The past few weeks, I have been using every spare ounce of time to move our belongings from our apartment in South Nashville to our new home in North Nashville. I’ve usually been able to do one carload a day, sometimes more on the weekends. Since I’ve had to pack up as well as load, it’s a little more time consuming, but things have been coming together. We even got a new bed for the first time in… let’s just say it’s been well over a decade.

As more and more items began to leave the apartment, it became increasingly more frustrating for me to stay there. Not only would I continually leave something that I needed over at the house, but the general disarray caused me anxiety. It took me a while to figure out that this was all very reminiscent of my situation this time last year, where I moved with nothing, then Dean came with our stuff one week later, which I again, spent every spare moment trying to unpack and create a home before he arrived to stay yet another week later. We enjoyed it for a day before the fire, then we were back to living with nothing for another several weeks. We finally started sleeping full time at the house on Wednesday the 26th, eight days after closing. I immediately started sleeping better and my mood improved. It became more difficult for me to be at the apartment, but I was only there to pack, grab and move things, so it wasn’t too bad.

The fitness center that I manage part time has been without a housekeeper for weeks now. I’ve had tons of no-shows for interviews. Dean has been coming in after his job to do some cleaning and laundry for a little extra cash, but it’s been difficult for both of us. We were expecting a delivery at the new house on Tuesday, March 3rd, which was also voting day for Tennessee. We did the math and worked out that the only way both of us would be able to vote and leave me time to be at the house for the delivery was to sleep one more night at the apartment near our polling place and go vote as soon as the polls opened. I packed a bag for us, made sure that Jake was situated at the house, picked up Dean at work and headed back over to the apartment. Annoyingly, the emergency electrical box in the breezeway of the apartment was beeping non-stop due to the thunderstorms. I’m not really sure why it’s there. It doesn’t do anything aside from beep. The inside was even more sparse now with no televisions, internet or cat. I was low-level anxious being there, but it was just for one night and then we’d be done with it by the weekend when we planned to get the moving truck for the big items and final move.

Amazingly, this is where I got most of my information Tuesday morning.

At about 12:30am, the sound of sirens woke me. I woke Dean up and started asking, “Is it us? Is that us?! No… it can’t be us because the alarm in here would be going off… what building is it?” I jumped out of bed and started looking out the window for the flames and fire trucks. I couldn’t see any. I ran downstairs still half asleep and started looking out the porch windows. I still couldn’t see the fire. That’s when I started realizing that the sirens weren’t getting closer and I began to recognize that they were tornado sirens. At about that time, they stopped. I went back upstairs and told Dean. He agreed that they were probably tornado sirens, but that we were fine and rolled back over. I tried to go back to sleep.

The sirens went off again. I got up and opened the weather app on my phone and began reading. “It says we’re in extreme danger and that we need to get to safety now,” I read. Dean was unconcerned and really wanted to go back to sleep. I listened. I couldn’t hear any strong winds. I looked out the window, the trees weren’t even moving. The sirens kept going off. “Do you think Jake is okay?” I asked. There was no way I could go back to sleep at this point. I kept going through my phone looking for answers on if a tornado had touched down and where.

While I was scrolling through, one of my clients messaged me to see if I was okay. It was through my messages with him that I learned that the tornado had touched down in East Nashville and ‘somewhere west of downtown.’ West of downtown is where our house is. Dean began searching through Reddit and found that the tornado had hit near the Farmer’s Market. I told him we were leaving. The danger was obviously passed and I had to know if Jake was okay.

We were certain that the storm had run it’s course, still the drive back was absolutely terrifying. As soon as we passed Jefferson on I24 the lights cut out, there were emergency vehicles blocking the way, huge signs and poles littering the roadway and we took the first exit we saw. It was dark and incredibly difficult to see where we were going. We ended up going up Spring Street to Jefferson and finding our way to I65 going slowly and carefully. The destruction we saw was appalling and we couldn’t see much because of the darkness.

Here we are post voting. Obviously exhausted and unshowered.

We finally made our way to Metro Center and I was chanting ‘please be okay, Jake, please be okay, Jake, if it’s just lost power that’s okay, if it’s just loss power we’ll be fine.’ We pulled up to the house, it was still standing and appeared undamaged. Jake was fine and incredibly happy to see us. I posted a social media update that we were okay and where we were, then we collapsed into bed with Jake, but I didn’t fall asleep for a very long time.

The next day we woke up early, I wasn’t able to sleep and we were hungry. We made our way to the other side of town to get voting done and tried to find a place to get coffee. We were unsuccessful in finding coffee, but we voted and it felt nice to do something kind of normal. Dean didn’t have to go in to work, although they were encouraged to work from home and I decided to try and go in early so that I could leave before it got dark. The residences that I teach at after work on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings are in East Nashville and Germantown respectively, so I won’t be teaching there for a while. Biking through Germantown was sobering, still is. Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself for not having power, I try and think about the people who lost everything. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.

This weekend Dean’s parents are here to help us move out of our old apartment. The rental company where I reserved our truck is no longer operational. They tried to move our reservation to Lebanon, TN, but I was able to find a place that had a truck in an undamaged area of Nashville, so we’ll do that. We could delay it, but this is the weekend that we have help and it’s all going to have to get moved. Home Depot is delivering our washer and dryer today. They said they would still put it in, but we may have to call them later for the hook up since we don’t have power.

Jake is chilly. Can’t have Jake uncomfortable.

It’s also getting colder in the house. One of the members of my gym lent me a small generator, but it’s not powerful enough to run a space heater.

Last night, after dinner with Dean’s parents, we lit a billion candles and began to talk about how we were going to handle the cold snap. It’s predicted to get down to 28 tonight. I really didn’t want to stay at the old place, but didn’t want Jake to be uncomfortable. Our friend Edith had offered us her place to crash, even with Jake, but I was worried about moving Jake too many new places in such a short span of time when he was already freaked out. We were discussing Dean and Jake staying at the old place and me either bundling up and staying at the new place or staying with Edith, when over Dean’s shoulder, I saw blue light flash on the microwave where the time is supposed to go.

“Dean, look!” I screeched. He turned around and the over clock began flashing also. Alexa began drawing blue circles in the darkness. “We have power!” I began running around the house in full Jimmy Stwart mode yelling, “Merry Christmaaaaaaaaas!” and flipping on lights while Dean told me to stop screaming.

I’m so happy to have light and heat again. I’m so happy that our house was not destroyed and we were not hurt. I’m happy that all of our friends in Nashville were also very lucky. Although it seems longer, it was only been a few days without power. I have a friend blocks away from us who’s power came on for five minutes last night and then winked out again. Unfair.

Yes, I’m tired. I’m tired of some kind of disaster happening every time I move. But each time I’ve survived! When ever I bike a big hill here, in my head, I sing that line from the song “Spinning Wheel” by Blood, Sweat & Tears;

What goes up must come down
Spinnin' wheel got to go 'round
Talkin' 'bout your troubles it's a cryin' sin
Ride a painted pony let the spinnin' wheel spin

Making pearls out of sand, or tornado diaries