LETTERS FROM HOME: STATES OF EMERGENCY AND MESSAGES IN THE STORM

Jan. 16, 1997

Dear Patty,

The world is cold and wintry today, gray and icy and rainy, a little inhospitable. The police declared a state of emergency because the streets are so slippery. They want people to stay home until conditions improve. DC, still limping from her fresh reminder about the dangers on the road, stayed home. I'm staying put, too, quite gladly. Guess the people in the cars racing the Devil up William Street didn't get the message.

The message is that, as snug as we are in our bungalow and our mini-van, the natural world is our element and not to be ignored. You are foolish to try here in Missouri, where tornadoes and thunderstorms swarm in the spring and summer.

Last year I was playing a round of golf, aware that a thunderstorm was moving in, but hoping to outrace the clouds. We were on the 15th fairway when vertical lightning bolts began slicing the sky all around us. Ultimately, a group of about 10 stranded golfers congregated under the awning of a nearby bathroom as the charged air flowed through the course and a high-voltage Fourth of July buffeted our eyes and ears. Much nervous laughter.

What a stupid way to die, I thought. Victims of poor course management.

But there are worse dangers than pretending you can fly above this splendid, messy world without being caught, an astronaut in a spaceship hurtling toward nowhere. Dangers to your soul.

We humans are ingenious at finding ways to numb feelings, avoid the pain of living. Of course, the joy is lost too, but we tell ourselves we've felt joy, though we can't quite remember what it felt like. This uninhabited life is the true state of emergency.

Do we really want to reach the end and be able to say, "Didn't feel a thing."

Feel this, the world says, and an ice storm descends upon the land. It feels cold and hurts if you stay out in it too long. But if the world is separated into those things that feel good and those that feel bad, then we have created our own digital universe. Yes or no, good or bad.

Life's exquisite juices, holy waters, lie in the void in between.

Buddhists attempt to short-circuit this fear of pain by accepting from the start that suffering is an integral part of life. Pain, they say, is simply caused by resistance to what is.

Creators that we are, we want to make what is into something else we prefer. The pain in an ice storm is born in the wish for a warm spring day. The ache in a foot is inflamed by the anger that the accident happened.

The news came today that a co-worker, Paul Ervin, died. He'd been at the newspaper a long time, had a smile and a "How ya doin'?" for everyone no matter what the stress level that day. An admirable man who was well-loved.

He was here when I was a boy coming with my mother to pick up my father from work. It is hard to imagine work without him. That is the pain of letting go.

DC's outside, seeing if she can scrape some of the ice from the sidewalk so the mail carrier won't slip, though she hopes he's stayed home, too. The mail must go through, I remind her, but the mail never comes. Eventually, I know, the messages will be delivered.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.