Reader, ‘tis the season. As the mists and mellow fruitfulness begin to gently settle themselves on the hills in the place I was born, here we greet an altogether different season. Here we watch the hurricanes, and here it is the season of fear.
I imagine you too will have been watching the hurricanes this season. Harvey in Texas, where the flooding was as big as everything else in that great state. And Irma across the Caribbean where this weekend the tiny islands that make up paradise were left naked and utterly defenceless against the viciousness of the strongest storm ever...
hur·ri·cane:
Definition: A storm with a violent wind, in particular a tropical cyclone in the Caribbean.
Origin: Mid 16th century: from Spanish huracán, probably from Taino hurakán god of the storm.
Hurricane Matthew was coming, and much the same way as I did before childbirth, I read up on the phenomenon we were about to experience. As with childbirth, I tracked its course as we counted down the days to its arrival, and made the necessary preparations. As with childbirth, the wait was agonising. And as with childbirth, nothing could have prepared me for the reality.
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