White Water

There are many days I have felt like I was consumed by a tidal wave.  Just swallowed whole in a crater and washed down with a huge wave into the monster of life.  But, not today.  No, the past couple of weeks I have been rafting class six white water rapids.  Wave after wave, holding on with the tips of my fragile nails in spite of the water in my eyes.  I have so many stories swirling in my head.  I will flush them out in here yee blog.  But, to spare you the burden of my can of worms (yes, the kids and I have been researching idioms for school), I will keep to the tiny night crawlers good for bait while staying clear of the big fat foot long ones that scare my daughter towards screams of terror.  Let's see, where do I begin...

       It was 3:33 am.  The sun had not risen.  It was dark.  The phone rang.  No school.  Desperately trying to understand the situation in my fog of fours of sleep, I search the news feeds, Facebook, where ever I can find information.  Then, I look outside.  Rain.....   Hours later, my world was flooding.  That evening, the city was cut in half, people evacuated,  and my neighborhood was put on evacuation notice.  Rain , rain, rain, a day later, we are fine, high and dry...sort of.  The lucky ones.  Kids have the first ever flood days, an impromptu fall break.  It rains every day.  Kids sweep out the garage and play in there anyway.  Son has his birthday party with two boys in the area.  We walk and skate when the sun is out. From our hill vista, we evaluate the rise and recession of our Dry Creek and ponder why parents are letting their little ones get in the nasty brown waters of the ponds left once the creek started to receed.  It smells.  And so it goes....

     Meanwhile, these five days were scheduled for me days.  Days to be an artist and slip in a little yoga here and there.   Amazingly, two paintings were started, a little one finished, kids learned to use the sewing machine, and I cleaned my studio to get ready for the Longmont Studio Tour.  The house did not get cleaned.  Oh, did I mention a day volunteering in one of the neighborhoods with the worst flood damage.  Talk about smelly and dirty.  The kids and I resigned we were no good AT&T he heavy lifting and dirty stuff and opted to sit with the ladies in the shade scrubbing Christmas ornaments.

     Meanwhile, I prepped for a friend's wedding in which Hubby was best man.  This included walking over to the only shop in walking distance to find a dress for the occassion.  Score, the perfect dress bought on my consignor credit.  I love consignment stores!  Friday rolls around, Hubby snaked his way in from the airport, and we are off for a five hour drive to Basalt.  Out west near Aspen, the weather is great.  We had tons of fun.  And, we shared buckets of love to our sortofbutnotreallyknownyoufortwentyyears extended family.  Five hours we are home to celebrate Son's birthday with family.

     Meanwhile, during all this flooding, volunteering, art making, sewing, teaching, walking, wedding, and generally trying to maintain the sanity of my offspring and myself, I am screening calls.  When's my scans?  They are supposed to be next week.  What do you mean they aren't approved by the insurance company?  What, huh? The doctor needs to do what?  Who the heck knows what is going on here?  Agagagaggghhhh!  A good week of figuring, waiting, returning calls from four different locations, and finally I get resolution only three days prior to when I am supposed to have my fall cancer screening.  The PET is denied.  The appointment is cancelled.  CTs are ordered.  The MRI finally gets approved.  Blah blah blah, appointments for scans scheduled for Friday.  Keep in mind, the Studio Tour is Saturday and Sunday.   Thank goodness I am organized.  Somewhere in the week, I got it all done and the laundry too.

     Wait, there is more.  I know.  Really?  The nurse at the CT stabbed me five times to get a good vein for the IV.  That makes six punctures in my elbow pit if you include the blood drawl a few days before.  My arm is so sore, black and blue.  Oh, yes, and get this, she forgets to do the chest CT, and I have to go back in on Monday.  Really?

