Good Morning, Sunshine!

This is the greeting I best remember from my childhood, something my mother would sing at me from across the room as I'd stumble blurry-eyed into the kitchen, hair sticking out all over my head, eyes half open, groping for the cereal box. Three magic words that could lift any dubious morning mood, making things feel right and me feel loved.

The day before yesterday my world was filled with screaming tornado warnings; booming, crashing, house-shaking thunder with staggering lightning flashes from black, roiling clouds, as far as the eye could see. Rain poured in buckets. Within a couple of hours, streets filled streets with rushing torrents of swirling flood water swallowing up yards and kids toys and carrying them away.

The tornados lasted all day. They don't always, sometimes it's just a few hours, but not this time was a bad one.

Up and down the steep stairs of our outdoor cellar, I struggled not to slip. Blinding sheets of rain slapped me in the face, wafter rushed under my feet and sloshed over the lip of the cellar door. With clothes soaked I joined the rest of my family and a few neighbors down the steep stairs into the cellar. The safest place to hide is down. Ours just one of the hundreds of similar small groups across the several country area under alert, that were hiding from the fury of the raging, deadly, twisting winds that had come to terrorize.

Between deafening sirens that continuously blared, pounding hail and violent, whipping winds any attempt at communication was extremely difficult. Scrambling to gather jackets, bags with vital paperwork: birth, marriage, death certificates, proof of insurance and deeds, were stuffed into bags along with laptops, purses. Catching panicking pets to secure in carriers was a little trickier when the sound of an exploding transformer in the distance crashed into us and the power went off; we picked up the pace. Hurry! Quickly!!

Alarms and sirens were a constant for what seemed like hours. Ear-piercing sounds that would pause for a while, would lead us think that might be safe and our small group of escapees would trudge back up steep stairs, through shin-deep water dragging survival equipment and crates of angry cats and whining dogs in soaked tennis shoes squenching with each step. Helping the ones with bad hips or knees, we climbed up steep step only to be met with another round of screaming sirens starting up again. Tornado are predictably unpredictable like that. So back down we went.

By the second trip down I was exhausted, emotionally and physically, "That's it, I'm either staying up or down!" I told them.

It's the routine drill, when you live in tornado alley in May, or June, or sometimes even March or July.

You don't initially experience fear, not at first. You just go through the motions like singing the words of a song you've known since you were a kid. Like stepping into the dance: secure the animals, if you can catch them into carriers; gather supplies of water, flashlights, batteries, blankets. Put on heavy shoes so that when its over (if everything has exploded) you won't get your feet bloodied on glass and wood splinters. You just gather everyone and every the you can carry and move through the dark toward shelter with blaring, angry sirens screaming high-pitched warnings of imminent destruction, filling the air around you!"The form of a massive tornado has been spotted. It's on the ground moving in your direction. Hide! Take shelter. Hurry! NOW!!" The weatherman shouts from the TV.

And you're pulled tighter into the dance. The music intensifies, you're swept across the floor; no room for missteps now...

The ferocity and unrelenting raging of the sky-swallowing storm, roars overhead. It beats supernatural fists against the metal door of our dank, underground refuge like a maniac. Like a psychotic killer seething and throwing itself against the door. Trying to reach in, rip us from the hole we've scurried into, as we attempt to escape it's murderous fury: trapped.

We huddle together, fellow survivors, many of whom have previously lost homes, family members, friends, or pets to another such monster. You can see it in their eyes, see the distant stare of anguish and memories replaying. As the storm rages so loudly that murmured assurances that 'it will be over soon' are lost to the staggering show of nature’s dominance and aggression playing out above.

With enough experience dancing with the monster, you learn to relax into its tight grip. It becomes routine, second-nature. Like a well-practiced tango. It leads, you follow to the the subtle nuances of pressure at your back directing you. You move to the music. You can't lock up or make a wrong step or you'll be broken, crushed. You know the steps, feel the rhythm. Keep your head and go!

