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Cliff House Inn on the Ocean, Mussel Shoals, California, USA
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Here I
sit
at a
simple
wooden table under a palm tree. I'm the only
human being
in sight at this rustic place on the ocean's edge, sipping ice
water
from a paper cup. Oh, and I've
got
sea spray in my nostrils - that's right, not choking
smoke: gorgeous, divine sea spray. You can't
imagine
how
good that feels (or maybe you can).
My life
is disrupted. Something unexpected
happened
(Boy! Is that the understatement of the century, or
what?) which unceremoniously put many erstwhile
certainties of
my life
(and of the
lives
of
thousands
of other people in the North Bay) up for grabs.
To be sure, the North Bay's commerce (of which I consider myself to
be an
integral
part) is in a
state
of almost total standstill.
Homes
and
businesses
have vanished overnight. Literally.
Sources
of income
simply
and instantly dried up.
When I first confronted the unavoidable impact of the North Bay
firestorm on
my life
(which I had ample
time
to do as I
drove
away from it,
watching
its
flames getting smaller
and smaller in my rearview mirror)
it occurred to me I would have to assess its impact on my
financial
affairs, as will surely all Napkins (which is what we,
the people of the
Napa Valley
self-deprecatingly
call ourselves: Nap-kins →
Nap-a Valley
residents,
get it?).
As it turns out, it's a blow. But it won't impose significant
hardship on me (that, after careful calculations brainstormed with
my
financial
advisor). Rather what's up for my total reassessment, is the
direction of
my entire
life.
That's very inconvenient I say ruefully. Yet there's a great deal
of
truth
in it. Before all this, things were going along in a very nice
direction, thank you very much. I had no plans to change anything.
That's what's inconvenient.
The truth
also is my own inconvenience, on a scale of 1 to 100, is at about a
17 - whereas others' is at about or above a 110. I
don't know what I'll do
next.
But I do know it'll be whatever's
next.
So that's what I'll do.
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