Relating to Maria Shriver

Nola,

This fascination with the neighbour is not coming from a healthy attraction in my opinion. You are hurting, wounded severely, but you are also very caring. Some people cope with stress, anxiety, and emotional issues, by projecting the care they should apply to their wounded selfs onto someone else they consider to be wounded. It sounds like your neighbour is that wounded soul you wish to nurture, as if healing and nurturing her would heal you. Sadly enough it doesn’t work that way.

During a tourleading trip in Mexico, I once had to shelter with my group of tourists in Chetumal, at the border of Belize, for a hurrican 5 as big as France that was initially to go to Cancun, but eventually ended up with the eye only 30 km north of us. Couple of days before that there had been a rafting accident, where one of the girls had breathed under water and had water in her lungs, coughing blood and fainting… in the middle of the outback jungle, several hundreds miles away from civilisation. She was alright though, and I got to hone my skills in dealing with panic in others. So, by the time we had to shelter in Chetumal, the whole group relied on my good senses, my calmness, and I knew who were the panickers in my group. But it was stressy to say the least before Hurricane Dean would land. TVs everywhere were nothing but repeated news about the hurricane. Huge army arrived in the city in our street and around the corner, with the governor doing public speeches; rows and rows of people at stores to get one more loaf of bread, one more gallon of water, etc, and we were passing at every shop as well for stock, cause you never know how long you might get stuck in the room; NBC and CNN reporters interviewing people (yep we saw that famous weather guy); heck we even gave one of the hurrican and war reporters of CNN a be, cause the Holiday Inn was full. Some would panic and say, “let’s get some cabs and get away as far as possible.”, and I had to stop that, ooze calmness. If they woke me up because of the army arriving, I’d just say “No worries, just normal… they prepare well in Mexico for hurricanes” (and they do).

I was in contact with the Belgian consul every so often hours. And then 10 hours before the hurrican would land, the consul called me. Cancun had reopened roads again, because they now knew they wouldn’t be hit. Cancun was 6 hours away, and he advized me to get some cabs and drive instantly for Cancun.

My insides were turning at this point. For 2 days I had kept the panic down in the travel group, for 2 days I had negated and prevented any scenario like what he was saying I should do at that moment. My whole body screamed against the idea of suddenly pushing their panic buttons and to hurry, hurry, hurry, into the cabs and speed speed to another city last minute.

So, before I told anyone of my group, I went down to the cabs and checked with them whether that was even possible. They told me that the roads had been closed an hour before. There was no possibility to leave the city anymore. In a way it was a relief to hear that. Besides I had 100% confidence in the hotel we were staying. Even the people of surrounding villages came there for shelter. It looked like an ugly road hotel… but it was built like a concrete bunker. Each door faced south (the winds are slower when they exit back to the sea at the south). The beds were concrete and tiled with double weighted matrasses. You could put one of those weighted matrasses in between the door and the bed, to block the door from openeing. There was no glass in the windows, but heavy metal shutters. And as a last resort, the bathroom was built as the ultimate shelter.

But I carried the weight of that conversation of the consul and myself as a secret. I could not share it to anyone. They were never to know. Just like I never told them that there was a big chance we would be ground zero. They never experienced a hurricane, so they would never know the difference anyway. And I broke. I called my mom then, and I cried on the phone, telling her what had just happened (they already knew of course what was going on in general, and were in contact with my tour company). To her I didn’t have to keep on staying cool and detached. After that I called my best friend… I simply wanted to hear some superficial chit chat about safe everyday stuff in his life the past month. I didn’t want to share my story, but was heavily in need of hearing some sane life stories from him. When I asked him how he was, he told me “Well the weather could be better,” to which I of course replied, “Ugh… let’s not talk about the weather for now.”

Anyway, we celebrated the birthday of someone in the group a few hours before the hurricane hit… with crazy hats and stuff that makes sound, and went for an ice cream in the Holliday Inn together with the befriended CNN reporter (alcohol was nowhere to be gotten: very good thing). You should have seen the look on the faces of the NBC reporters at the entrance. They thought we were crazy or totally didn’t even know there was a hurricane coming. And then we sat outside, as the hurricane landed and the winds started to pick up slowly, until it was very late, and everyone was sleepy, and the winds were getting rougher. We locked ourselves in, in our 3 shared rooms, and went to bed.