     Meanwhile, yes there's more, a dog bit me on Tuesday.  Since I was rushing to get to yoga, I didn't hesitate to look and limped through the pain to be on time.  Ergo it wasn't until after my shower Wednesday that I noticed the area was black an blue with a puncture scab.  And, Thursday, the dogs rushed at me again.  That snow balled into calling the animal control and trying to get a tetanus shot on Friday.  After my Scans in the am, I went of the IM who said I had to go to the ER who said I should wait until Monday and go to the public clinic run by FEMA with shots for $21.  Monday, after my make- scan I find a well earned seat on my porch and chill while eating my sandwhich and drinking pint of water to wash out the contrast from the scans.  I am on my iPad feeling pretty relaxed and ready to head out the door for my 2:40 appointment when my dad walks in.  I am surprised because he wasn't supposed to come over to help move art back into storage until school was out.  Then he says he should go get the kids.  What?  It is only 2:15, and I still need to go get my shot.  Oh, crud, iPad clock is an hour behind.  It's 3:15. So the end of that segment is three times I have been diverted from getting my tetanus shot.  Three strikes your out.  Guess it wasn't meant to be, at lesst not at this time.

      Somewhere between medical personnel shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Welcome to Obama care" and this moment, I had a wonderful weekend during my Studio Tour.  It was a busy couple of days, and I am extremely glad my mother was there to help me host the steady flow of guests.  I made some big sales and lots of connections.

      All of the above, the good, bad and the ugly, occurred in a web of events through the past couple of weeks.  In the spaces between the waves, I found joy in my children, danced at a wedding, helped food victims, painted, received uplifting critique, finished three magazines, almost finished a book, took a salt bathe, did yoga, spent a lot of time with my folks even if it was via phone worrying about each other in our own parts of our flood-split town, and breathed.  On Monday, after my second set of scans for which I had to fast, I went into my favorite coffee shop for a sandwhich and rice milk latte.  My favorite barista committed on my happy smile.  "Whatsa happening with you?"  After spilling a list of my woes including the tearful sibling spat over rock collections this am, I told her I am happy because all that is done.  It's my yesterday.  And, by Wednesday, I might get to stick my head out of my shell to find the calm in the storm.  I look forward to a rejuvenating therapeutic massge and a short to do list.  

      My mantra for today: Accpet that which is troubling.   Muddle through without resistance and forgive their burdens.  Like the seasons, they will pass.  There is a calm in the storm of life.  It is coming.  It will be here.  Breath.  Namasta.

Survivor's Guilt

So there I was, laying on the front porch.  The sun had come up.  My feet were up on the arm of the rocker. I breathed in the delicate sent of lavender and cedar stirred up by the rain.  The breeze was gentle whistling through the varied tones of my four wind chimes.  Life was alright.  My house had flooded.

    I really wanted to go take a shower.  But, I couldn't. How could I when so many didn't have water to shower in?  How could I use up fresh water?  Did I deserve a shower after getting a few moments of stillness while the kids played for and hour at a neighbors house?  My basement wasn't full of muck.  I didn't just loose all my valuable memories.  No, did I endure a rigorous evacuation.  No, we stayed home somewhat confident our house was high enough above the flooding creek.

    Survivors guilt is something I have dealt with many times in the past.  Being one of the "lucky" ones carries a burden all of its own.  In the process after a terrific event, little or catastrophic, personal or all encompassing, every one goes through the stages of mourning.  Guilt, is the third stage after denial and anger.  As one of the lucky ones, it is a challenge to move beyond feeling guilty that you have it better then someone else.  

    I watched a 30 minute aerial video to assess the damage to the town of Longmont.  Earlier in the day, after opening a pad way near our home, we saw the plane swoop down over our head to land in the airport.  I had thought it quite odd that the "jumper plane" (owned by Mile-Hi Skydive) was out on a trip.  After watching the video, I under stood and looked for our car on the footage.  At any rate, the speaker, as he looked down at a shopping area, remarked, "That is so odd that everyone is just going about there business like there wasn't a flooded river a mile away." This got me thinking.  Why shouldn't we, everyone, be going about business?  Shops still need to sell stuff, make money, and feed the economy.  People still need to eat.  In fact, owners and friend of Sugarbeet, one of our best high end restaurants in town, will be open for business as soon as the road is fixed up.  according to friend's posts they fought tooth and nail, or sand bag and broom, to keep the space from flooding.  Doctor appointments need attending.  And, baby still needs formula.

