Of Plagues and WiFi

There are a lot of people on the television (as there always are in times like these) who are calling Katrina a disaster of "Biblical Proportions," or worse yet, they just call it "Biblical," whatever that means. This leads me to wonder if this is some way of distancing from the real truth of the matter; a way of detaching and plugging the experience into some sort of mental spot that links it to myth and story and things we can't ever really understand, thereby allowing for some relief from the confusion, consternation and general turmoil.

What I am feeling these days is a whole other side of this "biblical" reality. Frankly, I'm beginning to feel a little bit like Pharoah beset by plagues (but perhaps it's really just a Yul Brynner complex). Just over a week ago I fled the hurricane headed for New Orleans, only to wind up deep in it in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. There, instead of floods we had big wind with trees crashing all around. After two days of clean up I headed out to Murphy, North Carolina where my parents have a place in the woods, in pursuit of water, electricity, improved cell service, access to TV news, and internet connectivity. This is the place where Eric Rudolph successfully avoided the police for nearly five years until he was found rummaging through a dumpster behind a grocery store by a rookie Murphy cop patrolling his normal beat. You know things are really turned upside down when you go to Southern Appalachia to find "modern conveniences," but that's exactly what I did.

After a couple of days of obsessive news watching, I finally decided that I needed to settle my head. To try and get a little sanity and stability I grabbed my zafu and went out in the woods to sit meditation and hopefully get some of my brain back. I did indeed gain some greater (and much needed) stability... I also got chiggars all over my body (you really don't want to know some of the places they have decided to take up residence, but I bet you can imagine). Last night when I went out on the porch to make a phone call (it's the only place my cell phone works), I swear to God I thought I saw FROGS!

My latest pursuit is the renewal of my ever present quest for free and accessible broadband (preferably with coffee or a beer close at hand), but here there's no such thing. So... in order to try and get work done and find some reasonable connection to the outside world I have to head to the Public Library, or the parking lot behind the Murphy Southern Baptist Church. Believe me... I'm a long way away from Molly's in this DRY county, and I certainly hold onto the hope that my favorite bar is still there.

This is my life right now... waiting for the next plague to arrive and still wondering where I'm going and what the hell I'm going to do.