shells from a squirrel feeder, shriviled iris and hibiscus blooms, shards of broken pottery, wood planks from a torn porch, dissolved sandbags, and a random, sad, little wind chime – all tossed together with salt-marsh grass and mud. A strange Waldorf salad of then and now, sitting here, starting to smell of a salty, damp decay. But, from out of hot houses, not vibrating with TV screens or kitchen lights, or even percolators, come the helping hands of good people: the neighbors. We pitch in with our rakes, shovels, and wheel barrels. We hug, we laugh, we share coffee, we share stories, we share ourselves. It is a choreography of movement that no director could ever arrange so fluidly with such little rehearsal. I am amazed. I am grateful. We reverberate the movements of the storm, but in a different way. We push, we pull… moving things about, changing the landscape of what was destruction to something else. Is it like it was the day before? No … but it is ok, maybe even better than ok, because today, we are dancers who know the dance by heart. This is where I reach for you, and this is where you reach for me, and this is how we work together leaping over the pain and hoisting one another up for the healing. We are beautiful in our humanity. This performance may have cost us a dear price, but in the end, the unity that it has inspired - well, it is LOVEly.