After a while, after enough time sitting in the wet, cold, dankness, wondering if it's close to being over now, wondering who's lost everything, who may have even lost their lives this time, fear begins to sink it's sharp talons into you. Like the cold rivulets of water covering the metal walls of the cellar that you lean against, fear begins to soak down to your skin, through your clothes, through the guard you keep around your emotions so that you don't panic. You look into the faces of those around you filled with worry and dread of what they'll find when it's over... again.

I've grown up with the knowledge that at any moment, on any beautiful spring day, a violence of the magnitude only Mother Nature can whip up can manifest out of the blue. This deadly violence called Tornado wreaks devastation, death, homelessness and loss of property and life on innocent, guilty, animate and inanimate alike. It can happen suddenly and with very little warning. You live with this, this knowing. It's what you do, what you live with every day when you live in Oklahoma in the Spring, in tornado alley, like I do.

You live with a 'knowing' that it could be you this time. It's happened to friends, to neighbors, sometimes to family. This knowledge sits in the back of your mind. You try not to dwell on it. What good would that do? If you did, you'd just be afraid all the time.

Maybe that's why some folks say that there's a certain ruggedness, an attitude, a stoicism in the makeup of 'midwesterners', those living in tornado alley, especially. You are forced by the sheer fact of where you live, to keep yourself prepared with this 'knowing.' Everything could be gone tomorrow, if a storm grows to full magnitude and births one of the monsters, it might erase everything you have...erase loved ones, maybe erase you.

Where else does this happen? Something like playing Russian Roulette on a grander scale. But it's what we have to do here.

I was numb yesterday; tired mentally, physically and emotionally from the all-day eminent threat of death and destruction from the day before. Suddenly tired from the accumulation of all the years of 'knowing' and staying 'geared and ready' to fight or run for my life, ready to help rebuild everything should it be my turn, or ready to help those whose turn it was.

Sitting quietly in the corner of the dark, dank cellar, with the numbing anxiety, fear, dread, and worry radiating from us, like refugees in the throes of a battle, I felt done.

Thirsty and frightened, with a growing anger at having to repeat this dance...one...more...time, I let the quiet whisper rise from the back of my mind to become stronger. It asked why I choose to offer myself as the monster's unwilling partner. Maybe I'd danced to this tune long enough. Maybe it was time to stop, leave the place that demanded I be always available to the whim of the tyrant, always ready to die, to start over, even though it's all I've known for over thirty years.

A few years ago, on the morning after a siege from another monster, I woke to video on the TV showing the devastation. Neighborhoods wiped away, the life-crushing destruction of friends and neighbors homes, animals, children, mothers, fathers, siblings missing, injured, dead.

After this particularly passionate dance there were days, weeks of survivors roaming the streets looking under rubble for those that may still be alive underneath stone, concrete and shattered boards, and I flashed to scenes of war that have been reenacted through the movies that didn't look much different.

The growing unwillingness to be used in these macabre dances wrapped around me like a blanket. A not-caring that this has been my home for so long, not caring that there's an expectation that I brave it out, do what needs to be done, pick myself up and rebuild if it's my life that's demolished this time. I don't want to wait for the next storm, the next dance because 'that's what we've always done'. It all seemed so foolish all of a sudden.

This morning I woke to quiet, serene stillness around me, birds chirping outside my window, a freshness in the air, crisp and clean, beautiful, lush, green trees and grass gently rustling. With sleep lines on my face, my hair sticking out all over my head, my eyes bleary from sleep and maybe the streaked evidence of a few tears, I take a deep breath and feel the slight shift. Like hearing "Good morning, Sunshine" from Mother Earth, I feel like the world is right again. My heart is flooded with the colors of bright yellow sunflowers and soft golds skies and my heart warms

I'm grateful to have survived; ready for the next dance. Because that's what we do here, in tornado alley.