     So the question is, how does one deal with the quilt of getting out alive when eight families lost loved ones, hundreds still unaccounted for, and thousands of homes are lost or severally damaged.  The first step, actually it is the fifth stage of grieving, is to accept where you are and what you have.  Skip right over stage four, depression.  Accept that you are one of the lucky ones and go take a hot shower.  It's okay.  With acceptance, you can release your guilt that tethers you like a brick on the string of a helium balloon.

    I went to go take that hot shower but kept it short.  In doing so, I was able to relieve my own rattled nerves and step forward.  More over, I was better able to step back into my main role on this Earth at this time, motherhood.  By finding my own thankfulness and rejoice, I could share my light with my children and elevate their own emotions out of their fear of uncertainty.

     Today, we decided we need to help those less fortunate then us after the flooding.  I had one appointment to bring bins over to a church.  The bins are used to shuttle stuff out of basements to be washed and saved or ditched.  The church had moved their volunteer site to a house closer to one flooded neighborhood.  No one was home so we left the bins and continued along our way talking about plans for lunch.  Then, I remembered a friend posting her father, and our dentist, needed help in his home in that neighborhood.  So the kids decided everyone needs lunch.  We would go home and change in our "yuckies", grab lunch at Wendy's, purchase fifteen sandwiches off the dollar menu, and go hand them out.  The curbs were full of vehicles.  Using our Jedi power, or luck, you choose, we found a spot right at the entrance to the neighborhood.  With our waters and the sandwiches slung on our backs, We ascend the hill handing out sandwiches.  We head towards 1159.  Upon our arrival, we receive quizzical looks.  The family we thought we were helping was not at the residence.  We shrug it off with a grin. Must just be where we are supposed to be.   They put us to work.  The kids shuttle cleaned items up the stairs to the "clean room". I help the grandmother of the house locate a tarp and find small tools that are laying about.  Everything is laying about.  I take a second to head across the street with the sandwiches to the food tent.  There, I find that family we were intended to help at 1156. Oops.  Returning back to the other house, I find the kids happy and helpful.  We finish our assigned jobs of moving things from point A to point B and head a Ross the street.  There, we are given the assignment to help bring ruined stuff from the basement in bins to the middle of the culdesac.  We put on two gloves and a mask.  Everyone is covered in mud.  Men are pulling muddy things out of the basement.  Women and teens are carrying the bins back and forth.  I carry one bin with the kids and a small Christmas tree before we decide this type of work is not for us.  After washing up, we head over to the tent on the front lawn with the aunts.  There items deemed washable or setting out to dry in the sun.  After a toothbrush cleaning, the ornaments and knock knacks are shining like the day they were purchased.

    What felt like a full day was only a few hours.  My brain toyed with the guilt again.  Did I do enough? What a wimp for getting out of the dirty work.  Should I come back tomorrow?  I just don't feel like I did enough.

    "Mommy," Daughter says as she clicks her seat belt, "I feel really good about what we did today."  All the clouds of guilt were pushed away.  If you find yourself on the better end of a crisis, find your acceptance, be grateful. and move forward.  In stepping out of the stuck places in your head, you open the door to do what it is you are supposed to be doing on this Earth.

The Flood of 9/11/13

So it's Wednesday night.  Business as usual.  It's raining so soccer practice is cancelled again.  Daughter enjoys Jazz 2 while Son and I run errands.  It is really raining as we return to the dance studio.  We watch her dance.  Boy, is she having fun.  So little compared to all those middle schoolers who make up a majority of the class.  The way out the door is a fuss as Daughter is told she can't wear her "expensive jazz shoes" out of the studio.  She can't remember where she put her street shoes.  I think, and I am the one with the brain injury... It's raining. 

