I think the amount of times I apologize at the beginning of a post is going to become a tad excessive. I wish I could blog on a more regular basis, except I always want to structure the posts correctly, and that takes time. And I never seem to have time. Hopefully, in the next little while, while I have a lull in my work, I can put some posts up of things I’ve wanted to update about (including but not limited to Iceland, FanExpo 2011, Acting Life).

But I figured being caught in a tornado merits a bit of attention.

Perhaps to some people, living with tornadoes is old hat. But only recently in Southern Ontario that we seem to have witnessed a growing number of these buggers. Yesterday, my best friend and I were venturing through the St. Jacob’s Farmers’ Market, when we saw the sky go black. We figured that it would be best to go back to the car instead of checking out the next building. This turned out to be a silly mistake since it started raining. Hiding under a vendor’s tent (in my defense I did buy his corn) seemed to be the logical option until what we thought was a flash shower passed, except that it didn’t stop. It got harder.

Suddenly, torrents of water was everywhere, and the wind picked up substantially. We found ourselves aiding vendors hold down their tents as boxes, fruit and other random things blew down the road. Then the rain started blowing sideways, and it hurt. I remember looking around and crying out, “Holy crap! Is that hail?!” and then bracing myself as the wind went wild. As one tent blew away, we were told to abandon our efforts and take shelter in the trailer. For a few moments, all we saw was grey. It was pretty frightful, watching everything get taken apart by wind and heavy rain, but my adrenaline was jack high. In fact, I even whipped out my cell phone to record the event. I felt a bit sheepish while doing that, considering it’s the very thing we always yell at characters in movies when they do it in the middle of a disaster: “You idiot! Why are you taking photos of the giant monster alien that is about to eat you?!”

Clearly, I am that foolish movie character.

When I discovered that an F3 tornado had ripped through Heidelberg (near St. Jacob’s), my perspective did change a bit. I was pretty lucky to be on the edge, and not on the middle of it. The other part of me was also thinking, “So, another thing to cross off my list of things to experience while being alive: be outside during a tornado.”

I am a risk taker. I am adventurous and want to experience everything. It is this mindset that keeps me working in the unstable career as an artist, keeps me traveling and hiking the world, and gives me great stories to tell from adventures gone awry. But I am becoming aware that my boundaries are becoming smaller, and that I am doing scarier things as I survive more adventures. It’s only going to be a matter of time before I lose the fight. Can you imagine what would happen if I tried to chase down a tornado at full blast? It’s pretty wrong when you get cut deeply by a shard of glass (this happened very recently, and I have never been cut by glass before) and the firs thing I thought was, “Huh! Now I can say I’ve been cut by glass!” Sometimes, it’s better to reassess the frailty of our lives, and recognize that we are not invincible, no matter how many mountains we conquer. That way, we will certainly live long enough and stay healthy enough to continue witnessing all the amazing things that life has to offer.

And the Farmer’s Market? No one was hurt as far as I know. Farmers sadly lost produce and tents were damaged. Signs held up by concrete were blown over, and the beloved “Welcome to St. Jacob’s Market” was flattened.

Additional Notes: Today (September 5, 2011), it has been confirmed by weather experts that the event was not a tornado but more like a huge storm with winds up to 100km. There were 5 reported injuries to people. Many of us are still calling it a mini tornado however, since the symptoms of the weather were very similar, and it wreaked a huge amount of damage. Many hydro lines were downed and roofs taken off barns. I have attached a few links to news reports for additional details.

 

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