Fern ices over

a world on fire

Hi, Autotelic Family.

The past few weeks won’t fit into a list, but I’m showing up with what I’ve got.

I’m sure you’ve all seen by now how hard hit Nashville was by winter storm Fern. I was here thirty-two years ago, living in the same neighborhood, when the ice storm of 1994 did a similar thing. I don’t remember how long we were without power that time, but I do remember the length of time without electricity took everyone too far into the danger zone. There were some happy results: about 40 weeks later there was a little baby boom. I wonder if that will happen this time?

It begs the question, “why didn’t we learn from that experience and have the lines all buried underground by now?” I’m certain there’s no simple answer. I’m sure there’s a long list of reasons why my liberal arts-educated self can’t even imagine, but I detect a head-in-the-sand mentality at work here. As far as the expense, all I have to say about that is new stadium.

My electricity went out on Sunday, January 25 around noon. The kitties and I toughed it out that day and night, not knowing how long we’d be in the dark. I went out to charge my phone in my car the next morning and discovered a tree branch had fallen right in front of it (note to self—garages are cool). After I poured hot water on the door handle to get in, cranked it, and plugged my phone into the juice, I got back out to assess the damage.

I had thought to put a cover over the windshield, but saw that it had slipped down and only kept the ice from sticking to the bottom half. Well, I thought, at least it did a little good. The driver’s side mirror had been hit by a limb and I discovered its back piece lying on the ground, cracked, but other than that I didn’t see any damage. I got back in the car to let the windshield thaw some and check in with my people.

My sister lives nearby. Her electricity had gone out about eight hours before mine so we spent a minute commiserating and talking about possibilities for the best path forward—the cold air was getting colder. I made a fire in the wood stove, left the door open for more warmth in the room, and made a spot to camp out for the day. My sister texted a few hours later to say her electricity had returned and she was coming to get me and my three cats. Willie was already over there because she doesn’t have steps for him to get up and down in the ice like I do. I packed a few essentials, left the water dripping, and gratefully, if worriedly, let myself be rescued. Not for nothing, I’m so lucky to have a welcoming family and a sister who actually enjoys driving in the snow.

From top left: the ice was up to an inch thick on the trees; I was blocked in for a while; what it looked like.

The museum was closed Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We went back to work on Thursday, and I was still camping out at sister’s—in almost two years of working there, I hadn’t yet had the occasion to wear my L.L. Bean boots into the office, but I have now. That afternoon, I left that afternoon, while there was still a bit of daylight, to go by my house and clean out the refrigerator. My house was still dark and cold. It wasn’t until Friday around 5:30 p.m. that my power finally returned. Hallelujah! I let it thaw overnight and spent one more warm night away. I also said a prayer of thanks—grateful that John Henry was in New York City, where the electricity rarely goes out, instead of with me here. Such an experience is disorienting for those of us who aren’t autistic—I’m sure it’s uncomfortably confusing to those who are.

I’ve been nesting since I got home yesterday morning. Cleaning and dusting and de-cluttering and organizing, feeling deeply grateful and also more deeply committed to being a steward for this old place that holds me and my son so well. It’s old and still has the original 1930s windows so let’s not get me started on drafts and cracks, but I understand one of my tasks on earth is to try to leave things better than I found them.

This is where I tell you that my beloved cat Sam died last fall. I don’t think I knew how to write that down and share it widely until now. The weird thing is, I don’t know what happened, I just found him at the front steps one night about 10:30 after he’d shot out the front door, per usual, a few hours earlier. I had gone to get him in for the night, and that’s when I saw him, lying at the foot of the steps. I tapped on the window but he didn’t respond. I knew he was gone. I went out there and confirmed that he was gone. There were no marks but his eyes were fixed.

I went in the house to get a towel to wrap around his body, returned to the front steps, wrapped him up, and gently put him in a chair on the front porch. I was in shock for a little while. Thanks to my sister, I have his ashes now, right there on my altar alongside Petey’s.

