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Sinking Ship

March 4, 2023

My neighbor sent me this picture of the snow on my street before the plows arrived. Would have made for some tough driving, no? My other neighbor shoveled the walking path that you can see that goes out to the main road.

“Like rats fleeing a sinking ship…”

I kept thinking of that old saying the other morning.

Except I was the rat and the sinking ship I was fleeing was my very own lovely house.

(Incidentally? According to Merriam-Webster, that idiom can be traced back hundreds of years. Apparently, rats have been getting out of bad situations caused by humans for centuries now.)

The power had gone out the night before. My cheerful weather app was predicting two days of blizzard-like conditions. I remembered last year’s Snowmageddon, when the power was out for nine days.

Snow was falling steadily, adding additional inches every hour to the snow that had fallen the week before.

I decided that I didn’t want to be around to see how bad it was going to get.

I texted a friend, found a place to stay, and left.

Turns out, that was a good decision.

Because it snowed and snowed and snowed some more. Snow measured in feet, not inches.

Interstate 80, one of our main thoroughfares, was closed for days. My son missed four days of school, and his school is about 1000 feet lower in elevation than where we live.  Other nearby communities that rarely see snow had measurable accumulation and a host of  weather-related traffic accidents because of it.

Our power was out from Sunday evening until Thursday afternoon. The county did not plow the main roads in and out of our community until Thursday, either. That basically left everybody stranded. It was a difficult few days: our local Facebook group was full of pleas for help. People needed help shoveling snow and needed their driveways plowed. Some ran out of firewood. Lots of people started to run low on fuel for their generators. A woman who lived in her car in a remote area posted that she was in trouble and asked for help getting out (a team from the county Search and Rescue department brought her to warmth and safety.)

I went home for a few hours Friday, after the sun came out and the roads were plowed. It was a breathtakingly beautiful snowy day, but then I came back to Auburn to stay. Because even though the power is on, who knows how long that will last?  And also, the house is pretty chilly and there is an abundance of snow on top of my woodpile and I’m not sure how I will even start to get it off.  Also? More snow is on the way.

So I’ll stay in Auburn for a few more nights.  At this writing late Saturday evening, I-80 is closed (again) because of snow that fell today, and more snow is predicted for Sunday and into early Monday morning. It’s not a Blizzard Warning this time, just a Winter Storm Warning. That has more to do with sustained wind speeds than with the amount of snow, the forecasters say. So this time around, it’s not as windy. But we could get another foot or two of snow by early next week.

Another foot or two?

(Not sure where all of it is going to go.  Except for on top of my woodpile. It will definitely land there.)

I love where I live. I even love the snow! I am not a fan of power outages, though. Or of snow that topples trees (a big pine went down in our backyard.  Since I wasn’t there to hear it, did it make a sound?)  But tonight I am grateful. Grateful for a place to stay, for the generosity of neighbors and friends, and for the water that all this snow and rain is bringing to our drought-stricken state.

That may be the best news of all.

(Except. Did it have to come all at once?)

Sorry. Not meaning to complain. Just a little tired tonight. And wondering when I will finally be able to go home again.

Presence, Success

Rest Is Not Failure

February 25, 2023

View from the back deck. Early in the day Friday. Snowed a lot more than this by the end of the storm. And apparently, another storm is on the way for early next week.

Sometimes, it looks like things outside are dead, but maybe it’s winter, and they are only resting. Bulbs are like that. They bloom and then they hibernate.  Also perennials. Fruit trees. Some animals, too, like bears and (of course) groundhogs.

Sometimes, I feel like things inside me are dead. But maybe they too are only resting? Maybe there is grieving I have to do, and maybe the grieving looks like bulbs in winter. Hard, buried. No sign of growth or flowering. No sign of life. No hope.

Sometimes things do not work out the way you think they will, the way you think they should. If you were in charge of things, they would be not be like this. They would have worked out better!

But.

Of course, you are not in charge of things. You can’t control much of anything, honestly.

(Is there anything we truly can control? Can we keep our hearts beating, our lungs breathing? Our brains synapsing (or something like that?))

In my centering prayer group this week, we talked about the seasons and nature and how the natural world does not exist in a constant state of production, filling, and flowing. These are always balanced with times of rest and renewal, with emptying and ebbing. Most of us humans live our lives trying to be productive and useful. We think that more is always better. (That’s what so many of the social media influencers challenge us to do… have “million dollar morning routines”… set goals and accomplish them… become our best selves!)

But isn’t this a little like always having summer without winter, springtime without autumn? It isn’t possible for the natural world, and it doesn’t seem healthy for us either.

I have had a month of a lot of ebbing and emptying. I have not been a fan of this. I was sick with Covid and lost more than a week of work. I had just started to feel like I was going to catch up when the weather shifted and a massive storm system came our way. The snow level dropped to 1000 feet, and chain controls went into effect in Applegate, a small town miles down the road from me that hardly ever gets snow, let alone enough to necessitate drivers having to chain up there. I live at 3200 feet; we have already gotten a foot of snow.

I had to cancel my work appointments for Thursday and Friday; I didn’t want to be on the road, and my clients didn’t want to be on the road, either. The roads are treacherous, not just because of the weather but because of other drivers who think that their four wheel drive vehicles are invincible in the snow. When I worked at a ski resort years ago, I watched many vehicles slide off the road into snowbanks. “It’s four wheel drive, not four wheel stop,” one of my friends said. She was right.

So I stayed home and watched the snow fall. I put on my snow shoes and walked up to the post office to mail a letter, only to discover a sign on the door that said, “Sorry. No mail today. Trucks can’t get through.” I mailed it anyway. I watched children who were staying at the hotel make snowmen. I made a cauliflower and eggplant curry. I peeled and cooked my butternut squash. I drank all of my sparkling seltzer waters.

I had to stay home a few weeks ago because I was sick. I stayed home these last few days because it was where I was supposed to be. Days of ebb and emptying, of resting and waiting. Learning to relax into the stillness, remembering that the snow will melt, that the work will come, that it’s OK to have a break, even if it’s not a break that I necessarily wanted (but maybe it’s a break that I needed?). Trusting that we are always loved and cared for. Trusting that rest is not failure. Trusting that spring is on its way. Trusting that all will be well. Always.