Welcome guest blogger Kaci Cronkhite!
Lessons from the Deep Blue Sea
by Kaci Cronkhite
When Christine offered a guest blog appearance I blurted “Heck yea!” and promptly burst the book writing bubble I’d created the past six months at my writing retreat in Oklahoma. “Write anything about being a writer who loves the water,” she wrote. “650 words or so.” Sounded easy enough.
After coffee the next morning, I took off on an idea and after a quick paragraph I hit a wall and stopped dead in the water. Next, I wrote 3000 words. Oops, too much sail. Over the next few days, this surprising, irritating then scary pattern persisted. The idea of 650 words jammed my gears. I changed chairs, tried writing outside, jotted down ideas on a notepad. Nothing. Fear drifted into my creative space like a transparent jellyfish trying to paralyze me. I could not get to the ocean in my mind.
Then on Friday, NOAA radio forecast a Severe Tornado Warning. Urgent and clear, the rhythmic cadence of the computerized voice rebooted my brain. For a decade that voice in varied forms had been a lifeline at sea. Informed, reliable and calm, NOAA ocean was now NOAA Oklahoma. Eight miles from town and alone, I methodically prepared the house, car, dog and myself for the blow as if I were on the boat.
There’s nothing like the steady approach of a storm to distill thoughts. As the band of low pressure raced up the plains from Texas, I watched its colorful bands of rain, circles of hail and nascent swirls of upper level cyclonic activity creep steadily closer on the computer screen. The paradox of beauty and danger drew closer line by line.
NOAA radio went off. A tornado was on the ground just southwest of Woodward heading northeast at 60 mph. “Take shelter immediately,” repeated the voice. Remembering the Canton tornado last May, I moved into the safe room. Tornadoes sometimes veer right once on the ground and the long squall line from which this tornado spawned was getting close. It would definitely cross my location. Woodward is 70 miles northwest. Canton was 18. In both cases, a tornado turn right would be in my direction.
Memories of the passage off South Africa bubbled to the surface. A deep calm settled over me. While I could do nothing to move the house, the fact that it was anchored would shorten the impact. Messages from my unintended singlehanded sail from Thailand to Malaysia echoed encouragement. I was alone, but not alone. What will be, will be.
The storm was now only minutes away. Closing the computer screen, I waited in the dark. The night sky to the southwest was aflame with lightening and soon the canyons and house began vibrating with the rumble of thunder stampede drawing near. Through a small window in the bathroom, I got the first scent of ozone. The whispering approach wind rustled the trees next to the house. Seconds later, the bellowing wall that every ocean sailor recognizes burst through. It was here.
The angry front edge of the storm cut loose with a roar in the canyon blasting trees, hurling limbs and tearing at the roof. As the brutal front raced across the ridge, wild torrential waves of rain crashed against the house and gushed from the gutter like a firehose.
The biting edge of the storm passed quickly. I stepped to a window as lightening illuminated horizontal rain drops and a stream cutting a new channel down the driveway. It was a relief to not worry the anchor would drag. Then abruptly the rain stopped, the wind dropped and it was over.
Stepping out on the porch, I watched the flashing black mass roll away downwind like a ship sailing wing-on-wing with stars in its wake. Orion and the Seven Sisters lay anchored in their usual spot. All was well on board in Oklahoma.
Write on!
Kaci
p.s. Storms are indiscriminately violent and as they move through the atmosphere, someone somewhere eventually gets hurt. As this blog post was written, 6 people were killed and at least 30 sent to hospital in Woodward, Oklahoma. Hundreds lost their homes. My heart goes out to them. Donations are being accepted by Red Cross.
About Kaci Cronkhite:
A writer, circumnavigator, wooden boat owner, happy traveller, boat genealogist and featured blogger at OffCenterHarbor.com, I work wherever the wind blows and with creative people worldwide.
Life began on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma, then rolled west for a decade in Alaska, a decade on the ocean and a decade at the helm of the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. Wilderness treks, upwind deliveries, non-profit success and a circumnavigation of the world are special memories in my journey’s wake.
A buxom little spidsgatter named Pax (peace in latin) is currently the focus of my life. Struck first by her beauty and then by her mystery, the search for her owners, her builders, her truth has now taken me to Denmark, British Columbia, both northern and southern California and through hell and heaven in Washington state. Built in 1936, she survived the Occupation of Denmark with her lead keel intact. Through a woman shipwright, she survived a raging fire in Sausalito. Through at least ten owners and two continents over eight decades, she’s been loved and lost repeatedly.
Finding PAX is the story of her journey to be published later this year, touch wood! For more information see kacicronkhite.com.
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