Thoughts on vulnerability, loyalty and tank rain

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By Tania Stafford

I live in the paradise island that is Bermuda and yet I also live with chronic depressive illness. What a paradox. Here are some of my thoughts on vulnerability.

Chronic means my depressive illness recurs. Chronic depressive illness killed my mother in 1976, and it also nearly took me in 2010.

BUT, it was not my time. I did not die by suicide. I am here to learn, laugh and make a difference. My learning has been supported by family and friends and medication and talk therapy and my dog and her cats.

My best learning has been to accept vulnerability as an opportunity to ask for and give help. Instead of being the perfectionist, autonomous person I had cultivated from 1976–2010 I have slowly, ever so slowly, opened the gates of my protective walled compound and allowed trusted folk in.

My Jack Russell terrier, Maili, has taught me the best lessons. She is fearless except in storms, friendly unless she detects passive aggression and loyal to all whom she trusts.

Which brings me to tank rain. This is a Bermuda phenomenon. We live at 32N 64W and are sub-tropical. The Gulf Stream and associated jet stream pass us by and keep us warm and moist… humidity is a constant. We have no water sources on our 21ish square mile island and our ancestors developed an ingenious, sustainable architectural form that catches rainwater on white roofs. It channels the water through a gutter and downpipe system into tanks, mainly below the buildings, and we use this precious resource mindfully and with care.

Thoughts on vulnerability

When it rains, it rains with intention and passion. In Shakespeare’s Tempest, reference is made by Ariel, when speaking to Prospero, to the ‘still-vexed Bermoothes’. In Bermuda, we celebrate tank rain.

Maili has storm phobia, which worsens with age. Initially thunder and lightning caused anxiety, palpitations and fear that were recognizable to me as a panic attack of the worse order. As she has aged, she now panics when we have tank rain… my precious angel is panicked by a resource essential to our life in paradise. Maili is also cleverer than I, in that once the rain stops, she sleeps deeply and forgets her trauma, returning to her happy way of living, spreading joy in our St. George’s community.

Another paradox, another learning… even in her worse times, Maili is a loyal teacher to this student of living with vulnerability.