Two bad storms in: How committed am I to my small, Florida beach town?
My sweet beach in better days
I’m one of the lucky ones.
Two life-threatening storms descended on my small, sweet beach town in Florida in the space of as many weeks (and on many other areas as well). While I live there for a majority of each year, I also spend a few months annually in Maine, and that’s where I was as the hurricanes raged. So I was safe. In the off-months, I vacate my seasonal rental, put my stuff in storage, and take my car up north. So I had very little property at risk.
All that to explain why, as Hurricane Milton swirled himself into a frenzy in the Gulf of Mexico, not 10 days after Helene carved a path of destruction, I was worried primarily about the people I love – and their homes and businesses. Luckily, the people are all okay, and their buildings took on various hits but are still standing and repairable. And my little bits of property survived unscathed.
I recognize the miracles in all this. Until the very last minute, it seemed Milton, a category 5 storm, was going to create 10-15 foot storm surges right over my town (cat 5 is the worst, and 10-15ft surges are terrifyingly high). After it was already hit hard by Helene. Meteorologists were crying on camera at the potential pain it had to inflict.
And I see how very lucky I was. I know others across Florida (and across the southeastern US after Helene) were far less fortunate. If that is you, perhaps this won’t serve you at this time. I’m holding you in my heart as you begin to recover.
But if that’s not you, I’d like to use my situation to illustrate something I’ve found to be true in life’s transitional times.
Despite my huge luck, I nevertheless don’t have a place to live in the town that I call home.
As I said last week (or was that two weeks ago? Time is a blur), after the first storm, I learned the cottage I call home — and was set to return to in a couple of weeks — was flooded and was inaccessible. I was ushered right back into a liminal space myself, just as I was guiding a short course on it. The liminal zone is the space between an ending and a new beginning, and boy am I there, swimming in the uncertainty.
I believe each liminal zone we enter is there to ask us a question that we benefit from getting clear on. (I used to believe liminal zones were there just to drive us batty, and I mostly don’t think that now, so I’d call that progress ;)
So, once I can get past the sheer pain (most liminal zones we don’t choose start off with a good dose of hurt), what I’ve found helpful is to start to look for the question this time is asking me. Sometimes it takes a while to unearth the question. Sometimes it’s buried in so many things all feeling uncertain at once.
This time, the question appeared quickly (though I know enough to know another one might come along right behind it). But that first, sharp question was this: How committed am I to my small, sweet beach town?
So many people have asked me variations of “are you going to leave Florida?” Forever? Or for now?
One could argue that it would be wise to stay away, either temporarily or permanently. After all, these hurricanes seem to be coming with greater frequency and intensity. Leaving could be a right and valid choice.
Yet I did not even for one second contemplate that. Instead, my first thought was how quickly can I get down there and help rebuild?
The cottage I can’t go back to? It felt like home. The street is one of the tightest-knit communities I’ve ever lived in. You know how in Friends, the besties living across from one another seemed so far-fetched and so spectacular? That’s pretty much what I had there. Except instead of two apartments, think of a whole street of houses, where I knew everyone, their kids and their parents. Even their pets knew me enough to come hang out. Zoom out to the neighborhood and the entire town, and I have so much I love.
It wasn’t just the cottage that was home, it was the whole dang town.
So, the answer to “how committed am I” was: I’m 1000% in.
That made my next steps clear: Find a new house in my town, and help my community rebuild.
It’s helpful to spot your liminal question because it can provide a useful constraint. Constraints are powerful tools for moving forward. Designers like to say “creativity loves constraints.” Without them, we can tend to flop about. In my case, with my beautiful little cottage lost to me, answering my liminal question helped me confirm I was not just enamored with that house but with that community. It helped me get on the ball and find temporary housing, knowing where I wanted to focus my attention. And it’ll help me figure out where in town I want to rebuild my life, and how I want to help the community to rebuild.
If I didn’t know the answer, it would provide me with a frame in which to explore.
Many people (maybe millions?) have just been posed the very same question as have I, as they pick up the rubble after Milton’s rude departure (talk about an elephant in a china shop).
There is no right answer. For any one of us, it could be right to leave, maybe go back to a place we’ve known in the past, or forge a new life elsewhere. Or, it could be equally right to stay, help the city to rebuild, and create even deeper roots.
Luckily, as we enter into liminal zones, our first job isn’t to find an answer. It’s to find that question.
Because that question can be the very thing that leads us to the answers we crave.
As one of Milton and Helene’s lucky ones, I want to help where and how I can. If you know someone thrown into a swirl of unknown based on being displaced or worse, send them my way. I’m offering a one-hour, 1:1 support call to three people impacted by the storms.