Sometimes there are things right in front of our eyes and we just skim past them without registering them. It happens to me all the time and suddenly today, these half burned and rather sad looking candles from one of my favorite stores (World Market) caught my eye. They have been sitting right in front of my eyes but as I mentioned before it is surprising how my eyes and mind filter out stuff.

These candles were the ones we used during hurricane Ike – exactly a year back. Ike devastated the US Gulf Coast and we were lucky to escape with almost no damage. We were out of power for 7 days but we survived and these candles played an important role. In fact, I have great memories of the Ike downtime. I caught up with my reading, friends and above all took life easy and were not living every spare second on the internet. It actually gave me a chance to unwind and get to know my neighbors and be a part of local community.

It has been a year and is Houston the same? Yes! Atleast the area where we live in shows no traces of Ike but Galveston seems to be on shaky grounds. I have not made a trip back to the worst hit parts of the gulf coast the past year but as the coastal communities limp back to normal – my prayers and best wishes.

The lesson is always simple, do not mess with mother nature. This hurricane season has so far been very kind to the US gulf coast and I continue keeping my fingers crossed – one never knows what is brewing in the tropics.