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I’m late getting Sketch Notes up this month, and there’s no excuse except that I’ve been busy with other things.
Seems this time of year the pace always picks up and I’m always surprised by it.
Among other things I rode out Hurricane Irene in Southport, NC with my parents. They’ve lived there 20 years
now and decided that in view of the easterly path of the storm they would just stay home this time. I’d been
planning the visit even before Irene was born, so I drove the four hours from Charlotte early Friday morning,
encountering the first band of the huge storm on highway 211 with only thirty miles to go.
It’s an eerie feeling watching the radar rendering of a hurricane creeping toward your little dot on the map.
Reminds me of Pac-Man, and not in a comforting way. I was acutely aware of just how close we were to the
dark, churning Cape Fear River.
So we ate and followed the Weather Channel data and wondered if we had made the right decision to stay
even as the wind howled outside that afternoon and the world became a dark gray whirling mist.
Enthralled in spite of myself, I watched it from the living room window for a few minutes, and could just make
out a young man dressed in a wetsuit, long dark hair loose and flying, casually strolling down the road.
To make a long story short—we got through the storm okay, the power out for only a few hours Saturday
morning, the blowing not over until mid afternoon. We were lucky for sure, Irene having slowly followed the
path east of us as predicted instead of hitting us full on. I hope next time my parents come my way instead.
It all reminded me of a poem I wrote several years ago. Before radar, before the high tech instruments available
to ocean going craft, all one had to rely on were simple measuring devices to stay on course, and if a bad storm
was coming there was not much warning at all. Many ships were lost, many people died for that reason.
Although I often feel inundated with information these days, I’m so thankful for modern technology and the
people who brave the storm to bring us precious, life-saving data.
I hope your September is safe with plenty of calm seas ahead.
-Leann
Seems this time of year the pace always picks up and I’m always surprised by it.
Among other things I rode out Hurricane Irene in Southport, NC with my parents. They’ve lived there 20 years
now and decided that in view of the easterly path of the storm they would just stay home this time. I’d been
planning the visit even before Irene was born, so I drove the four hours from Charlotte early Friday morning,
encountering the first band of the huge storm on highway 211 with only thirty miles to go.
It’s an eerie feeling watching the radar rendering of a hurricane creeping toward your little dot on the map.
Reminds me of Pac-Man, and not in a comforting way. I was acutely aware of just how close we were to the
dark, churning Cape Fear River.
So we ate and followed the Weather Channel data and wondered if we had made the right decision to stay
even as the wind howled outside that afternoon and the world became a dark gray whirling mist.
Enthralled in spite of myself, I watched it from the living room window for a few minutes, and could just make
out a young man dressed in a wetsuit, long dark hair loose and flying, casually strolling down the road.
To make a long story short—we got through the storm okay, the power out for only a few hours Saturday
morning, the blowing not over until mid afternoon. We were lucky for sure, Irene having slowly followed the
path east of us as predicted instead of hitting us full on. I hope next time my parents come my way instead.
It all reminded me of a poem I wrote several years ago. Before radar, before the high tech instruments available
to ocean going craft, all one had to rely on were simple measuring devices to stay on course, and if a bad storm
was coming there was not much warning at all. Many ships were lost, many people died for that reason.
Although I often feel inundated with information these days, I’m so thankful for modern technology and the
people who brave the storm to bring us precious, life-saving data.
I hope your September is safe with plenty of calm seas ahead.
-Leann
Thanks for visiting Sketch Notes, the
seasonal and creative page of my
personal Website:
http://www.leannmarshall.com
I enjoy reading and writing (check out
my two fiction novels, The Starfish
People and The Rendering.)
I created Sketch Notes as a fun way to
express myself poetically, but I love to
feature other writers' work with a
link back to their own Websites.
Links to Sketch Notes archives are at
right.
My philosophy as quoted by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe:
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a
little song, read a good poem, see a fine
picture, and, if it were possible, to speak
a few reasonable words.”
Don't forget to bookmark Sketch
Notes, tell your friends, and visit
often!
If you have written something you
would like to see in a future edition of
Sketch Notes, email me.
seasonal and creative page of my
personal Website:
http://www.leannmarshall.com
I enjoy reading and writing (check out
my two fiction novels, The Starfish
People and The Rendering.)
I created Sketch Notes as a fun way to
express myself poetically, but I love to
feature other writers' work with a
link back to their own Websites.
Links to Sketch Notes archives are at
right.
My philosophy as quoted by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe:
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a
little song, read a good poem, see a fine
picture, and, if it were possible, to speak
a few reasonable words.”
Don't forget to bookmark Sketch
Notes, tell your friends, and visit
often!
If you have written something you
would like to see in a future edition of
Sketch Notes, email me.
