Sometimes It Takes A Hurricane

I've been planning lately. Planning my future ... planning 'what if' ... planning my day, my week, my year ...

But I didn't plan for the hurricane. I didn't plan for almost two weeks without power.

And I know that sometimes things happen; that from time to time a big wind comes and blows things all around in your life ... I just wasn't expecting the big wind to be, you know, literally a 'big wind' ...

Then Hurricane Isabel, or Izzy, as we've come to fondly refer to her ... came sweeping up the East Coast. (Technically speaking she wasn't even a hurricane by the time she neared DC ... more of a high-achieving tropical storm.) And while we fared pretty well overall, I did have ample time to make some observations while waiting for power to be restored.

What I noticed first was my sense of fairness ... and how much it's offended by a perception of differential or preferential treatment. When our power first went out ... it was just our block ... meaning we were a pocket of 12 dark houses amid a sea of lights. The streetlight 25 yards below us was lit ... as were the lights in the houses up the hill. I felt miffed, unfairly singled out. And when the rest of the neighborhood's power blew an hour later ... I felt better somehow. Equilibrium had been restored.

In the face of the random, awesome, destructive, pure, chaotic power of the hurricane ... apparently I still struggle for equal measure and treatment.

My friend Kelly tells me this has been studied recently in monkeys in a story broadcast on NPR that discussed the possibility that our sense of fairness is innate. As I understand the experiment ... monkeys were taught to perform a task for a reward. In one group the reward was a grape and in the other, a piece of cucumber. Cucumber is not as appealing to monkeys as grapes ... but as long as that was the only reward possible ... the monkeys seemed happy enough. Then the experimenters threw in the proverbial 'monkey wrench' - and let the cucumber monkeys see that the other monkeys were getting grapes for doing the same task . The result? The cucumber monkeys rebelled, and refused to do the task for cucumbers anymore. It just wasn't fair.

I freely admit, there have been times during this experience, where I have felt very much like a monkey with a cucumber.

The second thing I've noticed is how much my sense of safety is dependent on assumptions - like that my phone works. During the storm, our phone went dead. I didn't know right away ... it wasn't at the same time we lost power ... and when I found out, I felt slightly panicked. Apparently I need to know that I could use the phone ... even when I don't actually need to. There were two working cell phones in the house, so really, we were covered. But my sense of safety seems partially based on an assumption that I can access the outside world at will ... and that the way I access the world will not change.

Highly unlikely ... but there it is.

My 3rd hurricane experience was filled with the irony of reading 'The Power of Now' during 'the power of NOT' ... As many of you know, the book is wonderful ... and I had time without distractions to ponder and work my way through what Eckart Tolle is saying. Still, there is very strange juxtaposition between making daily calls to the electric company reporting that you remain powerless ... and noticing how truly powerful quiet moments in candlelight are ...

I had the sense that if I could just be a little be more enlightened ... I might actually get my lights back.

The ultimate hurricane experience, however, was by far one of kindness, generosity and community. People who would normally have spent evenings inside watching TV, walked around the neighborhood, and talked instead. In my house we had fairly deep conversations ... about community, how bonds form, how ideas travel, and how sometimes we change inside and our life outside follows, and sometimes it's the other way around. And in truth, the simple of acts talking and listening to each other mattered far more than what we actually said.

Resources were shared, simply because they could be - it was something we could do. The ice brigade is one example. We couldn't buy ice, because it was in such high demand, stores ran out as soon as new supplies came in. So friends with electricity made ice, and we'd pick up new supplies daily to refill our cooler, and play ice fairy to our neighbors. Another friend provided shower and laundry facilities, because people's hot water supplies were affected by the power loss.

It's easy to forget that we're a part of a larger community ... especially when it doesn't look or feel the way we thought it would. But when it's important, we still band together, regardless of how loose the bonds felt previously. In our highly controlled lives, where we keep one eye on the past and one eye on the future, and rarely have any attention for what's happening now ... sometimes it takes a hurricane to shake things up, add a new perspective, and remind us of what matters.

© 2003. All rights reserved. Beth M. Lyons, www.kitchentablecoaching.com

About the author: In addition to wringing ezine essays out of the tiniest of notions, Beth Lyons is the creator of the Million Dollar Life™ Coaching program, and co-founder of Kitchen Table Coaching™: where remarkable women gather to dream out loud. Kitchen Table Coaching offers mastermind coaching groups, individual, customized coaching programs, Barbara Sher Success Teams, Teleclass Workshops, Webinars, and the occasional live workshop. For more information go to www.KitchenTableCoaching.com.

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