Second thoughts

Okay, I admit it. I'm freaked. Night is falling, and the storm should be centered on us about 3 am. A major hurricane in the dark seems more ominous than if it were going to be daylight. We are starting to have tropical winds. The trees emit a low roar like a train as the winds whip through them. Set against a darkening evening sky, it's a head trip.

I sat on the porch looking at the cypress trees in Judy and Jim's yard. I planted them with their kids for their 2nd and 4th birthdays. That was 15 years ago. One tree has always been 3 times bigger than the other, and the big one is a giant three times the height of their house, like David is three times the size he was then. They've never trimmed the bottom branches of the tree, preferring the full christmas tree shape. The boys still climb them and hide in the full fluffy branches. Jim curses their cypress knees poking up all over of the yard everytime he mows, and each year he gets Judy to concede to take one row of branches off the bottom so he can mow around them a little easier.

Tonight the giant cypress looks like the whomping willow in Harry Potter. Its multiple rows of branches are churning in the wind. From time to time the top half bows toward the ground, then snaps back up. Such a limber tree. It will probably still be dancing in the morning.

My pine trees, on the other hand, are inflexible toothpicks. Oh what was I thinking 25 years ago? There's a row of 7 down the west side of the house. A twister took the top out of one of them a few years ago, so it's not quite so tall. The rest are ready to rumble. In 1983, after Hurricane Alicia, they were little saplings that bent to the ground and had to be staked right up again. Now, they are roof smashers ready to pounce. If I had waited ten years to plant trees, they would be cypress whomping willows, putting on a show, and driving the next door neighbor wild sending up knees in his yard instead of just accumulating pine needles on his roof. Both the whomping willow act and the cypress knees would have been a jolly good show. But no, they are pines, waiting for just the right gust, one of the million gusts Ike is going to deliver. Look at the track of that storm. Looks like my street to me!

On the east side of the house, there are four oak trees. When they snap, I am hoping they miss the house. They're not as tall, yet, nor as close. But I am sure there will be major snapping to be seen by the morning. The chain saw is at the ready, Carl willing, with plenty of gas and oil in the garage. I think we are going to be busy tomorrow. I just hope it's not tonight.

A local congretation was featured on the news this week, standing in the field by their church, out in the bright, hot sun, commanding the winds to slow. I think I should have joined them. Please, please, Ike, just spare our roof. Please, no westerly or easterly winds, just northerly. I think I can take northerly. I hope I can take northerly. I pray I can take northerly.