reality

We're experiencing a heavy shower. Yesterday morning's paper said there'd be several tropical waves passing through this week. It was the first time this year that I fully allowed myself to think the words 'hurricane season.' Thankfully, the entire first month of it has already passed. I sure won't miss living half the year under that banner (June 1 through November 30). August and September are when we need to be particularly mindful of it, but come summer it's time to start monitoring the weather sites. The words depression, wave, storm and hurricane suddenly creep back into everyone's vocabulary--as do "levels 1 through (god forbid) 4." Businesses begin handing out free hurricane maps to their customers. (I grabbed one at our mailbox facility a few days ago.) We've been extremely fortunate during our time here. The only hurricane we've experienced was Debbie, which passed right over the island in August of 2000. She was just a baby hurricane, no more extreme than a good Portland winter storm. This will be our fifth hurricane season and we're praying hard to the hurricane gods that we can return to the mainland next year without that particular tale to tell.