      We arrive home, snack, put out a bucket to see how much rain collects, and off to bed.  No interest in a shower.  Oh wait it is nine o'clock, and now she wants a shower?  It is really raining.  They fuss.  I knock them over the head with a...no, they pass out after letting them know I will be getting them up early in the morning to do homework that wasn't completed.

      Wrong!  4:44 am, the phone rings.  I am so deep in sleep I am not sure how I got the phone to my ear.  The district is calling.  My heart is in my throat.  Why are they calling at this time in the morning?  It must be tragic.  School is closed due to flooding warning.  What the f#€¥!  

    I go outside and it is raining, really raining.  I crawl into bed freezing cold.  I check my iPad, Facebook, MSN.....  Zzz.

    7:30 on the nose, Daughter dressed for school wakes me from the terribly deep nap.  "Can I go finish my homework?  I am dressed and my bed is made."  Yes, seriously, this task gets done only on school mornings.  However, I would give the bed making a C, up from the D- of last year.  I tell her there is no school.  "why?" She asks.

    "I really don't know.  The district just called and said all schools were closed."  The morning is spent trying to balance kids questions, research on what is going on, touching base with my parents, wondering what state my husband was currently in, and breakfast.  Breakfast, yes, the most important meal of the day.  You know what, I don't feel like making it, get your own d@#^ bowls.  Okay, just thoughts as I sweetly tell them, "Pancakes are not on the menu just because school is cancelled today.  Here's your cereal bowls.  You know where the rice milk is.  Fine, you can watch Johnny Tech.  Whatever it is called since school is cancelled."  Ah, time to think.  The bucket is over flowing, by the way.  I mean the bucket outside with rain water.

    In a nut shell, the St. Vrain river flooded.  Earlier that morning, before the alarming phone call telling me to stay in my home unless otherwise directed by the authorities, Jamestown, in the mountains was hit causing mudslides.  One man lost his life as his home collapsed.  Lyons, at the base of the foothills and in our school district, was flooded, and it was coming our way.

   Well, it was already flowing the ten or so miles we live from Lyons.  By the time I figured out what was going on, finished breakfast, button up rain coats, and walked over to the "sled hill" above the Dry Creek, it was not so dry.  Guess I won't be doing the run I was planning.  The water level was not quite to the foot bridge.  The kids are nervous.

   Getting home, the kids each call all their friends in the neighborhood to see if they could play.  Better entertained kids then worried kids.  We pick up one gal and drive around to see the flooding on the bike under pass on the secondary road between the schools.  The small pond in the new park is becoming a lake.  The path is blocked off with its gate.  Sometimes it floods under there.  Yes, in the spring with mountain snow run off.  This is fall, it is supposed to be mostly dry, ergo the name.

   A sweet young man joins us and the four of them, two second grade boys an two fourth grade girls, rummage through the house for entertainment and end up in the garage.  This worked out as a win, win solution.  I got some time in my studio and a swept out garage.  And, they had shelter with outside access for quick dares to run out in the rain.  I think they were playing house or vetinary hospital.  Hard to tell.  

  Time melted quickly.  After a quick load of wet clothes in the drier, the boy went home.  Son and the girls were fed whatever I can scrounge up.  I am exhausted from all the thinking and trying to get news without a TV.  We drive girlfriend home. We know the flooding is really bad by now.  On the way back, its dusk, we stop at the Sled Hill.  The flooding is over the footbridge.  Kids are nervous.  They climb up on my bed after getting their teeth brushed.  They watch a video on my laptop.  I work on my studio that I had rearranged and had planned to finish organizing so I could start a new painting.

   Some where in my lost time of Thursday I get a call from the district that they will close on Friday too.  I find out friend in Lyons is on a "hill" and okay but the rest of the town evacuated.  Bridges are out. Homes are lost.  This is bad.  This is a One Humdred Year flood that is over due since 1870 something was the last one.  The phone rings.