Sam and I were passionate about each other, as you know. He would often wake me in the middle of the night for cuddling and would purr so loudly I thought he’d levitate. He would drape himself across my chest and heal me. He was always hungry—a long, skinny dude from the streets of East Nashville with markings that stole my heart. He was a soulmate and showed up just at the right time. Maybe his work was over—he only lived to be eighteen-months-old and still had kitten energy that sometimes showed through his sleek, panther-like tendencies—maybe there was an accident or he got into something in the alleyway behind our house. Either way, I was blessed to have Sam Callaway Moorer in my life and he will always reign supreme as Sam of the Streets.

I was afraid Louis would go into mourning as he’d done when my sister lost his first sibling, Ella. She adopted them at the same time and they were deeply bonded to each other. When Ella died, Louis stopped eating and began to lose hair too. That’s when we decided to let him live with me because I had a kitten, which proved to be one of the better ideas we’ve ever had. Louis thrived and Sam, with his strong personality, brought him back to center. He brought me back too. I still can’t believe he’s gone. I miss him so.

But as with Louis, I knew I needed somewhere to put that love. My sister promptly went to the shelter two days later and adopted not one, but two tiny black and white tuxedo kittens for me, aged two and three months old. I named them Little Black and Chloe Sophia. They are hilarious and beautiful and a constant source of amusement. Rest in peace, my dear Sam Callaway.

Here are Louis and the girls:

From top left: Little Black and Chloe Sophia, LB’s collar is pale pink and Chloe’s is hot pink, Louis looking proud, Little Black, a pile of cats feels right, handsome Louis, the girls in front of the fire, Chloe Sophia, I love a cat profile

In my flurry of organizing and hopeful decluttering, I read through a few notebooks I had stashed with some recovery literature in a table that my father made—sort of a stool but more like a wooden box with short legs. Anyway, I sat them aside on my writing table to take a look at and kept nesting. I read through them this morning, picking this page and that page to reacquaint myself with who I was at the time I was immersed in such work. I was floored by how different my thoughts and my life are now. My daily routine has dramatically changed—the center of my life has monumentally shifted from being part of a marriage to being alone for the first time in a very long time. I can’t honestly say what I think of it all this far out other than this: the things I read today have come to pass. I telegraphed the whole damn thing in my daily writings. I’m glad I saved them and waited to go back to them when I felt ready, because I see I needed the perspective I have now in order to grow. I see the results of choosing a path toward peace, however imperfectly it is walked. The pain of living inside a damaged relationship has been eased now because I went through the pain of being alone and got to the other side, happily content when I do choose solitude. I’m better for it. Meeting the challenges it has brought requires a presence of mind I could get away with floating in and out of before.

My sister reminded me of my admiration for the spartan yet deeply stylish and spiritual way in which one of my heroes, Georgia O’Keeffe, lived. The magpie in me hasn’t achieved such austerity and probably never will, but with age comes the honing of the essential. Everything else dulls and falls away. Letting go of broken energies and soul-piercing falsities rips the soul apart in spite of the good such changes bring. Time and learning from the experience is all that knits it back together.

It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s

self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised

to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find

them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and

surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night

and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is

going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we

could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what

we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. —“On Keeping a

Notebook” Joan Didion

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The effects of the catastrophe of Fern will continue to loom large for a while. So many are still without electricity—tens of thousands. I know gratitude wins the day but after a week, patience wears thin. Nashville has a history of willingness to pull together in times of natural disaster, and it seems we’re in one often these days. Every ten years or so, or even more frequently, we get a tornado, a flood, an ice storm. I hope we can think about these things when midterms roll around.

I don’t even know what else to say about what’s happening in the rest of our country. It’s a disaster too, I know, but I can’t help but feel like it’s one that could’ve been avoided. Will we ever be a society who will vote for what will benefit us as a whole rather than against what we hate?

Life is never boring, is it? It makes me grateful for the relative calm in which I usually get to live. Sure, the water heater has to be replaced, etc., but even that sort of problem is its own kind of blessing. Times are weird and it’s hard out there.

I hope you all are safe and warm.

Peace. Love. And as my friend Joe Henry says, Revelation.

Allison

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Yes, the ladies are still coming to the shop! Everything got derailed this week. This one is from my daily desk practice, which helps me reset my brain.