Did you know you can actually cook and eat cicadas? Those gigantic screaming things that keep dive-bombing my blooming spider lily. You’re supposed to prepare them kind of like you would shrimp and they apparently have a nutty flavor. No thanks. But in a pinch, I guess that’s good to know.

Venison, on the other hand, is delicious without the ick factor. I was an adult and actually fried backstrap in oil the other day, with homemade gravy and some leftover mashed potatoes that I made and froze the last time I had a huge bag of potatoes. This was a big step for me because I’ve always been absurdly wary of frying things at home. The prospect of a grease fire terrifies me. But I did it! And it was delicious! Nutmeg in the dredge makes the gamey taste completely disappear.

Do y’all know about gumbo? The lifeblood of the south, a beautiful collection of cultures and a culinary work of heart, gumbo has rich origins and an even richer flavor. It began as a stew for impoverished and enslaved peoples, made more complex by the addition of the French-derived roux process and the inclusion of filé, which is dried and ground sassafras leaves, that helped thicken the dish in place of or in addition to okra, the vegetable from Africa from whence gumbo gets its name, as okra is “ki ngumbo” in West African Bantu. Cajun and Creole cooks began with the “holy trinity” of celery, bell peppers, and onion before making the roux and truly defined what we know and enjoy now as the dish called gumbo. Eaten with rice or potato salad or both, sometimes with saltines, sometimes with extra filé, with shrimp and chicken and sausage or any combination of available protein, we even add boiled, peeled eggs to ours to make it stretch a little further and get some awesome flavor in those eggs.

All of that is just to tell you that life is a lot like gumbo. Different influences, different flavors, all combined to create a dish that is at times unexpected, at times magical, and–when you get to the bottom of a bowl–sometimes a little sad. My gumbo this week has been full of hot days, humid nights, my own hubris, and the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Monday was the hurricane. Tuesday was the first day I tried to tackle clean-up, but I didn’t fully appreciate the severity of the heat advisory and overdid it. Severely. I was lightheaded, mentally slower than normal, dehydrated to the point of stomach cramps and a splitting headache, and cramping in my legs and back. Yeah, I know, I know. I won’t make that mistake again. I was hoisted by my own petard, in a way. I needed to clean the yard to reduce some of the stress of cleanup, but I was stuck in the house all day Wednesday because I didn’t have the energy or focus to get anything of substance accomplished. But after a day of rest, I tackled the rest as best I could with the tools I have and now my yard looks almost back to normal, save for the sweet gum tree top that still covers my back patio. I need a chainsaw for that, and I have friends coming some time in the next couple of weeks to chop it up. Thursday was productive, and it was supposed to rain today, so I figured I could get laundry done. Little did I know the craziness that lay in store.

Let me preface this by explaining a couple of circumstances. First, I’m over 100 miles from my parents, 60 miles from my brother, and 25-30 miles from the vast majority of my friends. Second, the city came out and put a new water meter in this morning, and I paused the washer while they had the water turned off. This will be relevant later.

Okay, so fast forward to just after noon. I’d been tidying some, working on the laundry, just general housework, and I went to switch the laundry over to the dryer and start a new load. As I walked into the utility room, I heard a drip, which was odd, since that wasn’t there before. I go over to the hot water heater and there’s a leak in one of the pipes, specifically the hot water output pipe. It was at the joint, so I called Dad. After some discussion and tool gathering, I attempted to tighten the nut at the joint to make it stop dripping. It just made it worse. I turned the breaker off, then tried to figure out a way to turn the water off. Unfortunately, when the city installed the new meter, they turned the pipe in such a way that it was no longer accessible from directly above in the box, and it was so covered in mud that I couldn’t see the switch to actually cut the water anyway. I went back inside and decided to attempt to shut the water off from the valve going into the hot water heater using a screwdriver for leverage… and the pipe snapped. Water started gushing, and since I’m on the phone with Dad, I lose my cool and panic a smidge. My daughter came in and saw me in tears with the floor covered in water and started crying, too, so I sent her to go grab towels, and then go get the neighbors. We’ve only really known these neighbors since April, when we invited them over for her birthday party, but we’ve hung out periodically and the little girl that lives there and my monkey are the same age, so the girls play together sometimes. Anyway, my baby girl, trooper that she is, ran over, crying, and called for the neighbors to come quick because her mama was in trouble. These neighbors, who don’t really know us all that well, but who invite us to use their pool and speak every time we see each other, came running. All of them. In less than two hours, I went from a leaky pipe, to a flooded utility room, to a completely repaired hot water heater. They sprung into action and fixed things and helped clean and even showed me where the valve at the meter box and the valve at the house (who knew??) are so I can get to them if I need to in the future.

It hit me as I sat on the porch calming myself down after the chaos that I have my village. I have people who are physically in close proximity that I can ask for help, and who I would help if they ever need anything. I’ve also told them any and all birthday or celebration cakes and cookies and cupcakes are on me from here on out. I’m in awe still, I think. These people dropped what they were doing and came to save the day, no judgement, no expectations, just helping because I needed it. The helpers, like Mister Rogers talked about. People like me.

I’m not alone over here, and it’s a comfort I didn’t know I was missing. Don’t get me wrong, my tribe will always come through for me, and it just grew a little more. I promise not to feed any of them cicada gumbo.