   It is the city this time.  We are on evacuation notice.  It is getting dark.  I am confused what to do.  I see neighbors out in the street.  We confirm.  Stay put.  It is better then trying to drive somewhere as the flood has cut the city in two and effecting towns out east, south and the Thompson is flooding the cities up north.  Call or come over if you need help.  But, it is all okay, we aren't considered flood zone on the map we looked at when we bought our house, right?  And, the "sled hill" is at least two stories tall above the creek that has necome a river.  We are good.  I don't sleep.  Messaging other mom friends worried all night.  Worried about so and so.  Did you hear from them?  So and so is evacuated and okay at their friends house.  Should we leave?  It is curfew, we are okay up here....right?

     Four hours sleep at the most.  It's Friday.  Kids half joking and half freaked out taunt about being off school another day.  Oh, just wait when they realize Fall Festival, soccer, and all that is cancelled.  Oh, and they can't go anywhere and school is closed until next Thursday.  Shoot, if I'd only known, I would have booked a trip for this impromptu fall break.

     Now, I do make light of the situation.  But, do know I lost complete track of time Friday in a daze of survivors guilt.  Here I was, my little corner of Longmont on our high ground, here we are dry.  After lunch, the kids go play at a friends house.  The sun is out, and I take a little walk.  The water receded a bit.  There is an impromptu lake created by sewer over flow.  People a cut ally let their kids and dogs swim in this brown water.  Yuck. 

     I take a little me time on the covered front porch.  My brain is not acting great with lack of sleep and stress.  I can't think straight.  Meditation and the aromatherapy of my lavendar and cedar bark settle my nerves enough to go up and take a shower.  I feel guilty using my water.  I rationalize that my only job is to take care of my children.  And, I can't do that if my brain is so out of whack that I can barely see.  That's okay, right?  Put on your air mask first when the plane is crashing or you can't help those in need.

    I feed the kids when they get home.  They aren't too hungry.  Neither am I.  My stomach is upset.  Collitis acting up with all this stress.  Phone rings, evacuation order is lifted. Husband gets home from the airport.  The National Guard is in town.  We are classified as a National Disatser.  I sleep, sort of.

   Today is like any ol' day of summer.  It is a bit rainy and a bit sunny.  Kids are needy.  I idealize an image of working in my studio while kids do their own crafts.  Yet, I succumb to teaching both to sew on my old machine.  Two quilts, one with puppies and the other for a baby girl who is due to arrive in February.  Time fades in and out as I accept the four days of painting I had planned are shrunk to an hour here or there maybe nowhere.  It is okay.  We have our house.  We have electricity, water and food.  Everyone I know is safe, even if displaced.

    And, that is what it is like being one of the lucky ones.  My second disaster.  One being the 1989 Loma Preeta 8.5 earthquake that collapsed the Bay Bridge.  Just like our home here, my parents bought a house on bedrock in a good school district. they did thin in spite of the further commute for my dad to work.  We were safe, sort of.  Dad got home after several anxious hours.  We slept together  on couch cusions in the living room for over a week as we endured aftershocks, dry bread and emergency water.  And, we only lost a few colliectibles while gainimg a few cracks in the ceiling.  

     Yes, I say we are lucky as a new storm lingers in our forecast.  Love and charity to all in the Front Range. Check out this arial footage.  

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lZBw_vkJb98&sns=fb&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DlZBw_vkJb98%26sns%3Dfb

PS Wednesday was 9/11.  I want to acknowledge that date and all the losses in the aftermath.  And, lastly, we survived another Friday the Thirteenth, isn't that awesom?!

