As I lay on the concrete floor of a large room at the Elks Club, listening to cots creaking, people either snoring or pacing, and the rain from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl pounding on the metal roof overhead, I considered how very lucky we were to be safe, dry, and secure in that moment. We had just evacuated from the shelter on the Barre-Montpelier Road for the second time in exactly one year.
There are so many swirling emotions in the moments leading up to the evacuation of 35 people from their home (albeit a temporary home). I am keenly aware of how my mouth becomes bone dry–a stress reaction that sometimes happens when I’m under pressure to make crucial decisions and take action, like whether to begin to mobilize guests into vehicles and traverse rising flood waters; having to ask people to bring one emergency bag and leave their only other personal possessions behind; and frantically checking each room to make sure everyone is accounted for.
Anxious pacing or sitting and staring at a wall due to being out of one’s element are very real effects that the displacement of the displaced can have on the human spirit. When one is already precariously housed, working so hard to rebuild or shore up the foundation of their lives, it can be wholly unsettling, confusing, or terrifying to be plucked from one’s shelter because that very shelter is in danger.
What becomes of our longer-term feelings of safety and security when this occurs? How do we trust there is an anchor in the proverbial storm?
It is evident to me that we must be one another’s anchor. We must give of ourselves what we are able to give, which looks different for each one of us. In many instances, it simply looks like camaraderie, community, and cooperation in situations of tumult.
There is a saying that getting married on a rainy day is good luck because rain will bind a knot even stronger than on a dry day. Despite the stress and intensity of this rain and flooding event, the knot of shared experience strengthened our Good Sam community in many unseen but deeply felt ways.
At the end of the day, and with my one wild and precious life, I hope that I can meet the adversity of precipitous change–resulting in the displacement of the already displaced–with awareness and compassion, so that the last line of this quote takes shape for each of our most vulnerable comrades: