Short one this evening. I have a vague headache and I wonder if it’s related to the indecisive nature of the temperature outside over the past few days. First balmy, then frigid; pouring rain, massive puddles, swollen creeks and rivers. Tonight, utter clarity revealing the cosmos causes another plunge of temps.
I don’t think I’ve heard one car drive past our house tonight. People must be heeding the entreaties to stay home. It’s refreshing. People are always out tooling around when it’s snowing. But maybe everyone just decided that it’s Friday and, what the heck, they might as well just hunker down where they are.
Nothing’s worse than driving and suddenly realizing you’re on a sheet of ice. As soon as you feel that vague but unmistakable sense that there’s suddenly no traction between your vehicle’s tires and the surface of the road, a pit of terror strikes. It’s sort of like the plunge your stomach takes when you breach the top of a roller coaster.
It’s the sudden and unmistakable sense that, in that moment, you have no control over anything.
Swollen Tohickon – Photo: L. Weikel
Swollen Tohickon
I made a pit stop to my beloved Tohickon Creek earlier this afternoon. I haven’t had a chance to sit beside her and just have a conversation with her in a few months. Yes, I visited – briefly – when I walked there a few weeks ago. But the sun was setting and there was a lot of snow and ice around and nowhere for me to just sit and ‘be.’
Communing with the creek wasn’t in the cards today, either. My usual spot was inaccessible. The Tohickon was overflowing her banks and her waters quite literally would’ve poured into my car had I even attempted to park there.
The mighty Lenape Sipu (Delaware River) was equally as swollen with muddy, opaque water coursing downstream. Chunks of logs and spiky broken tree limbs bobbed and swirled in the eddies caused by rocks and other obstacles hidden from view.
But even more troubling, knowing the temperatures were soon to plummet, were the sheets of water streaming across most of the roadways. So much water with nowhere to go.
Nights like tonight are the stuff of comforters and candlelight and gratitude for a warm home and a good book.
Simply Stunning (Day Before Wild Weather) – Photo: L. Weikel
Wild Weather
Today’s wild weather reminds me a bit of the storm we had ten years ago right around now that dumped a whole lot of snow on us. Because it came so early in the season, the trees still retained an abundance of leaves, which made the heavy, wet snow especially damaging. Not only did we lose the stunning fall foliage too early that year, but massive branches and sometimes entire trees also succumbed to the weight of the snow and the sheer power of the wind.
I’m not even sure why I’m thinking about that vulnerability at the moment. Maybe it’s just sitting here listening to the wind rattle our shutters and cause the maples, ash, black walnut, and shagbark hickory trees surrounding us to groan and creak.
It makes me wonder whether the trees ever remember those other times – when as bad as this weather is, it was worse.
Ascension Sunset – Photo: L. Weikel
Slogging Through Rain and Memories
Karl and I went to a high school production tonight, the first one we’ve been to in probably ten years, maybe eleven. Not only did it bring back a cascade of memories from the nearly twenty years of school productions that included our sons, it was also one of our first forays out into a crowded public place in nearly two years.
It was a mixed bag, to be honest. A lot of people weren’t wearing masks. But even before we encountered people in an enclosed space, to get into the high school itself we had to race across a huge parking lot in wind-driven rain that instantly soaked us, in spite of our rain gear. The school’s parking lots were wall-to-wall cars. We were startled to see police on hand to direct traffic, but it all made much more sense when we asked someone which building to go into and heard there was a football game taking place as well.
Just the thought of attending a football game in that weather made me feel old. No thanks.
The production itself was fun and well done, and the cast clearly took great delight in finally getting back up on stage after the pandemic hiatus. There’s a palpable exhilaration that exudes from a cast that enjoys playing together. It’s been a long time since I basked in that feeling as a member of an audience.
