In the Eye of the Hurricane, part 2
Why does sitting through a hurricane bring so much other stuff so rapidly to the surface?
Tuesday morning, I awoke to learn that Nancy had decided to leave along with a few of the others, so only Vivian and I remained to watch over the remaining six people. It’s hard to describe the way I felt that morning - anxious, but that doesn’t even begin to cover it. If I’m being honest, I was terrified. Not having sat through a hurricane before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew we would be physically safe (that hotel was like a cement fortress) but I didn’t know how inconvenienced we might be. How loud would it be? Would we have enough food? Would the power and internet hold out? How bad would the damage be after the storm? How long would the airport be closed? Would we have to wait for our original flights home on Sunday, or would we be able to find something sooner?
And that was just the worry I felt for myself. On top of that was the concern that I wouldn’t be able to stay calm and hold space for all our guests. Of course, at this point, the yoga retreat was over. Everyone knew that, no one expected Vivian and I to carry out our original retreat plans during a hurricane. But it was important to us that we hold space. Yoga and meditation are tools that can ease anxiety and stress - so practicing together was a useful way to regulate our nervous systems during a stressful situation. We secured access to a conference room in the hotel where we could meditate or move together if that’s what the group wanted or needed.
I let myself cry to Vivian for exactly fifteen minutes, early on Tuesday morning, and then I put myself together and went downstairs to face the day. We had decided that the lobby would be our primary spot for Hurricane Day, because it was big and airy and comfortable, with lots of windows and high ceilings to stave off claustrophobia. We also thought that being in the lobby would be calming to folks, because we’d be able to see the hotel staff at all times. Their steadiness helped us tap into calm, too. Most of the staff decided to stay in the hotel overnight through the hurricane, and they told us that the hotel was safer than their own homes.
We said goodbye to the retreat attendees who had managed to obtain last minute flights home. I remember feeling so anxious that they wouldn’t all get off the ground, but miraculously, they did, the last person taking off just before the airport closed. Once the folks who were leaving had actually departed, a calm fell over the group that remained, and there was a sense of resignation as we settled in to pass the hours until the storm hit. Things had escalated since we arrived at the hotel, and the storm was now projected to make land right smack where we were, as a category 4 or 5 hurricane.
It’s important to pause here and give you a bigger sense of what was going on in Mexico, and across the world. At the same time as Hurricane Lidia was gaining speed and strength in the Pacific Ocean, over on the Atlantic side of Mexico, another tropical storm was threatening the Cabo area. And, in the middle east, Hamas had attacked Israel just a few days prior. So, on that Tuesday, as we waited for the storm to arrive, it was a bit hard to gather up to date information, because the televisions in the hotel were reporting on two storms at the same time, in Spanish, and devoting most of their screen time to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. I feel very grateful to one of our group members, Diana, who is fluent in Spanish and was incredibly helpful in translating what we were seeing on the screens, as well as conversing with hotel staff when we had questions.
The morning of the storm, after half of our group departed, we knew that we needed to secure food and water for the storm. Fortunately, there was a Costco nearby, and two people in our group had active memberships. They grabbed a couple more people and made a grocery run, bringing back bottled water, sandwich fixings, healthy snacks, and other supplies. The rest of us decided to pass the time by the pool, swimming and staying outside as long as possible while the hotel staff closed things down around us. Eventually, they’d stored away all the patio furniture and, right around 1:00pm, they came back out to tell us it was time to go inside, locking the patio access doors behind us as we filed back into the hotel.
Waiting is hard. It’s tough to know that something really big and scary is headed your way, and have hours and hours to wait for it to arrive. Knowing that you SHOULD have enough time to leave - except you cannot, because the airport is closed, and it’s not safe to drive. It feels strange to sit in limbo and wait for a storm that you know for certain is going to devastate the lives of MANY of the people around you. Homes will for sure be destroyed, and businesses, and livelihoods, and lives. It’s tough to sit in that. It helped to have a big comfortable lobby to spread out in, snacks and an internet connection so we could talk to our loved ones while we waited. There were even moments of joy and laughter - some of the folks in our group suggested we make a hurricane playlist on Spotify, which was really fun to put together.
