Before the storm

"Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm,
I know
It's been comin' for some time."

The reprieve before the storm. Nights dark and cold, quiet in our living room. 70's folk drifting through the air. Every song tells a story I feel deep inside. I wonder why they don't make songs like this anymore. Real music. A person shouldn't listen to this when you're feeling lost. It's too easy to cry.

We've been padding around the house, cooking dinner. Taking walks on the nature trail, Bailey in tow. Usually we let him walk on his own dragging his leash along. He likes the freedom.

Yesterday we headed south on Highway 12 to Hatteras village, the town where he grew up. Parked in front of his grandpa's house, we unloaded our folding bikes. Two sweatshirts, hats, and mittens- still not enough to keep out the cold as we skittered along the small streets. Hatteras is a town of about five hundred, at the southern tip of Hatteras Island. We've paddled out there among the inlets. This day we wandered the back roads to the graveyard where his uncle was buried at age nineteen back in 1989. A car accident the summer after his high school graduation. Justin was fourteen.

These nights are surreal. Each morning waking to a new day, closer to what? I read websites on minimalism, small living, and how to make decisions. I decide that everything is for today only. Nothing is permanent. I will move in the direction that I go.