So much going on in this… Photo: L. Weikel
Life is Different
I know it’s trite for me to say, “life is different.” I mean, seriously. Duh. But even just driving to and from the production, things felt shifted, somehow. Moved to one side. Perhaps it was the weather. Maybe it was the prospect of the impending reversion back to standard time lingering in the back of my mind. Just the thought of it getting ‘this dark’ an hour earlier had a chilling effect on my mood.
But then, once again, the whipping wind, pouring rain, and tree limbs littering the roadway somehow reconnected me with the primal reality that we so often forget when tucked inside our cocoons.
I have no photos of the wildness of tonight. But I’m happy to share some of the photos I took yesterday of a ravishingly captivating sunset.
Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin with these photos. I probably could’ve just as easily skipped all my words tonight and simply shared these images. They evoke something within me that verges on…I don’t even know what. Something else. A reality decidedly a few clicks away from ‘this’ one.
You knew it would happen – or probably could’ve guessed. (Yes, yes; I know.) I knew it would be an effort. And there would be days fraught with challenges. But we did it 17 years ago! We were still a bustling household with two sons still living at home. Soccer games, musicals, all sorts of extra-curricular activities dominated our time. I was commuting to Philadelphia back then, for heaven’s sake; and traveling to The Netherlands for training. We even did it again four years later. Ooooh, but there was stuff I forgot.
I’d say mostly it’s the little stuff. But there are some bigger things too. The bigger things are all mostly associated with the adrenaline that floods my system when I see Pacha bolting after the ever elusive Cletus, ignoring every single, “Come!” I may shout.
Cletus likes to act like the Pied Piper and lead the puppies into the small patch of woods beside our garage. I swear he’s doing it on purpose, and sometimes I wonder if his intentions are even more nefarious than just getting them lost or yelled at.
Pacha tuckered out after our walk – Photo: L. Weikel
Big Stuff
I’d say most of the big stuff I sweat has to do with Pacha and Brutus’s safety, which of course is directly tied to their lack of discipline. We’ve been diligently working with them to at least get the basics down: Come; sit; stay.
Sadly, it seems some days I’m the one who needs to re-learn these commands, because it feels like we’re going backwards. For instance, when we first brought them home, the pups came to us all the time. They responded to, “Come!” like rock stars. Now? Not only don’t they come; they run in the other direction.
(And no, we don’t chase them. But sometimes we do feel like we’re the fools.)
Indeed, Pacha in particular has quite the sassy attitude. She literally talks back when I’m trying to train her to do something. I don’t know if she thinks I’m joking around or if she just thinks she looks cute getting into the classic yoga position of ‘down dog,’ her butt high in the air.
Their response to “Sit,” is fairly consistent. And I have to admit, on today’s walk they were pleasingly obedient when we told them to get “over” and “sit” when a car approached.
Little Stuff
And then there’s the ‘little stuff.’ Such as? Such as trying to figure out what to do when the puppies are encountering their first thunderstorm, with its attendant copious amounts of rain.
While they both sat up straight, roused from sleepy reverie when they heard their first crack of thunder (here at our house, anyway), they did not act fearful. OK, they may have burrowed a little deeper into their snuggles, but overall, they didn’t tremble or whine or act inordinately fearful.
But a good example of the small stuff to which I’m referring is getting them to do their business when it’s raining. Oh my goodness. Even without rain falling on their short, sensitive Boston Terrier coats, they often have to be coaxed to come down off the porch a minimum of six times (at least) before they’ll leave a deposit and make it ‘all clear’ for us to head to bed. But now that it’s raining?
Not. Happening.
It’s not like they’re so well trained about going to the bathroom outside to begin with. But adding the rain seems to be the death knell to progress on that score. They look at me and, quite literally, I feel like they’re both saying, “Why in the world would we do anything outside when we can do it in here, in this warm and dry indoor climate, and you just clean it up?” I suppose they have a point.
Growing All the Time
They’re still babies. And we’re still new parents (again), trying to remember how strict we were ‘back in the day’ to have caused Sheila to be as good a girl as she was, in spite of how busy we were.
