I am blessed to have grown up a Texas country girl that married a Texas country boy. We have hung on to a certain amount of what I call the pioneering spirit. I'm so glad to have attained and retained that spirit. As I count down the days to our move to Merida for the next 6 months or so, I realize the pioneer spirit exhibited in the Yucatan is one of the things I admire and find so worthy of respect.
This is how I can best explain it and why it has been on my mind -
Thinking of the storm that hit the NE brings back memories of Hiurricane Ike (Category 3/Galveston, Tx) and what it meant to us. We realized we lived amongst other pioneers. Although we were living on S/V Cool Change and experienced water and power outages, we had no damage to the boat....partly because we were damn lucky and partly because we prepared ahead of time. We used our own self-sufficient water system and our generator and continued living on the boat post-Ike while we, friends, and friends in the making got busy cleaning up and trying to regain a sense of normalcy. Through helping each other emotionally as well as physically, we developed a comraderie that all of us will share forever. There are a group of us that will never forget how we pulled together and got 'er done over dinners served by Sandy and cold beer iced down in damaged coolers. We had groups of people that piled on the Get It On and pulled sunken, unsalvagable boats from underneath the docks, and Terry and I put the Cool Sedan in the water (ie, aka the camel tow) and used the little inflatable dinghy to move boats from one slip to another. We all puIled stuff from the water and retrieved items from the grass then anxiously tried to find the rightful owners. Homeowners were driving around trying to locate lost treasures...some items to be found a year or so later on. I feel blessed that we pulled together rather than criticized. We prayed for people we had never met living in Galveston County and the surrounding area. We slowly re-instilled our world without fanfare. We had a sense of pride and proudness about us. Today, we are blessed that us and our neighbors let Ike die. We refused to let Ike continue getting the attention. Ike gets little mention today...thank goodness. We wanted the national media out of our lives quickly and did nothing to encourage their presence. It was a hurricane and when you make the personal choice to live where you do, you accept the consequences that comes along with it. After the hurricane, we wanted to go on about our business with a certain quietness. We wanted to grieve privately rather than publicly. It's because we have that pioneer spirit.
Shame on the segment of the media that has worked so hard to depict those affected by the recent storm as crying, whining, helpless people. Shame on them for focusing on those that thieve and cut in lines at the gas pumps. Why can't you tell us about the people demonstrating the pioneer spirit? I know not everybody is depending on a handout from some "agency". There are neighbors kindly helping neighbors. There are unsung heroes on every street.
My heart goes out to all the people affected by the recent storm. I understand how heartbreaking it is to experience the devastation and have the feeling that things will never be the same. It rocks your world in a bad kind of way. But I also know people are tapping into their inner pioneer spirit and pulling together to help one another, and seeing the opportunity to demonstrate independence rather than dependence. Sure, it is frustrating and financially takes it tow. But in a weird kind of way it humbles you, and makes you feel proud that you weathered the storm. You tap into that pioneer spirit and get busy putting it behind you. You get back on that horse that threw you, and show him who is boss.
