THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

I feel it already, the hurricane. I’m not the only one. Everyone in town does. And we live way up here in Connecticut, a thousand miles from Isabel. Stop & Shop was mobbed today. The check-out clerk was worn out when I shuffled through her aisle and it was only 1:30.

My personal theory is that our moods are more closely linked to the barometer than we know. I’ve been slightly depressed for a few days. And, although there are lots of other things I could attribute this to, I think the way I feel right now is linked to the weather. We’re in that weird time slot that is pre-storm when everything goes quiet. True, there were lots of people at Stop & Shop but there was a strange sort of quiet calm about them. It seemed that the shoppers were all busy collecting tons of cans they really didn’t need. I saw a woman stuffing about a year’s supply of toilet paper into the trunk of her car.

Whatever direction God sends Isabel she is already causing havoc—in her quietly strange way. As she inches closer on the Weather Channel map, it will be interesting to see how she changes me, and all the other shoppers at Stop & Shop.