Something tells me Sheila never talked back with anything near the intensity of Pacha. And I think she always jubilantly responded when we said, “Come.” Ultimately, though? I have faith in our process together.
And darn it if their cuteness doesn’t make up for a multitude of sins.
Wild White Clouds on the Horizon – Photo: L.Weikel
Reprieve
I realize the heat wave we’ve endured here on the East Coast pales in comparison to the brutality sustained by the Pacific Northwest this week. Nevertheless, it was hard to focus on anything with it so hot. I’m glad for the reprieve.
The thunderstorms that rolled through our area last night were spectacular. Brilliant, jagged lightning split the air outside our front door and thunder followed so quickly, it was clear the storm was practically sitting on top of us. And then the rain just pelted us.
What I’ve disliked most about the recent heat wave is how walking became untenable. I need to take a walk. Desperately. So does Spartacus.
Fields, Forest, and Clouds – Photo: L. Weikel
Not Happening
Quite honestly, though, as a good puppy-Mommy, there was no way I was going to take him for a walk when he was flopping down on the porch and breathing heavily after being outside for five minutes. He didn’t even need to chase a toy to justify the flop.
And I knew exactly how he felt.
I’m ashamed to say it, but over the past four days I think I’ve averaged something like 0.28 miles per day. That’s appalling. But it looks like the weather over the next several days should be conducive to getting back out there and logging some miles. In fact, unless it’s a deluge, I’m even willing to walk between the raindrops, if that’s what it takes.
While I didn’t get a chance to walk today, I did have to make a quick grocery run. As I drove along a dirt road near my home, I couldn’t take my eyes off the massive, brilliant white clouds massing on the horizon. There was just so much activity in the sky, it was mesmerizing.
I’m craving my conversations with Nature. They help me keep my priorities straight and my attitude relatively upbeat. My walks, alas, are my primary inspiration and I’m lost without them.
After the heat and humidity of the past several days, today’s rain felt delicious. The dripping emerald cocoon that wrapped itself around us for most of the day was restorative and nourishing. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Time wore a different outfit today. It donned a duster from an old Western and seemed in absolutely no hurry to ‘move along.’ In fact, it almost felt like this afternoon stopped and still hasn’t resumed.
It’s hard to explain what I mean. I think it was how dark it got when the cold front finally moved in. Our living room took on the lighting of midwinter, with the increase in summer solstice sunlight substantially compromised by the dense leaves of the trees just outside most of our windows. Yes, come to think of it. The house was cloaked in a profound darkness.
A New Day
Eventually, the sky began to clear. Sunset from the vantage point of my place of soul replenishment was profound and lovely. The lightning bugs weren’t happy, though. Neither were the cicadas. Everyone was quiet, even after the rain stopped.
It was as if they all needed to stay in bed today. And by the time better weather moved in, they said, “Bag it. We’ll take up with life tomorrow.”
The Watcher – Photo: L. Weikel
A Watcher
Taking advantage of the clearing skies, I sat outside and began writing in my journal. After several minutes, I felt eyes upon me. I glanced around. No beasts. No wildlife.
But then my gaze settled upon a knot in a 2 x 4 not very far away from where I was sitting. Yep. That was it.
Clearly I’m not alone, I concluded. Where have I been that I hadn’t noticed this guy before? Is he a Wood Dragon? Not sure. But he sure has a set of very sharp teeth.
Nevertheless, the smirk doesn’t feel dangerous. A showing of teeth; but not a baring of teeth. It’s critical to make these distinctions.
First Page of Pandemic Journal #1 – Photo: L. Weikel
We’re all familiar with the saying: “There’s a first time for everything.” Little did I know at the beginning of this momentous year of 2020 that the expression would apply to a devastating experience with one of my journals.
As I mentioned in my post last night, I reached the natural conclusion of my then current spiral notebook journal at the beginning of April this year. Filled that baby up. Of course, that prompted me to begin a new one, the first entry of which was on April 7, 2020. On the very first page, I dubbed it my Pandemic Journal, because in spite of all the reassurances from on high that it would “all go away like a miracle” one day, my instincts (and ability to read well-researched, science-based articles) told me otherwise. The prospects felt ominous.
