Odile 2014, the knitter's point of view
Taking into account the last events I am so happy that I am alive and able to write this post.
Sunday morning, 14th of September, was perfect. I woke up early as usual, wrote the blog post about a lovely yarny gift given to me by a talented girl, walked with the dog, read a little bit, had a breakfast with my husband… Lovely, lazy Sunday. My favorite time when I can fully relax after a busy week and dive into knitting and crochet.
I checked the weather as the local government cancelled the school on Monday because of the hurricane Odile coming. We are pretty used to it as August and September are hurricane months. Usually we get heavy rains and the next day everything is perfect again. Well, not this time…
At first it was even pretty – the skies became dark, cloudy and the perfect silence covered the town.
Then it started to rain. Nothing special, except that we lost the power and the Internet. We lit candles and had a lovely dinner. We decided to take some precautions and spend the night on the bathroom floor, just in case. Well, this decision, as it turned out later, saved our lives.
Around ten the wind started to blow, the sound of the rain was putting me to sleep. Suddenly the wind became much stronger, all the windows started to shake. Next second we heard the sound of the broken glass – the window in the living room was out. We put the armchair and the table against the door, it didn’t help. Five minutes later our door got smacked out, next second – the window. We jumped into the shower and covered ourselves with blankets to get some protection from the glass.
We spent the rest of the night on the bathroom floor, covered in water, listening how the house is being destroyed and just hoping that the roof and the walls would stand against the wind. As we found out later the wind was blowing 300 km/h.
The morning came… We opened the door…
I felt like I got into one of these “end of the world movies”. The house looked like someone dropped a bomb on it. All the windows were out, the floor was completely covered with the broken glass, the front door – 10 meters away from the house.
When we came out on a balcony, we understood we were the lucky ones. The city was half destroyed. The electricity poles broken in half, lying across the street with the high-voltage wires on the trees; houses with no windows, houses with no roofs, houses with no walls, houses covered in water up to the windows…
Though the world was falling apart around us I had just one thought in my head – “I can’t deal with this right now. All I want is to boil some hot water, make tea, clean at least one piece of furniture from the glass and… knit.” I guess my mind was seeking for something familiar, something that would help me to keep going.
The first days after Odile were the hardest. No electricity means no water in our neighborhood. We couldn’t get out of the house, as the street was blocked with the fallen trees and the electricity poles. We couldn't even go to the store and buy the food. Basically there were no stores - almost all of them destroyed. No internet, no phone connection, nothing to use to get in touch with friends and family. Just four days later the principle of the Montessori school where I work managed to get to my house. Upon seeing each other safe and healthy we couldn’t talk, just cry.
The days were slowly passing by… The simple tasks like washing the dishes, cleaning the house, washing the clothes were challenging to perform without the tap water. It really makes you appreciate a lot of things that were taken for granted.
People were slowly recovering from the shock and coming back to their lives. The town woke up. The damage that was suffered is immense and it will take months to get back to normal. The helicopters, government ships and planes were circling the town, bringing food, water, clothes for those in need. Odile brought a lot of destruction, but it also brought a great deal of good things with him.
People would go out on the streets, helping their neighbors, cleaning, sharing their food with the ones who needed it more… We met amazing people, made new friends, cooked meals together, made campfires, ate marshmallows, played the guitar and cheered up each other.
And, of course, I was knitting. Every day, several hours a day. I found a skein of luxurious yarn in my stash that survived in Odile, 100% silk, spun in Italy and handdyed in Chile.
I've had it for more than a year, but it was so beautiful and precious that I was always waiting for the perfect time and for the perfect project to start casting on. Well, that was kind of a perfect time for it… I know I am the one who always says There’s never too much yarn, but let me give you a tip: better to knit your yarn stash before seeing it floating in the water with the broken glass.
Whenever I had a heavy feeling about what had happened, I would pick up my needles and keep on knitting and knitting with this soft, silky, delicious yarn. Such a joy. Thank you, Odile, for making me get to it already! Don’t wait for the perfect moments to come, make them NOW.
During all this time the knitting became my anchor that was holding me in one place without letting me drift in the sea of despair, panic or fear. This is not the first time when the knitting and crochet helped me to keep going during the hard times.
I feel so grateful to be able to write this, to breathe, to walk, to knit, to crochet…
Every day is a miracle. Thank you!