As the hours passed, more and more people began arriving at the hotel. One large group of about 100 men showed up in what almost looked like firefighting gear - we learned that they’re the people who repair felled power lines and such, but they weren’t deployed to our location to work in the storm, they were going to shelter in place at this hotel until they could fly out. There were also families arriving, some with small children, opting to ride out the storm in the safety of this concrete hotel instead of remaining in their smaller and infinitely more vulnerable homes.
It was kind of nice, feeling tucked in alongside so many locals - we felt reassured that we were in a safe place. We felt grounded and even a little curious - some of us stepped outside to feel the winds as they increased to speeds of 60 and 70 and 80 miles per hour. Somewhere around then, the hotel staff insisted that we remain inside, and I remember feeling a little twinge of disappointment that I couldn’t even stick a hand outside to feel the wind at its peak. But we did as we were asked, and stayed inside from sometime around 4:30pm on.
As the minutes and hours ticked by, the clouds began to roll in and the sky grew thick with layers of clouds in varying shades of gray. We decided to gather in the conference room around 5 or 6pm, to do some slow stretching and flow, and meditate to calm our nervous systems. When we first gathered, the sky outside was growing dark. I could tell, guiding the practice, that nerves were fraying a little bit, and people (myself included) were becoming slightly nervous. I remember wondering when we started our practice if we would be able to hear any sounds, unsure about how insulated the walls of the building were - and then, hearing the wind come to a roar, out of nowhere, as we sat in meditation. It was like someone had flipped an on/off switch, and suddenly, it was on.
We wrapped up our practice and stored our mats and props, then made our way back down to the large, high dining table in the lobby where we had been congregating. As the winds continued to ramp up, we brought out the spoils folks had brought back from Costco, and got to work making sandwiches and plates of veggies and hummus - at this point, we sort of sat back and watched the insane show being staged in front of our eyes by Mother Nature herself.
The hotel lobby was advantageously set up for this situation, as it turned out. The front of the hotel faced the highway, and the wind was passing in front of us, not coming toward us. One long side of the hotel was exposed to the wind, and made up entirely of guest rooms, with thick-set guest room windows. The other long side of the hotel at ground level was the lobby, with floor to ceiling glass windows, but they looked towards other buildings, so there was no wind blowing AT the windows, and water remained in the courtyards between the buildings.
And, wow. Just wow. I wish I had the right words to describe to you what 140 mile an hour winds sound like, and look like. Because you can see the wind - the drops of rain fly perfectly parallel to the ground below, moving at a 90 degree angle across the sky, creating puffs of water that illuminate the wind roaring through space. And, to answer my earlier question to myself - yes, you can hear the wind from inside the hotel, despite its concrete walls. The wind roared, for two full hours, and then continued to yell for a while after that. It kept on and on for several more hours, and then, past the peak of the storm, deep in the night, the wind gradually slowed and quieted.
We watched in awe, we took videos. We ate our snacks and drank our water. We mostly maintained internet connectivity, which felt like a minor miracle as the lights flickered and the many guests in the lobby gradually depleted the supply of beers in the bar’s for-purchase refrigerator. (No one was visibly intoxicated during this ordeal, which was a delightful surprise. But you know, you gotta take the edge off, too - so several folks indulged in a Pacifico or two.)
And somehow, eventually, gradually, it started looking less like a hurricane, and more like a storm. And everyone breathed a great, big sigh of relief, of settling. You could feel the whole room, the whole building, take a big exhale as the wind slowed down.
Eventually, folks trickled up to bed, and back in our room, Diana and I tucked in for the night. After a couple of hours, I woke up, and I remember thinking almost immediately that it felt warm and I didn’t hear the air conditioner running. As I blinked my eyes open, I realized there was absolutely no light in the room and the clock wasn’t on or flashing - the power was out. I knew the hotel had a generator, and it scared me that the power was down - because the worst of the storm had passed and we hadn’t lost power, so why now?
I felt myself getting anxious as I tapped my watch and used its light to go to the bathroom, and then to look out the door’s peephole into the hallway. It was pitch black. I opened the door and an eerie feeling came over me as I realized that the only light was coming from a couple of emergency bulbs at either end of the hallway. I closed the door and got back in bed, breathing slowly to calm myself down - and then the power came on. I heard the air conditioner start.
This would happen two more times in the night. But mercifully, waking up in the morning, all was working and powered on and as normal.
We made it. Category four, baby. Lidia! “Mexico’s 3rd-strongest landfalling Pacific hurricane on record.”
Yay team!