A Long History
I’ve been keeping a journal for at least 45 years. Wow. Seeing that in writing really drives it home. I know it to be a pretty accurate estimate because when I became an exchange student to Sweden my senior of high school, I’d already been keeping track of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences for at least two years. And once I arrived in Sweden, my journal was my refuge. In fact, as I became fluent in Swedish through that year, I even started writing my journal in Swedish to prove to myself that I could do it.
My habit of documenting my life’s experiences continued unabated (and perhaps became even more ingrained due to the daily parade of new countries and adventures) as I backpacked around Europe with a Swedish chum a month before returning home and starting college.
I’ll admit that there were times when I would go days, then weeks – and even, especially in college, months – without writing. I’d always regret the lapse when I picked up a pen again. In college, I used a Day Planner my father gave me for Christmas each year. It didn’t have a lot of room to write in each day, which in some ways was probably perfect. I could at least make time to jot down whatever was most significant about a particular day.
Throughout It All
Thus for the past 45 years or so, I’ve kept journals. Throughout all my travels, all my experiences, journeying from Sweden to New Mexico, Buffalo to Peru, Seattle to Siberia, I never – not once – lost or mangled a journal.
Not until 2020.
Specifically, on Thursday, July 30, 2020, I dutifully recorded a variety of observations, from the very personal to the fact that the president was starting to float the idea of postponing the election. I remarked just how oppressively hot it was that day and how disheartened I was becoming over the trajectory of our country.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I left my journal, along with a Medicine Card book, buried amongst the mound of pillows piled upon the glider where I usually sit when writing on my porch. Karl and I took a walk that evening and upon returning, I forgot to retrieve it. I left it outside overnight – and of course, there was a wild and thoroughly drenching torrential downpour that raged for hours that night.
I Searched High and Low
Friday morning I searched everywhere for my journal. I turned my bedroom upside down, my living room inside out. I looked on the porch several times, but with great relief found nothing – until I started dismantling the mountain of pillows and cushions to place them out in the sun to dry. It’s hard to express the horror I felt when I made my grim discovery.
Indeed, I even wrote (in my first entry of my present journal) how the magnitude of the soaking storm that occurred that Thursday evening was so extreme that, had it been a storm of any normal size, the journal would’ve been protected. First of all, it had a thick plastic cover on it. Second of all, it was so deeply buried – under several layers of pillows. It was outrageously ridiculous that so much rain fell that evening such that everything – all those layers – became utterly waterlogged.
Indeed, for days afterward, I would sit on that glider and water would drip out of the bottom-most cushions.
Simply Devastated
I was stunned. In shock. For the first time ever, I’d failed to take care of my journal. I’d neglected one of my most sacred objects.
It probably sounds weird, but I’ve been too ashamed to even write about and confess this publicly until now. While I realize it is just words, it’s not a human being, nor a beloved pet, I experienced a deep and irretrievable loss.
Once I write something down, I let it go. I give myself permission to release the need to obsessively try to remember all the details of everything I experience. And through the pandemic up to that point, I’d been tracking a number of dreams and journeys (the shamanic kind) that seemed particularly significant. A few in particular almost felt prophetic, and documenting them in my journal was my best way of keeping track.
To make matters worse, I may have mentioned before that I write dreams and journeys in different colors in my journals to make them stand out. It’s then easier for me to locate those extraordinary moments when I go searching for them later. Imagine my dismay – my actual sense of mourning – when I realized that my journeys and dreams had literally been washed away. For whatever reason, the colors I use for those special events orange, green, and red, of the very same pens I use in black and blue ink to write my everyday experiences, ‘ran’ completely off the pages, leaving nary a trace behind.
