Ophelia in the Sky
On Monday 17th October, I looked up into the sky and saw the sepia sky. it was a sky of a strangeness in colour that heralded the ‘green girl’, Ophelia.
On her way was the girl who ‘mermaid-like’ was pulled to her ‘muddy death’. A storm in the court of Elsinore. A storm in the cold North that fools us in October bringing with it a tropical air to pave the way for the winds and rains.
It reminded me of the time when we really caught up in a hurricane and the moments before the hurricane arrived (Ike) were ones that I had never experienced and would never experience again. There was a calmness in the air, and as the winds built everyone partied as if it was our last night on earth. There was a joy and a sense of foreboding at the same time.
As the storm built it became angrier as it knocked at the windows like Cathy trying to get into Lockwood’s room. We tried to keep it out, stupidly using the only towels we had and would have for days. When Ike passed by us a day later, it has uprooted trees, smashed roofs, and blown apart all the roads leading to the hotel complex and the destroyed the pipes bringing in clean water. All that was left was water in tanks below the hotel. There were no communications with the outside world for three days.and that is when the real storm of anger began… The anger of the Northerners unprepared with an expectation of something else. Bitten by mosquitos and left to eat German rye bread for three days. Idle with nothing to do the anger started to erupt amongst some men.
Ophelia John Everett Millais Tate Gallery 1851-2
Julie Raby 