Wednesday was a bit of a hard day, trying to get information about how much damage had occurred around us and start to figure out plans for going home - whether to keep original weekend reservations or try and get earlier flights. Everyone needed to work through those options, including Vivian and me - we waited until everyone had a plan before we booked our flights home for Thursday afternoon. We talked as a group about everyone’s plan, using a What’sApp group chat to share and coordinate details for flying home. In the end, four of us would leave on Thursday, three more on Friday, and the last person on Saturday, on his original flight. (Some of those folks staying longer even got to have some adventures exploring the half-closed city.)
So Wednesday was planning, and communicating with our people back home. We also did a little exploring - folks took walking trips around the hotel to assess damage and inconvenience levels and scout out lunch and dinner spots. The whole group joined up in the evening for a final meal together, just a few blocks away, where we had delicious food and drinks and laughed over the escapades we’d just experienced together. Truly, what a strange thing - to start the week expecting a restful and introspective getaway, and end up in what very nearly was a dire situation.
Some areas not far from our hotel were torn apart and even leveled by the storm. Parts of Puerto Vallarta were without power over the next several days and weeks. At Xinalani, minor to moderate damage was sustained that demanded a closure of a few weeks for repairs. This was a life changing storm for a lot of people, and we were lucky. At various points, projections were showing us at the exact spot where the hurricane’s eye was expected to rest - we were fortunate that things played out differently, and we avoided the eye. (Though, again - some of us, if we’re being honest, were a little bit bummed not to have seen that.)
(I know. I know.)
Our final dinner was full of laughs and hopeful plans that we might return. Xinalani offered to let us redeem our unused nights and come back to the retreat in 2024. (This is happening, and I will spend my birthday next year at Xinalani.) I feel so much gratitude towards the folks who rode out the storm with me. They proved themselves to be brave, level-headed, optimistic and always, always looking for the humor or lightness in any given moment. They were wonderful, and I am honored to have had this experience, in the end.
It’s hard to even describe what I mean by that. This trip changed me in ways that are hard to articulate. I can’t say that I have ever been a follower, but I think it’s true to say that I’ve exhibited and performed a lot more confidence than I ever felt inside. I have just enough bravery and willpower to push me to do the thing I want or need to do, even if I’m scared. But inside - I’m not okay. I’m anxious at best and an absolute panicky disaster at worst. In the last decade of weekly therapy, I’ve learned a lot of things about myself, and practiced and honed some skills that make this cleverly masked anxiety a little easier to manage, but it’s always right there under the surface.
And I learned, for several reasons and in a variety of ways on this trip, that I can take care of myself better than I have been giving myself credit for. And I can hold space even when I don’t have all the answers, or feel completely steady myself. I didn’t think I could, but I can. Ever since Mexico, a phrase has been repeated to me and by me, and it is: “You don’t need anyone else. You’ve got this.”
Why is self discovery and acceptance so hard? Why does sitting through a hurricane bring so much other stuff so rapidly to the surface?
Still working all that out, my friends. But we did it. We got through Lidia, and we made it back to Seattle and beyond, to our respective homes, one by one, keeping in touch over WhatsApp. And now I’m back in Seattle, with a bit of space from the whole ordeal, reflecting on all of it, and feeling a few things very loudly and clearly:
What the actual fuck?! That was wild.
Wow. Just a full-bodied, heart overflowing, gratitude-laden wow. What an experience. Look what we just did. Look how much I learned.
That playlist we made was badass.
As I write this, I’m sitting at my desk in Seattle in the midst of the biggest rainstorm we’ve had maybe all year. It’s been raging for almost 3 full days, and it’s dark and the wind is up, and the water is just everywhere - standing pools of water, messy and dangerous drives, just the worst. And I like this time of year, the rain and dark. But it’s gross out there right now.
And I’m so grateful. I love my life. I love this city. I loved Puerto Vallarta, and Xinalani, and we get to go back. We did a hard thing, and we came out stronger on the other side. Maybe it’s the glass of wine I sipped while I wrote this, but I’m grateful, and feeling it all. This has been a hard year, one thing after the next, death and hurricanes and struggle, all year long. But I can feel that I’ve changed, and grown, somehow in the midst of all of it. I can feel excitement for the next chapter. And soon, we’ll turn that page. For now, I’m thinking about Mexico, and swimming in warm water, and hopefully, a calm and stormless sea.
xo,