Started Anew
So on August 2nd, 2020, I began my Pandemic Journal #2. Of course, I’ve kept the first, as can be seen from the photos I’m including with this post. But sadly, it seems only my more mundane entries can still be read. While I’m grateful that anything could be salvaged…
The loss is real.
Rich Details of a Journey – Lost; Photo: L. Weikel
Wow, today’s weather was a dreary overload of dark skies, chilling rain, and wind intent on whipping the just-turning leaves into sopping wet blankets of yellow and brown.
I’ve been riding such a high over the past several days that even when the skies occasionally clouded over or actually let loose with a downpour or two, I never once felt a sense of gloom. So today’s experience of the remnants of Hurricane Delta (so named because they ran through the entire alphabet of names for the season and were forced to start anew) was a bit of a shock to my system.
Over the Weekend
It feels like there’s almost been an inexplicable shift in everything since late last week. The outside world just isn’t feeling quite the same. It seems to have shifted into another level of absurd, beginning with the Vice-Presidential debate last Wednesday night.
Listening to the answers given by each of the candidates was like listening to two people from different galaxies. For instance, it felt surreal to watch Pence spew lie after lie about the supposedly outstanding response to the pandemic martialed by the current Administration. And the repeated interruptions, rudely interjecting under a guise of folksy passive aggression that made me want to scream in disgust.
After watching that debate, however, I became immersed in the last minute tasks and festivities leading up to the wedding, which in turn mercifully distracted me from paying any further attention to the non-stop anxiety train.
Yes, I tangentially checked in every once in a while to make sure I wasn’t missing some imminent threat to our well-being, but the truth is that I only started tuning in again today. And I have to admit, there’s a part of me that yearns to go back to the person I was years ago who generally paid only half a mind to political sparring and policy discussions.
But can you put that toothpaste back in the tube? I doubt it.
Conflicted
I’ll admit it: I’m conflicted. As someone said tonight, we only have 22 days left until this election. If we want to peer into the mirror and look ourselves in the eye, posing the question of whether we did everything we could to make the world a better place on November 3rd, then we need to put our thoughts and actions into service today.
There’s so much at stake; it’s hard to feel I’m doing enough. But perhaps I can chalk up at least a portion of my malaise to a bliss hangover made worse by hurricane detritus.
Here I am, sitting on the couch with the television off, the front door open, and the deep calm of steady rain helping me forget. Indeed, I contemplate writing about that very thing: how the actual sound of rain falling just outside my door and the cool breeze being drawn inside by the whole house fan combine to create a peace much more tangible than the app advertised on tv. And then, just like that, my calm evening transforms into an eerie one.
Lightning is flashing in the distance, but there is no thunder. My reverie is disturbed by a deep rumbling that I feel before even hearing it. It sounded like a massive diesel engine – one belonging to a very heavy truck, probably a fire engine. But it sounded like it was moving slowly. I raised my head and sure enough, the raindrops splattered on our windows cast kaleidoscopic red flashes as the whirling lights of a fire engine practically creeping toward our house illuminated the trees arcing over the rain soaked roadway.
Silence
Other than the ground-shaking vibrations of the vehicle itself, the behemoth was silent. The rotating lights chased each other across my neighbor’s lawn and into the woods across the road, and I imagined the firemen leaning forward in their seats to read the numbers on our mailboxes. What else would cause them to drive up our road ever so slowly, yet silently, with lights flashing? Lights that could surely awaken any light sleepers among us.
For a moment, I thought in a panic, “Are they looking for us? Do I smell smoke?” Weird how you can question your own perceptions when confronted with an experience you’re totally not expecting. “Oh my God! What if one of our neighbors was struck by lightning?!”
I tossed my laptop aside and darted outside, hastily unlatching the screen door to see if they were going to stop at our next door neighbors’ home. No, they kept going and eventually made their way to the end of our road, where I thought I saw them turn their lights off.
False alarm.
