We're lucky.
We know this, right? Oh, we may want to chalk it up to foresight or talent or hard work, and it is a lot of those things. But some of it, maybe more of it than we'd like to admit, is pure outhouse luck.
Sam Walton's first landlord could have worked out the lease on that store in eastern Arkansas. The Tysons could have sold their company to another producer. J.B. Hunt could have decided one attempt at trucking was enough for him. Eric Musselman could have elected to stay in Reno.
A digression: Musselman's face every time something goes wrong is every parent just about every day everywhere. "I'm not disappointed. I'm just ... stunned?"
In Northwest Arkansas we are, and should acknowledge we are, by any stretch of the imagination, fortunate. We have jobs and jobs that beget jobs. Our public services are reasonably well-funded and our schools appear to remain focused on teaching children rather than burning books.
Our lake remains, generally, full. Our woods don't burn. Our winters are laughably mild compared to other parts of the country and we have plenty of people moving here from there to keep us informed of that fact. And of the fact "people here just don't know how to drive in the winter." Yeah, because you all never have wrecks on icy roads in Detroit ...
To us, drought means it hasn't rained for a few days and we have to water the lawn. Either that or we've run out of Sonic ice (hint: You can just go back through the line. The National Guard doesn't have to get involved.).
As with the rest of the world, we struggled with covid. It was horrid and it hurt people in more ways than we can even imagine. But for a lot of us, it just meant we worked from home and took up bicycling. Or know more about the Tiger King than any sane person ought to.
And as we try to navigate a more open world where returning to the office is at least an option, the general opinion of those making decisions about that seems to be "You know, I just don't want to fight about it."
We're lucky. We used to be isolated (when the only choice other than U.S. 71 is the Pig Trail, yeah, it's hard to get here), and now we're just sort of insulated. Even in the worst times, people have to shop and eat and the stuff they want has to get to the places they buy it somehow. And that's all pretty much in our wheelhouse.
Yes, again, skill. Hard work, perseverance, dedication, all that stuff. Luck is the residue of design. It's true the harder we work, the luckier we get. It's all so, so accurate and not to be overlooked. But still, if we are honest, we are very, very, very lucky.
And if we need to be reminded of that, wait until the sirens go off at 4 in the morning.
Wait until you stare frantically out the back door into the darkness, hoping you don't see the funnel cloud in the lightning flash or hear the freight train sound we've been told to listen for.
Because when that happens, you know it doesn't matter. All the skill and talent and foresight and hard work and all of that. Not at all.
At that point, it's luck. It turns left and you're fine. Afraid, but fine. It turns right and your life and all your hopes and dreams are suddenly scattered all over your yard and – if you're lucky – you're left to pick up the pieces.
We got to hear those sirens Wednesday morning. The sirens and the phone alarms and all the other alerts that tell us to take shelter. The thing is, our homes are our shelter. Just as this area has been our shelter. Just as it still is.
And we all got to experience that primal fear, the basic understanding that even in a most blessed of places, we are at the mercy of forces we cannot control and do not fully understand. Forces that care not at all for our hopes, dreams, intelligence or hard work.
The storm was bad. People were injured, property damaged, lives uprooted. And we pray and care and hope for those affected and begin the difficult task of putting the crooked straight.
It could have been so, so much worse. We were many things – scared, surprised, stunned and eventually , for the most part, relieved.
But most of all, we were lucky.