I often watch him tip toe his morning ritual through half-open eyes. He thinks I'm alseep, but I am definitely not - secretly devouring his freshly showered scent - his every graceful move. That morning, however, I couldn't fake the kiss-me-I'm-still-dreaming moan, for it might have been December 25th, the way my Lover leapt from bed. With visions of sugar plums yet dancing in my head, I watched him throw up the sash and press his muscular hands against the window. And by the way he paused, staring rapt through the glass, I knew the legend had arrived, the winds and rains had begun - our stockings had been stuffed in the nite.

How do you feel when a hurricane has finally come? When you are on a tropical island and you've committed to the danger and you have no idea what to expect cause you've never seen one of these storms in your entire life? What happens when the faucets don't give water and the switches don't give light and the only thing you can hear is category 3 winds rocking your third story hotel room, hoping a 100mph palm frond does not shatter said glass? What do you do when you don't know, and you can't think cause nothing else really matters except that thing you don't know; "what's gonna happen, Love?" "I don't know" - what do you do?

Sit ups. You do situps. Like there is no tomorrow, you do sit ups. You look at photographs, all the stupid photographs, and chuckle about remember-that-time. You prop your hotel door open and invite other hotel guests - strangers - in for a toke. You try everything imaginable to divert your attention away from the white elephant standing in the center of the room, but end up squished between her and the wall, because you can stop your mind from thinking, but you can't stop the body from feeling. Floors quivering like an earthquake, sky ripping like lightening, and you find yourself wondering why you didn't disappear three days ago, like all the other smart animals on the island.

Hurricane Wilma pummeled the Island of Grand Bahama. Semi trucks overturned, trees uprooted, cemeteries washed away, caskets floating down the roadway. And two little kids, one with a machete, the other with swim goggles, braving sandpaper wind and bullet rain, to collect the green coconut presents underneath the trees. 'Tis the reason for the season. God bless us everyone.

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