Kids Teach

This past Labor Day weekend, I had the pleasure of joining three other families and a nearly-newlywed couple.  We had a great time full of laughter, games, spoons, cards, singing on hikes, fishing, exploring, watercolor painting, doodling, s'mores in the rain, cops and robbers, bedtime stories, scary tales of the BIFFY monster just before trekking the fifteen feet in pure darkness, stars, drizzle, thunder claps as loud as a cannon, and special early morning visit from a doe.  One of my favorite moments came just after the children were band from playing cops and robbers due to stealing the toilet paper from the BIFFY ad using them as bombs and locking one of the littler guys in the wood shed with the axes.  Instructed they needed to do some quiet play, they found came inside and taught each other new card games. Then they went outside and built a fort together under the twelve year old's guidance.  It was wonderful to see seven kids ages four to twelve work together.  Later, one of the smaller ones came in and asked if they were all cousins.  That made me feel so happy.  I also love the fact that both my kids noted the others had little imagination in their play.  They made it their mission to teach them what they know.  By the second day, the youngest girl accepted my winged purple elephant as her guide and joined my daughter in making a fairy home down by the stream complete with mud balls, tarins (stacked rocks) and leaf alters.  I noted a lot  of awesomeness watching these kids running around.  Here is few things that stick out in my mind.

Kids like being with other kids.

Kids fight.  Life is a completion for attention and siblings are the worse enemies.  

Kids don't like being told what to do.  

Kids like being asked to do something when you get down to their level and look them in the eye.

Kids love to help.  They just need to know they are part of a community and everyone else's is helping. 

Kids only think it is fair when everyone is doing it, including the adults.

Kids don't like being different.

Kids like being different.

Kids love it when they are in time out and everyone else's is still playing....not.

Kids don't like being in trouble when one person is at fault and the whole group gets the punishment.

Kids accept the punishment with less resistance, negotiating, and bitterness when everyone else is punished exactly the same.

Kids are weak, they cry.

Kids are strong, they cry

Kids are brave when you show them compassion for their struggles even when it seems minor to an adult.

Kids know a tiny little splinter or cut really, really, really, hurts.

Kids know the cream you put on that cut really hurts.

Kids know who to trust to make them feel better.

Kids actually do know you know best even if they try to prove otherwise

Kids push your buttons and long for you to pull them back.

Kids know it is tough what you are going through and when to give you a hug.

Kids love to know what you are going through so they can give you a hug.

Kids are the best huggers.

Kids are smarter then most adults think.  Sometimes they just need a little time and guidance to sort it all out.

Kids love challenges.

Kids thrive when you tell they you noticed just about anything they have done, said, or thought.

Kids criticize.

Kids can be taught to critique constructively.

Kids know it takes time and adults are always slow, too slow.

Kids do know how to wait if you tell them your objective of your task at hand.

kids can learn social manners.  

Kids are hilarious.

Kids pick their noses and pee on themselves.

Kids don't like to stay tidy when there is fun going on.

kids love when tidying up is a game.

Kids get bruises, scraps, and cuts and it is always someone else's fault they got them...so they think.

Kids know it is never their fault until an adult tells them it is.  Even then it is questionable.

Kids are selfish as it should be.  It is a survival skill.

Kids are fragile and they are tough.

Kids have a lot to learn and much to teach.

Kids can show you how to take pause to notice to fungi on the tree, the caterpillar on the bench, and the mushroom that looks like a Smurf house.

Kids want you involved in their world and pull you to the Earth when your head is in the cloud of business.

Kids seek knowledge and to understand.

Kids talk a lot and want you to hear them, not just listen.

Kids want to be talked to, sang to, read to, and given head rubs.

Kids accept.

Kids forgive.

Kids are amazing.

Tonight, watch your kids, or borrow someone's kids for a bit.  Listen, observe and slow down.  There is much you have forgotten.  Make a list.  Find acceptance and teach acceptance.  Give and receive to these amazing beings.  Someday, they will be the adults, and this is their training session.  Let's make lots of mistakes together while the stakes are low.  Time is running faster then you can imagine.  Right now is the right time, you are in the right place, and you are with the right people.  So be it with love and acceptance.  Namasta.