I don’t like scary movies.
I don’t like roller coasters.
I don’t like monsters under my bed.
I generally try to live life putting happy things into my brain. It’s so much easier that way. When happy things go in, happy things come out. It’s a relatively simple formula that has served me well in life.
So when my husband woke me up at 5:23 am yesterday morning to tell me the windows were rattling and the trees were shaking and the storm of the century was approaching and that we need to get in the tiny room under the stairs, I became the one thing I try never to be….
…scared.
When I ran down the stairs and looked through that giant window on the landing, it looked like the scene from The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy’s house is sailing through the sky. We waited as torrential rains and hail and thunder and lightning lit up the sky all around our home.
And then?
As quickly as it came?
The storm left.
And at 6:19 am, I opened the back door….
…and saw this.
There were branches everywhere and the power was off at our home for the day.
The yard was covered with twigs and pieces of plastic and broken pieces of this and that and a random pillow and a water raft from a neighbor down the street.
There were shingles and planters and leaves and pieces of sod everywhere.
The fountain that sits in the middle of the yard had flipped over and come apart.
The top had broken off.
It fell and hit the sidewalk and the concrete chipped it on one side.
My beloved birdhouse that my husband rebuilt was uprooted.
It kind of fell to one side and part of its roof came off.
And the holes in the side just became a lot bigger.
But here’s the thing.
Truth?
What I’m showing you here is actually SO MINOR.
What I’m showing you here is actually SO NOTHING.
What I’m showing you here is actually has NO THERE THERE.
Just between us? This is a day of yard clean-up, piling up the branches and a birdhouse remodel.
Because here’s what we didn’t realize hiding under the covers in the early morning hours with the wind whipping outside the window and the sirens going off and the hail raining down.
Right down the street.
One block away.
One house away.
A TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN.
That morning when we went outside and walked the block and talked to the neighbors?
It was so evident.
You could see the path of the twister.
So much damage and destruction all around from those swirling winds.
And it was all just feet from our house.
There were downed fences and major roof damage and trees in pools and trees on top of houses and trees on power lines and a GIANT TREE that looked like it came from the redwood forest completely uprooted just a block away.
YIKES.
Luckily no one was hurt and the damage can be repaired and it looks like the neighborhood is going to come together to help everyone in any way that we can.
The sun was shining this morning.
Today is a new day.
And as I stood in my backyard and looked at these branches—I thought how sometimes your view can change in an instant when you see the bigger picture.
Things that seem major can become minor when your perspective shifts.
So I’m showing you these pictures of our backyard not out of sadness, but out of thankfulness.
Out of gratitude.
Out of an overwhelming sense of gratefulness.
The storm has passed.
The house (and our family) is still standing.
And now? I’m so ready for all the blue skies ahead.
PS I think I might gather up some of the sticks and make these like I did when it stormed in Kentucky.
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