Helene

The sun rises over the still beautiful NC mountains

I am panic scrolling, desperate to find a place to plug in, paralyzed by the sheer grandiosity of human need.  It has turned into an obsession.  I cry at the drop of a hat.  In town, businesses are open, people are going about their lives.  The normalness of it amps up my anxiety.  It feels crazy that life should just go on here while life as been torn to shreds just a few miles west of here.  I am wild eyed, a bit out of control. I just want someone to tell me WHAT TO DO. 

Eventually, I come to realize that I am that person.  I breathe deep, and start small.  I mean really small. Start with the things I can do. Right now, as we crank the farm back up and I am needed here a bit, I can donate money.  I create a disaster relief budget.  This is starting to feel a tiny bit better.

​I narrow my vision from the sheer vastness of need to what I know and love.  My friends.  My friends that have lost their livelihoods.  Start there. Get that old Venmo account back up and running.  Take care of my friends first.  Then, widen the focus just a tiny bit to the places I love the most.  The Toe River.  Devastated, but the community is working to tirelessly to help each other and I can support them from afar with funds.

Breathe some more.  Put your own oxygen mask on before you try to help those around you.  Okay.  Systems, even if still a bit unorganized, are starting to take shape. Systems allow me to see more clearly where I can be of help.  The farm has power and water and communications and doesn’t need me much.  Now.  Ten days in.  Now is the time to plug in.  It doesn’t matter where.  Just do it.  They can shuffle you to where there is more need.  Just take that first step and plug in.  Another step will appear, and then another.  Consider that other people are doing exactly the same.  All those tiny steps.  This is what humanity is about.  We are nothing without each other.

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