monday morning

If this weekend could have a title I suppose it would be called, preparing. And it could have applied to many many people out there in many different ways. For some it meant buying all the spam, canned green beans, and pepsi off the grocery store shelves. For others it meant battening down the hatches in a more serious way. For us it meant planting garlic, moving the chicken coop to higher ground, and hooking up an endless supply of sump pump drainage pipes. Since we live so close to the Delaware river AND alongside a creek, we need to be prepared for anything. A major rise in waters could easily set us sailing. We have jars and jugs filled with water in the fridge and I moved everything from the fridge freezer to the chest freezer. We’ll hope for the best.

Hawthorn, Sorrel and I paid a visit to the sweet old Delaware herself in fact. It was part of our preparing. We asked her to be kind and to try her best to divert the storm waters right on past us and anyone else residing along her shores. I thought I heard her whisper sweet somethings, but I couldn’t quite hear above the roaring creek. Plus my surroundings were kind of distracting me. I was noticing the red hue of the grasses along her shores and the bare trees beyond. I saw the rocks beneath my feet…and the way they all fit together neatly…orderly…and sturdily in their own unique way. They provided a sense of solid ground against the racing waters in a way that seemed to say, “We know how it goes. Been through many times over and we are still here. Things change, things move. Things come, things go. But in the end it’s all the same.”

Over the past two weeks there’s been a lot of rain, but it was no hurricane. The creek levels got pretty high. You can see where it was at in the picture below. The water gets high and rushes right on down to the river, rushing rocks along with it. After every storm, the creek bed changes. Places where we used to hop across are no longer there. Islands of rocks that were not there before now are. Elements come. Change happens. A new world appears.

The other day my daughter told me about this dream. This dream she keeps. on. having. And it won’t go away. She’s standing on the shore and a big wave comes up. Higher and higher. She turns to run. But it comes faster.

“What happens of you don’t run,” I ask her. “Instead you turn around and face it.”

“I tried that,” she says.

“And?”

“It gets me and pulls me under and around and around I tumble.”

Once someone told me that water relates to our unconscious…to the powerful and important parts of “us” that we often forget about. Might it be the time I wonder… to remember who we are in a much larger more powerful way? To give in and let that water tumble us ’round and ’round until all fear dissipates? And space is created to remember our life’s journey? And that water takes us to where we forgot we were going all along. These rocks hold fast. They last forever. We however only have right now…and it’s totally up to us what we make of it.

Here I am, look at me. Watch me, smiles the boy by my side with his dog, and his cat. by his side. He finds a claw shaped stick and it makes him think of Halloween. Now he whines, “What are we going to doooooooooooooo? If it rains?! It can’t rain on Halloween!” I do an internal eye roll…remembering when Halloween was exciting for me…before I dreaded it along with all of it’s sugary counterparts. Rain. Water. Snow. Ice. P.r.e.c.i.p.i.t.a.t.i.o.n. Water seems much healthier to me than candy anyways. I’ll pick the rain. He would definitely not agree, but that’s okay.

We’ve got rain boots and raincoats, tea lights and lamp oil, a propane grill and camp stove, and about 20 pumpkins to carve. We certainly don’t have a case of spam or pepsi on hand, but I think we’ll be good with what we have. Welcome aboard…it’s monday morning!