THIS ONE'S FOR KELLY

One day last week, the clouds piled up and the sky turned black. It happened in the middle of the day, but it was so dark outside that you would have thought it was late in the evening. Sheets of rain fell heavily from the sky. The storm moved through quickly, but somewhere near the end of it we were all evacuated to the nearest storm shelter to wait out the tail end of it. This is probably the second time I have had to go wait out a storm in the shelter since I have moved here. One of my colleagues is a fellow Okie. When the alarms sounded, we both looked out the windows. Then we looked at each other and rolled our eyes at being sent to the storm shelters when we both knew there was no tornado coming our way. We sat in the storm shelter, which is just the stairwell, with our coworkers for five or ten minutes. Long enough for someone to take a group photo of us all in the stairwell. 

The storm and having to seek shelter was all the talk the next day. Everyone had a story of their afternoons spent in the basement. My friend/yoga teacher/plant goddess, Kelly told us all before class about shoving her two large cats into one small pet carrier and taking them down to her basement. She looked at me then and said something about all of this is probably not being a big deal for me. I shrugged my shoulders and said "not really." Then I confessed that I never once lived in a house in Oklahoma that had any sort of safe room or storm shelter. I told her how every time the tornado sirens went off, which was pretty often, Chris and I would just look at each other and shrug. It became a joke. There are pictures of me and Hooper sitting in closet with clothes piled all around us or sitting in the bathtub together. I'm wearing my scooter helmet in all of these pictures. I also told Kelly about the time my family rode out a tornado in our camp trailer.

Living smack down in the middle of the tornado alley is a whole lot different from living way out on the edge of that alley. I realized I had gotten used tornado sirens being tested on the first Wednesday of every month when we were standing in a Walmart in Guyman Oklahoma at noon on a Saturday. I froze in front of a rack of children's purses and told Michael to stop talking. Then he heard the sirens too. I looked over at an employee and asked her what day it was. She looked at me like oddly and said "It's Saturday." I replied "that's right, it's Saturday and it's noon." I turned to Michael and told him that they test the sirens every Saturday at noon. Then he looked at me and said "really?" I said "Yup. Every Saturday. At noon." That should give you some scale about the number of tornados that run down the center of that alley versus the number of tornados that fall off into the margins. 

Tornados are just a way of life in Oklahoma. I remember Chris saying once that he thought it was just the normal activity of the evenings to go hang out in the storm shelter when he was a kid living in a trailer park in Altus. That's just what they did as a family in the summer evenings. The sirens go off and we make a pot of coffee so we can stand outside with a cup of joe while we watch the skies. We may or may not stand in the bathtub. It depends on how the sky looks. Here, actual tornadoes are rare and any could be maybe looking cloud freaks people out. They go straight to their storm shelters or basements without one glance at the sky. It could be said that a seasoned Okie such as myself is a little bit lackadaisical when it comes to weather. I will admit that I can go for days without checking the weather report before I scoot out to work. I will admit that I have often gotten caught in the rain. A lot more so than when I lived in Oklahoma. There is something to be said about having some caution. 

That doesn't mean that I will not immediately go look out the windows whenever the tornado sirens go off. 

SIREN SONG

Katrina and Randy sent me this whirlygig. Thank you! I love it! #365

"Katrina and Randy sent me this whirlygig. Thank you! I love it! #365"

Last night, shortly after Michael had put me to bed, the tornado sirens went off. I had started drifting off on the couch during SNL. Michael took my hand and said "let's go." I didn't argue. I rarely make it through SNL. I had just drifted back into that place between awake and deep sleep when I heard the wind change and sirens begin to wail. I got up and put on a robe and went to find Michael standing on the front porch. He told me not to worry, we were fine and he'd let me know if we needed to go downstairs. I toddled back to bed and listened to the wind and rain. I wondered if the chickens were OK. The sirens eventually went off and all that was left was the sound of the rain hitting the window. 

I realized that it had been years since I'd heard tornado sirens sounding for reasons other than a weekly test. It left me disoriented. Confused. Misplaced. That sound was always a such a constant part of life when I lived in Oklahoma. Heard so often to become complacent to the sound. In those days though, we'd have a closet cleaned out well before the sirens would sound. The sirens just meant it was time to think about getting into that closet. We never lived in a house that had any kind of a tornado safe room. They tell you to go into an interior bathroom or closet. We never had an interior bathroom and the one interior closet was small, barely enough space for Chris, Hooper and I. We used to laugh about it, Chris and I. It was a joke. Really there was nothing else to do about the situation but laugh. By the time I'd pull all of the clothes out of the closet and lay them on the bed in our tiny bedroom, the room would look like a tornado had already hit. There would always be a picture of me and Hooper crouched in the closet, me wearing a helmet. 

Even then, we didn't trust the sirens. Chris would stand outside with a cup of coffee, watching the skies. I'd have Hooper on his leash at the ready. If Chris came inside, we knew to make a mad dash to the closet. Luckily we always managed to be on the side of the street that had just narrowly avoided destruction. The tornado sirens went off here the first Spring after our move. I was at work. My desk provided me with a perfect view of sky. I sat there eating my lunch while my colleagues sat in the stairwells. Chris went down to the basement with Hooper, but didn't stay long. The sirens rang for almost two hours. We never saw a tornado and later Chris and I would laugh about the tornado paranoia in this city. Here the sirens mean there's a tornado somewhere in this big city. There the sirens mean the tornado is in your neighborhood, probably knocking on your back door. 

Technically I still live in Tornado Alley, though it's been since that first Spring since I've heard the warning sirens. I had forgotten the sound. It's odd to go from hearing that sound all the time to nothing. Tornados and surviving them are sort of sealed into the skins of Oklahomans. It's what makes us sturdy and resilient. Living without that threat has made me a little soft. Last night's alarm set my heart racing and my last conscious thought was if we had time to gather the chickens up and get them in the basement along with Josephine. The panic didn't last long, but it was there. It was enough to pull up past memories like that time Mom, Dad, Janell and I stood inside the camper wondering where our little dog, Bitsy, was seconds after a tornado passed by us. She'd hidden in the bathroom. I remember all those times Chris and Jen would borrow my car to go chase storms. I remember driving through south OKC to check on Chris's parents after the May 3rd tornado and realizing that if they'd lived just two or three blocks east, their home would have been nothing but rubble. I remember all those moments of sitting in the closet with Hooper. 

I remember that there's still some of that red dirt in my bloodstream.