Loss

"If a hurricane doesn't leave you dead

It will make you strong

Don't try to explain it, just nod your head

Breathe in, breathe out, move on."

-Jimmy Buffett

This blog has gotten awfully spotty. I could blame that on a crowded schedule, a trial, a hurricane, a funeral. Too much going on lately.

But that's not it, really. I've found myself in a funk this autumn, with this weekend's trip to Wyldswood bringing it like a hammer blow. I didn't want to get out of bed at all while I was there, broken trees silhouetted by the sunrise and screens flapping in the morning breeze. Once P had coaxed me up to go make coffee I couldn't muster the will to do much of anything after that, choosing instead to lie on the couch, watch sports, and imbibe. Drive down to Cedar Key? It's still a mess from the storm. Wakulla Springs for a day outing? What's the point--we were just there. And there's not much to do in Perry during the best of times, but the aftermath of the storm and the promise of five hundred pink slips a few weeks away when the mill closes have cast a pall over the place.

P did shoo me onto the golf course, where I played five holes that were so bad I quit. Dara, our favorite bartender and keeper of the cart keys these days, just got a bid of $70,000 to fix the hurricane damage to her house, which is exactly $70,000 more than she has in insurance. She makes herself take walks to avoid falling into despair. Billy sits at the bar and tells us his settlement offer from State Farm for a new roof was $1,000. Of course, with the "tort reform" hurriedly signed into law by the Wee Governor, there's not much recourse left to fight the company for a fair insurance payment. Thank you, Republican Party. We're all screwed now.

We likely don't have any insurance either, to cover what's shaping up to be the biggest line item for us--all those huge, snapped off trees that haven't been hauled off or burned yet because they're way too much for George, assiduous as he might be, to remove all by himself. So we'll pay someone, perhaps a newly unemployed group of mill workers but just as likely one of the storm chasing carpetbaggers still lurking around town looking for windfalls from all this misfortune, to bring in the heavy equipment and finish the painful task of removing what's left of all those live oaks and pines that gave us shade and beautiful sunrises and sunsets during happier days at the farm.

There goes our savings. So much for slowing down any time soon.

And as I write this, the emails are already piling up, plaintive demands from the unhappy people whose troubles and misery I spin into a paycheck. It's a hell of a life.

If the FAA didn't strictly forbid it, I'd probably go see Dr. S and get a big bottle of Prozac. This is certainly depression, but I guess it's situational and will pass at some point.

It's the piling up of this year's losses that is getting the best of me, I suppose. The farm promises years of work to bring it back to something resembling what we had just a little over a month ago. Yesterday I couldn't call my mother, as I've done most every Sunday for decades, absent a ouija board. Our friend Sonny, Laura, even the author of those lyrics at the beginning of this post, all gone now. And Dad hanging on just barely, "too mean to die" as Ray Wylie Hubbard once put it.

Yep, I've certainly had better Mondays. Maybe I'll knock off early when Peg gets done over at the Surgery Center, and go try to find my mojo. It is in fact a pretty day out there.