Settling Back In
Settling myself back on the sofa, I realized how much my train of thought (and peace of mind) had been thrown off by the passing of the eerie fire engine. I logged back in (because of course the laptop had gone into sleep mode as I investigated this odd event) and started contemplating yet again the subject of tonight’s post, the blessing of a steady rainstorm, when all of a sudden I felt the approach, once again, of the lumbering beast.
What? They’d actually turned the fire engine around at the intersection, only to make another flashing light pass up our road again?
Tossing my laptop aside, I ran to the front door only to witness, yet again, this massive engine creeping slowly along our road. Suddenly, just past our house, the driver put the metal to the pedal and picked up speed. I darted outside to see whether it turned toward High Rocks or the river, but the branches of our trees are now so thick with life that the truck – and the lights – disappeared from my view almost immediately.
No Sirens
I never did hear sirens. The fire engine never passed our way again – at least not yet. Not in the time it’s taken me to write this post.
But the rain has subsided and all I hear now is the rushing of the water in the tiny creek across the road that always flows fast when we have a lot of rain. It’s not overflowing, but it is running fast.
The silence of the fire engine juxtaposed with the urgency of the flashing lights was weird and unsettling. Eerie, in an odd sort of way.
It’s hard to explain. Perhaps it’s just a sign of the times.
As I sit here trying to decide which of the myriad emotions I’ve felt today I want to express in this post, I hear a whoosh of what I think is the wind. But it’s not the wind. It’s rain.
But the rain isn’t steady. It sounds as if only some of the clouds blowing through are filled with moisture too heavy to contain. Other clouds just pass right by. I can feel a distinct shift in the air, though. Markedly cooler air wafts in through the screen of the open front door.
This is just the beginning of a wild weekend, weather-wise.
It’s May, right? May 8th, in fact, in this crazy year of 2020.
Perspective via Polar Vortex
We’ve had one of the mildest winters I can remember, so of course there’s a “freeze” warning in effect for tomorrow night into Saturday. And of course, while my area will probably ‘only’ get a coating of ice, northeastern Pennsylvania and points north, including much of New York state, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont are bracing for 6-8” of snow, and even as much as a foot of heavy, wet stuff in some areas.
Hopefully, people won’t lose their electricity to downed wires caused by the storm.
It seems we keep getting reminders on the importance of perspective. If we start paying attention to what’s going on around us, perhaps we’ll stop thinking, “Things can’t get any worse.” Because it’s precisely when we make that cavalier statement that we’re often given a good dose of “Oh yeah?”
What is True
There’s a lot going on out there that’s escaping our perception. We’re being bombarded. We need to keep our wits. We need to remember what’s important. We need to take deep stock of ourselves and who we trust.
Everything we believed we knew for sure is being challenged right now.
We need to stick together. We need to be there for each other. This is when our integrity shines through and calls us to perhaps take leaps into an unknown we never thought we would.
We must stop denying what we see with our very own eyes. This really is as bad as we feel, deep down inside. Does the rain need to turn to ice in May? Do we really need to experience even worse before we wake up and See?
I knew they’d happen. You knew they’d happen. It was inevitable, really. And today is one of those days.
Perhaps it’s the number? 440? I can’t say it holds any special meaning for me one way or another. But it seems like a nice round number to get stuck on.
Or maybe the pelting sheets of rain that pummeled our area today left me, at least, feeling waterlogged? Yes, maybe all my inspiration got swept up into the streams overflowing their banks and barreling down the roads in muddy rages.
Detours were in place.
It could’ve been snow.
Sheep – Paused
We had to stop the car and turn around. Neither one of us felt the scene could be real. Stealthily maneuvering our Prius so that it was facing the meadow from a little used connector road, we stared at the long line of sheep coming and going – or at least frozen in motion while doing so.
Karl and I looked at the sight before us and felt a sense of unreality around us. There had to be 50 or so sheep in a row appearing to tread out to pasture. About half were headed one way on the muddy path and the other half, headed in, toward the barn, were on a collision course with them.
But the weird thing was that, in fact, none of them were moving at all.
