|
|
As dark accumluated, I stood on the warm concrete walkway, barefoot and in cutoffs... silently absorbing the symphony of crickets. The soundtrack of evening in late August. Behind, in the blaze of houselight, speaking barely above a whisper, Miss Jane was holding court on the phone with Stewart (as in Jimmy, his pseudonym). She's stayed with his recuperating mother as health care "companion" occasionally in the past weeks (her former occupation). I hear her laugh in the distance, which she does so rarely. And I just think... "Good." I watched thin, shredded clouds insinuate from the southeast (?), backlit by moonlight. Projecting my thoughts skyward, I wondered about bad things happening for good reasons... not just about my own trivial insecurities, but about this place. This "home." Any time now, the county will be considered for federal disaster aid... our lack of precious water reaching critical mass, as the river vanishes. Frontpage photos in the major papers showed what in the past has been a fearsome beast, now revealing it's bones. This place is nothing if not extreme. About six years ago, this same river had us in the news, yet again... the first of two "five hundred year floods" scouring everything in it's path. At work for the three days that the thick, sodden clouds headed unnaturally westward, I was aware that bad things were happening at home. Unprepared, completely for the reality in the dawn hours when I returned. First one road closed, then another... my last resort carrying me over the "river." More like high tide. Just opened minutes before, the mud-slicked bridge was just inches above the sick, relentless orange froth. Once across, it was like travelling along a penninsula of highway in a fetid radioactive sea. But that was the extent of my own discomfort. Others had homes bludgeoned by flood-tossed boulders... mountainsides raked raw by the unseen claws of twenty inches of rain in a day. And now, the polar opposite. Is it any wonder why my moods swing the way they do? So, this night, I thought about reasons. Answers. If anything I could do, say, or pray for could put things right, or at peace. For all of it. Better or worse. Well, I don't seem to be on the wavelength of the powers-that-be... or so it feels. Nor with my spouse. No brilliant revelations. All is changed, and at the same time, usual. Funny... the few contacts with Miss Jane over the past week left me adrift. She didn't notice... more concerned with her daughter's estrangement from her own husband. Proof positive that I think... way too much. Or our own wavelength has dried up. As I type, the nocture continues outside. Soon, to sleep, then arise and depart for work. Hopefully, the dreams will not include floods. This subject grown tiresome. |
|
|
