Snapped Off

Hurricane season rarely affects us, and tornadoes are unheard of. Earthquakes unsettle the population once a year but never more than 3.4 on the Richter scale. The way that nature gets us is with Downeasters, or more appropriately written, Downeastah.

You see, heah in Maine, true Main-ahs drop the ahh (r) at the end or middle of wahds (words), so, to you 'folks from away,' as you'd be called, the mighty blowin' wind stawhm (that's a rounded ah, not what you say when the doctor says open your mouth and say ah, ah) is a "Down Easterrr," but to us it's a "Downeastah".

Now, I'm not too int'rested in writin' out this stawhry phonetic'lly fawh yuh from staht to finish, but I cahnt even staht the stawhry without tellin' yuh how it stahts, 'else I'd be missin' the point o' what kind o' people we ahh.

Now, then, that's enough of that. We get those big windstorms here, Downeasters, and we had one around Christmas of '22 that tried to take the roof of our house. I was in the dining room/den working on my computer. My wife and older boy were watching television in the living room, just fifteen feet to my right. Our younger boy was upstairs in his bedroom, which is on the back wall of the house.

The wind was howlin' somethin' fierce, and then I heard something *snap*. I figured that a tree branch may have broken free, or mebbe a snow shovel had been blowed off the porch. I wasn't too eager to go looking for whatever the situation was until the 15-year-old rushed down the stairs and hollered, "What was that??"

"What was what?" I replied.

"That noise! Didn't you hear it??" He was astonished. "I thought tree was falling on the roof!"

No one had heard it. He ran to the mudroom and looked out back. "Brrr, it's cold out here!" he hollered again. "I can see a tree leaning toward the house!"

I decided it was time to have a look for myself. The day was rapidly losing daylight, but I went to see what he was talking about. Indeed, a middling maple was leaning toward the back of the house. "Is that the tree you mean?' I asked, pointing to it. When he nodded I spoke again. "That's not what you heard. That tree has been like that for years. We'll have to wait for daylight to see what happened." He wanted to turn on a light in the house to see more clearly, but the electricity went out, and we spent the night by candlelight.

By morning, the wind had calmed itself to the occasional gust. I hadn't slept because of my utter reliance on a CPAP for breathing while slumbering, so I rose from my easy chair at first light and called the dog to go outside with me for his first whiz biz of the day. As he trotted from one favorite pee spot to another, I glanced around at the damage, shaking my head in wonder, and letting out a low whistle.

My first amazement was the sight of a VHS tape stretched from a maple tree on the south side of the house to the row of shrubs on the east side. It's a distance of no more than ten feet, but my surprise was the thorough twisting of the tape and the bewilderment of its origins. Our mixed breed took no notice, happily sniffing the ground and the trees, lifting his leg, and then looking to me for direction. I kept waving him further into the yard.

When we got to the middle of the back yard, I discovered the tree top that had snapped off the night before. It is pictured at the start of this tale. We have two dead pine trees at either end of a thirty-five foot stretch of patchy ground, and this length lay below one of them. However, it's not the one it snapped from! The more closely I observed the two dead trees, the more remarkable the previous night's wind became.

You see, the wind blew so hard that a 20' length of tree top snapped off a pine tree at the north end of the patch, blew or flew 25 feet southward, and landed on the ground at the foot of the other dead pine tree! Had any one of us been out there when that happened, I am certain it would have killed us. Yet, only the boy whose room was closest to the action could hear it. It was snapped like a toothpick.

My life has felt like that storm and tree of late. There are far too many days I find myself wishing to be in the way of the flying treetop. The old expression, "Stop the world, I want to get off!" hits too close for comfort. I find no peace. I find no resting place. I am constantly in turmoil. I want it to end. I want life to go away. I want my life to be done. I am tired of living. I am tired. I am tired of fighting and losing. I am lost. I lost. Lost. Loser. Lose. loss.

What is this? my colleague asked today. He pointed to his upper lip and chin area but was asking me. I don't often have facial hair. Deep depression, I responded. He didn't bat an eye. No response. Ignored me completely. Yeah, that's what I thought. You want to ask, but once you know, you don't care.

I finally have time to work on curriculum development. I've wanted that for 14 months. So what am I doing? falling asleep on my keyboard. avoiding the project. Anything but the curriculum development.

Another day, another anxiety attack. anxiety is through.the.roof. so much to do. no motivation to do it. drifting. drifting. There are days I feel like I'm going to snap. I feel like I'll be that tree. One day fine, next day snapped off, thrown into someone else's lane, dead as a doornail.