I woke up with a load bang of some board that hit the wall of the hotel. There was of course no electricity, but I texted my tour company in Belgium whether this would be the worst or not. And they messaged me back that yes the eye was landing. We lay awake for an hour, and when the howing winds started to drop a bit again, we fell asleep.

I was woken up by a call from the company in the morning, because the national Belgian news had found out about our whereabouts, and wished to interview me. We were still locked in. And couple of minutes later I was on the national radio doing an interview about our situation, that we were safe, and that we were most of all concerned for the small farmers living in huts in the area with only a small milpa of corn to live on for a whole year.

Anyway, half hour later, we got to go outside, in the rain and witness the havoc the hurricane had caused. Luckily the eye had a small diameter, so the destruction was mostly superficial. But you should have seen the holliday inn (our place was better!). The toilets were flooded up to the 4th floor. The glass windows were shattered. We could still swim in the pool of our hotel if we had wanted to, cause they had taken down the trees that were a risk to take a hit. At the holiday inn, the trees were uprooted. Whatever images that went around the world that day of the hurricane destruction: holliday inn would have given the best and most dramatic shots.

And as we were walking in the garden I suddenly heard the miauwing of a kitten, probably crying for its mother, who had thought it safest to hide it at the base of a tree. We found it: looking naked and pink, cause its white coat was soaked through and through. It lay at the bottom of the trunk of the uprooted tree. One of my guys even thought it was wounded and shouted to perform a mercy kill. But I picked it up. It was about 2 weeks old, cause it could only crawl, not really walk yet. It was so cold, and as I wrapped it in the warmth of my hands and kept it close to my sweater it started to shiver and tremble. Eventually I took it to the hotel and wrapped it in a towel, so that it could get warm again and dry.

An hour later we found a cat at the holiday inn who was nursing and searching. We tried to unite the two, but either the kitten wasn’t hers or she didn’t want it anymore after it had my smell all over it. So, we were stuck with the kitten, which I called Dean. The same afternoon we left for the campground near Playa del Carmen by cab to be away from the hurricane aftermath and to enjoy 2 days at the beach before my group had to take the plane. And the kitten was my excuse to take some time off from them. I had to feed it some mixture of milk with egg yoke, every hour or so, and it latched onto me as its new mom. I stayed a bit longer at the campground in one of the few rooms they had available than the group. And by the time I left the owners had agreed to adopt it (they used to have an old white cat that I knew was dead). It could run, and jump, eat solid cat food and relieve itself in a box with sand. It was a hurricane survivor and a strong bugger. I cried though when I shut the door behind me as he tried to run after me and left with my cab for the airport. The cab driver asked me whether I was leaving a lover behind or something. I smiled and told him no… it was just a kitten I had saved from the hurricane a week earlier. Heck I still cry for the little cute bugger as I tell it.

I don’t know what happened to him. Don’t want anyone to ask for me who passes the campground, and don’t want them to tell. In my imagination he’s a strong, strutting tomcat who enjoys the beach.

My group didn’t really understand what happened to me, why I was so focused on the kitten, and not enjoying the beach all day together with them. But I know. I could not heal from the hurricane stress and trauma in the same way as they could. There were things I could never tell or share with them. I had been their role model, the person they had looked for peace and trust, the one who would make it all right. I could not just step out of that role the next day and show them how worn I was, how worried I had been myself at times, that I too sometimes need caring. So, there was only projection left for me in that situation to somehow take care of my own needs, instead of the needs of others all the time. And that is why I needed little Dean as much as he needed me for survival.

But taking care of a kitten is easier and less emotionally complicated to self-heal via projection than when you pick up what you perceive as a wounded human soul. Human responses are more complex and leave deeper marks. You will end up hurting yourself, nola, by trying to take care of this woman, rather than healing yourself. So, your neighbour is not the solution. My advice to you, is that you seek some volunteer work for an organisation that you might be able to fit in your new schedule. It will keep you busy, you will feel as if you are taking care of people or animals in need, giving your nursing self a chance to come out, but it will be emotionally safe.