“The only thing you can really control…is how you react to things out of your control.”—Bassami Tazari
My sister-in-law Sherry who lives in the area of Charleston, South Carolina was attending the 100th birthday party of Uncle Eddy on the Schwimmer family side in San Diego. As fate would have it, it was right around the time Dorian, a Category 5 hurricane was predicted to hit the Bahamas and then continue towards the coast of Florida and the Carolinas. I told Cecile, you should invite Sherry to stay with us until the hurricane blows over. So Sherry re-routed her flights to stay with us until the final reveal of Hurricane Dorian. She knew it was out of her control and it was an opportunity to be with her sister.
Gratefully, Dorian was reduced to a Category 2. Now, Cat 1,2 or 3 can still be bad hurricanes but they are not usually killer storms. They are mostly tree, roof, boat, water damaging storms that are miserable and inconvenient to be sure, but there was a minimal chance of being killed directly by the storm. Like Russian Roulette, the odds are much, much greater than one in six that one will survive.
I was impressed that Sherry was taking the whole thing in stride. Yes, she has been through this many times before and had the advantage to take refuge from the storm by staying with us in mild, sunny California. And, she has insurance. Nevertheless, we still worried what she would face upon her return.
So, with family by her side, she made the best of it. I took her to a yoga class which is almost always a pleasant, relaxing experience. Ironically, the teacher announced that she was going to have us focus on the water element. As she instructed us to lay on our backs and close our eyes she asked us to imagine we were like waves of the sea hitting the shoreline. In fact, some of the postures she guided us through were wave-like. The teacher even played a recorded piece of music of the sound of water to accentuate the experience. Afterward, Sherry and I compared notes and we both concluded with a smile that it was difficult not to think about the storm surge about to hit the Carolinas over the ensuing days.
The next day we walked a few miles on the trails right outside our home, we went to visit our granddaughter, Lyla in Redwood City, whom Sherry hasn’t seen since last May when we celebrated her son Jacob’s 40th birthday. Cecile had already been baby-sitting since 6:30 AM when Sherry and I Ubered up after another yoga class later in the morning. We played with Lyla, read her stories, pushed her on her swing on the front porch, I got to feed her and then Cecile put her down for a nap while Sherry and I went to the neighborhood park to take our daughter and son-in-law’s dog Decker for a walk. We discovered a Romanesque fountain surrounded by a rose garden.
At about 5 PM we said our goodbyes to our son-in-law Kyle (Michelle wasn't home from work yet)and had dinner at Mayfield Bakery & Cafe in Town & Country Village in Palo Alto “featuring simple and rustic, yet elegant California-inspired cuisine.” We shared a mouth-watering thin-crusted Margherita Pizza with fresh sweet red and orange heirloom tomatoes and basil that was out of this world. And for our entree, we had a crispy and tasty salad with kale, strawberries, toasted grains and almonds, pecorino, dressed with Lemon Vinaigrette with a fillet of pan-seared salmon on top. Caesar, our waiter was great as was his assistant. BTW, that stick in my mouth at the fountain was a See's Butterscotch lollypop:-)
P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't offer my thoughts and concerns for those who have and will suffer great losses and upheaval, especially those in the Bahamas.
