Phoebe Kate

When people ask me where I live and I tell them “the coast of NC,” they uniformly go, “Ooooo!  Aren’t you lucky!  Omigod!  The beach!  The fabulous fresh seafood!  Surfing!  Boating!  Jet-skiing!  Those gorgeous oceanside homes!” 

Okay, those are the females.  The guys are a little more laid back, but they essentially enthuse (in a calculatedly off-handed manner, of course) over the same things and a few more, like being in NASCAR country and the home of deep-sea fishing, fried food and Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

And when they’re done with their rhapsodizing and their long list of advantages to being where I am, they finally get around to the reality of realty. 

“But…” they say hesitantly.  “You get…all those…umm…hurricanes…”  They say it in a hushed and sheepish sort of way, like it’s on comedian George Carlin’s infamous List of Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV and they’ll get their knuckles rapped or their mouths washed out with soap for uttering it in polite society

It does seem that the Weather Gods have 2 highly favored places they like to send those big-assed storms.  New Orleans and Eastern NC.  Part of the problem is that where I live sticks out into the Atlantic like a great big storm magnet.  Even hurricanes that manage to bypass or skirt much of the Eastern seaboard can’t help but smack right into us, poking out there like a blasted sore thumb in the ocean.  And as of tonight, we’ve got 3 of ‘em stacked up and waiting to strike us.

Hanna doesn’t present any serious problems, just inconveniences and discomforts from possible loss of power and local flooding.  Ike, if it stays a Cat 4, will potentially wreak havoc and destruction across the entire state and several others as well.  (Shall we sing Martha and the Vandellas’ “I got nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide”?  Or The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm”?)  And Josephine — it’s anyone’s guess where she’ll go.  But we know the 2 preferred locations, don’t we?

There are many times when I wonder why I moved back to the South, specifically to this part of the South.  Masochism?  Death wish?  Temporary insanity?  A desire to personally atone for the sins of the world?  Do I have a case of arrested development and have remained for the last 3 or so decades a closet teenage drama queen?  Why do I want to live in a place where for almost half the year people live in dread of the weather?

Oh, wait.  Hell, no!  It’s not me who picked this place.  It’s my husband.  One of those damn Yankees, of course. 

Back in high school, my best friend was Sam (Samantha) August.  She was like the boneless cat that one of the Peanuts comic strip characters (Frieda with the naturally curly hair?) used to carry around.  Nothing bugged Sam.  Nothing upset her.  Nothing bothered her.  (Needless to relate, everything bugged, upset and bothered me, of course.) Sam would just blink those great, big, beautifully made-up and infinitely wise almond eyes of hers at whatever trouble reared its unpleasant head and say with a wry little laugh and a toss of her lovely blonde hair, ”It’s all part of life’s rich pageant, Pheebs.” 

That’s what I’m saying to myself tonight.  Because it’s true.  And I didn’t learn that lesson years ago, no matter how often you told me that.  But dammit, I’m going to learn it now, Sam.  It’s about time.   

–phoebe kate