water

Hurricanes and The Sound of Water

I have just finished reading the Sound of Water by Valerie Davies.

I enjoyed it very much and learned a lot!  It is full of literary references and historical anecdotes along with beautifully written images of life in a small New Zealand village.

The reason I mention this is, of course, Sandy.  Water.  It seems apropos.

It has rained for three days.  Wind and water.

Leading up to this major historical event, I stopped by the store thinking I should probably get some batteries for my flashlight, just in case.  By some miracle, I happened upon the last packet of “D” batteries in the store.  I later saw a news report on batteries, “D” batteries were nowhere to be found.  I had been lucky.

I wandered around the store and picked up a few more items, just in case.  Of course wine was a top priority but, on my way, I stopped by the bread aisle.  Interestingly enough, all the white bread was sold out.  Only whole wheat and “healthy” bread remained.  Made me laugh.  There was plenty of “my” bread left so I bought a loaf, just in case.

My son hauled the cooler out of the closet, just in case.  I made extra ice, just in case.

I charged up my iPhone backup battery, and filled up my Brita water jugs.  Just in case.

We hunkered down.

Schools, closed.  Federal Government, closed.  Public transportation, closed.  My office, closed (although expected to work from home – ahh, modern technology!).

We watched Obama return to the White House.  He was right there in the middle of it all.  We watched the weather channel, and CNN.  And just to break it up a bit, we watched and old Bond movie with Sean Connery.

The wind started up after dark and remained fierce for several hours.  We have some downed trees in the area and we are soggy.

But we never lost power.  We were lucky.   Our elected officials did what they were supposed to do, our public employees did what they were supposed to do, mostly people listened, and we were lucky.

And in-between news reports, Valerie Davies got me through.

The Dream

There are sometimes when you sink slowly into a soft chair and sigh and stare. Stare away into space, drifting slowly in the unknown, into the wall in front of you.  But you don’t see the wall.  Your eyes are blind while your mind imagines things far away.  Pictures, images, flowing on and on solidifying as they go forming stories…

It’s a pretty nice day.  You start laughing.  People all around you, people you like.  Playing cards or trying to. Smoking cigarettes.  More people.  You want to move.  Dark clouds slowly appear and surround you emptying themselves noisily, flashing out at you in a split second.  The lightening touches a telephone pole, people start to panic, but it isn’t real.  The pictures of the mind not letting you see.  Seemingly worthless pieces of cloth weigh you down as you manipulate your body outside the door.  Wandering picture by picture up the pavement into the lush green, colorful mountains where you see for miles and the trees make patterns in the distance.  Rolling in the grass and laughing.  Water seeping through onto every part of your body.  You don’t even notice.  You fall into a ditch and can’t stop laughing.  Roses.  Wet, rainbow roses watching you.  They are magnetic, you kill them and take them home watching them all the way, skipping, running, trudging.  The sun is coming out.

The room is a mess.  trunks on beds, toilet paper everywhere, shoes on the ceiling.  People walking around inside not seeming to notice.  running up the road there is nothing you can do.  You run around making noise and lose yourself.  You sit on the steps watching the rain and the trees in the distance.  Beings cleaning up the room, painting themselves, putting on their best clothes.  Prom night and you think you should throw a dress on.  Which dress? Orange brown butterfly dress.

Floating through the dining room wishing you were someplace else. The bathroom lights are bright, somebody hands you something, you take it.  The water tastes good.  You wonder what it is but don’t really care.  Everybody is dancing and dancing and things start getting wild and so do you.  You are the last to get home, stumbling in. They are talking about the lizards.  They’ve been watching them all night playing in the rafters.  Friendly little things.   It reminds you of the airport in Milan after a long trip that wasn’t quite over.

Things slowly come into focus, the wall is there in front of you and everything is like it was before or seems to be as far as you can remember but you don’t really think about it.  You just pull yourself up and move along.