I am thankful for Hurricane Irma. I know that sounds weird but there is method to my seeming madness. Irma flooded my house on September 11th, 2017, with 18 inches of water. Carla and I had to bolt to a neighbor’s house with three cats in tow at 5:00 in the morning during the height of the storm. Over the next week or three our friends and family came over, every day, and tirelessly helped us remove all the damaged furniture, carpets, flooring and clothes. We put most of our lives in a roll off dumpster. We lost almost everything, but because Carla had worried that we might flood we placed all moveable objects up high. So, we saved pictures, record albums, musical instruments and other important mementos.
A friend lent us a house for two months where we lived while we got sorted out. We moved back into our decimated home right after Christmas and lived like campers for the next 12 months.
We have two IKEA chairs, a plywood kitchen counter, a borrowed stove, no cabinets and a Wal Mart 80 dollar airbed. We jokingly tell visitors that redneck southern living is coming by for a photo shoot next week. We wash our two coffee cups and 10 pieces of silverware at the sink in the plywood counter top. We gaze from room to room because there is no drywall from the ground up to four feet. The cats love the no drywall thing as they can walk between the wall studs to any room in the house. We tried to keep them out of some rooms using plastic sheeting, but cats have claws so Visqueen is not very effective as cat deterrent. We call this existence minimalist living because there is no place to put anything, so you end up not buying stuff you don’t need, which is a good thing.
We decided not to remodel because we never want to go through a flood again. We designed a new house and then we bought a 42 foot boat and parked it in the canal behind the old house. We started refurbishing the boat as a place to live whilst we build. We are about two weeks away from moving on board with the three cats. The cats have no say in the matter. Once aboard, we will tear down our old home of 23 years and build a new one. Bigger, higher, nicer and new but the old one and its memories will be missed. Sorely missed.
You see, I did not want to get flooded. I did not want to build a new house. I was happy with my old house. I was happy with my memories of all that I had experienced there. But Irma allowed me to see what wonderful friends and family I have. She showed me how people come together in a disaster. She is opening up a new adventure for Carla and me as we are building a new house, ourselves! We are learning to be contractors. We have navigated permitting. And we are going to live on a boat! Thanks Irma, for showing me what is important in life; the value of family, how many strong and dear friends we have and how amazingly strong my partner is.