That's why they call it a FLASH flood

Remind me again why we live in the sticks, I ask, but of course I know the answer: birds and bees and butterflies, summer fireflies and spring ephemerals, creek walks with the grandkids, quiet nights, lovely days, space for a great big garden, all wonderful things until the rain falls and the creek swells and the garden is under water.

It was barely raining when I left campus yesterday but I had to pull over twice on the drive home because the rain was so heavy I couldn't see the road. It finally let up a bit and I followed a line of cars moving slowly up the highway past loose debris. A tree had fallen and pulled down a power line across half of the road, forcing us to drive perilously close to a drainage ditch swollen with fast-moving water. But I made it home! The creek was rising but didn't look dangerous.

There's a reason they call it a flash flood: it happened so quickly that no one had time to prepare. The first time I walked down toward the bridge, the driveway on this side was still walkable and the bridge and road were visible above the creek; by the time I'd walked back up the hill, the driveway was under water. Flood waters crossed the meadow but looked like they'd stay away from the edge of the garden, but the resident green thumb moved loose garden chairs and other floatables uphill just in case. 

From our side of the bridge I could just barely see my neighbor's blue pickup truck parked next to the garden shed he'd been building by hand for some months. Twenty minutes later, our bridge and garden and road were under water and the neighbor's truck and shed were just gone. The entire meadow had become a rushing mass of water louder than Niagara, and it sounded like the bridge was being hit repeatedly with battering rams.

The floodwaters came within a few feet of the chicken run, which distressed me immensely, but the chickens reveled in the bounty of bugs trying to flee the rising waters. Special delivery! 

Within an hour the water had receded, and this morning the creek is well within normal bounds. The bridge is covered with debris and we'll need a load of gravel before the driveway is passable again, and the garden is a big mud pit, with corn stalks bowing to the ground in a downstream direction.

The last big flood we suffered (click here) washed away our driveway and garden shed, so I'm glad we didn't lose more. Elsewhere in the county, a tornado struck down and buildings and trees suffered massive damage. We got off easily this time--nothing that a few tons of gravel can't fix. 

Except the garden. I went to look at it this morning and found mud where tomato plants ought to be. The garden might spring back, insists the resident green thumb. Good thing I married an optimist--otherwise I might find this situation a tad discouraging.

Just a little water in the meadow. Nothing to be concerned about.

The bridge sounds like it's being battered, but it's above water....for now.

You can just barely see the neighbor's truck behind the trees.

Wait, I was just walking down there and now it's under water....

Garden stuff on higher ground

That little row of plants is at the edge of the garden.

The electric fence around the garden is all that's visible

Lake Hogue

Wait, where did the bridge go?

Standing wave. You wouldn't believe how loud the water is.

Nope, still no bridge.

Looking toward the road, which is under water.

Where the neighbor's truck and shed used to be.

Chickens find higher ground

The garden....what's left of it.

Corn, bowing.

Flood debris with creek in the background.

The mud on the driveway is so slick I didn't dare walk on it.

Mold madness, part two

I have written previously (click here) about why The Thurber Carnival is so meaningful to me. First book I ever bought with my own money, a book I frequently re-read and use in comedy classes, etc. The book has survived multiple moves from Florida to Kentucky to all over Ohio and it has survived various campus offices for 25 years, but it did not survive the recent mold outbreak in my building. When I went to start packing up my office this morning, I found the book damp to the touch and covered in mold. I didn't check the other 500ish books in my office--who has time for that? Instead, I am staying away from my office and trying not to be consumed by anger. I mean, it's just a book. A whole lot of books. My books. Which may soon be consigned to the landfill.

 

Breathing, not quite easily

I was all set to teach my Nature Writing class right on time Saturday but nature got in the way--thunder and lightning and rain so heavy that I had to sit in my car in the parking lot waiting for a break in the deluge. I used an umbrella, but nevertheless I spent the next three hours walking around on wet feet. The class was great, though, and the rain stopped just in time for us to go outside for an observation activity, stepping out the door into what felt like a sauna turned to Broil. But the good news is the wildfire smoke had dissipated.

Friday morning I had walked out the door of my hotel room in Columbus and immediately abandoned my plans for a nice walk in a lovely garden. The sun was a dim hazy disc, like a fuzzy felt circle glued on gray; the heavy air tasted acrid and made my eyes gritty and my head dull. From the window of my son's room on the sixteenth floor of The James, I saw buildings a block away fading into invisibility. My son was released from the hospital under strict orders to stay indoors. What do we do when the very air feels hostile?

But I got him home and we stayed indoors and awaited the rain, which arrived on Saturday as expected, with winds whipping trees around and pushing my car across a road rippling with rain falling too fast to drain away. And then I stopped by my office on campus to pick up some things and found another indication of nature's resilience: blotches of mold growing on the carpet. I've been working in the library all summer because my office in the classroom building gets damp in the summer, but never before has that dampness transformed my carpet into a living ecosystem. 

Maybe it's appropriate to be reminded of the power of nature when I'm teaching people about nature writing. It's not all butterflies and rainbows, people! The group was lively and attentive, a dozen people, mostly women of a certain age, all eager to amp up their nature writing skills. I kept reminding them I'm not grading any of this, and by the end of the three hours they had stopped apologizing for their attempts. They sat around big tables covered with notepads, pens, drawing paper, markers, colored pencils, handbags, abandoned attempts at prose, and crumbled snack wrappers, but all I could see were the hands scribbling and drawing and writing accompanied by a low, gentle chatter that sounded like joy. 

Today the sun is shining and the smoke is gone and I'm still reveling in the pleasures of yesterday's class. Tomorrow I'll have to motivate someone on campus to remediate the mold infestation in my office, but today I think I'll sit here and enjoy the privilege of breathing freely. 

Oh, and I'd probably go back to the nature center and retrieve the umbrella I left behind. This time of year, we never know what nature might throw at us next.

Waiting for a break in the storm

The view from the 16th floor

Just a small section of my carpet ecosystem

Lost in a familiar place

I'm driving to campus on the same route I've driven at least three times a week for more than 25 years and suddenly I look around and can't figure out where I am. On state route 60, yes, alongside the Muskingum River, but have I passed that BP station yet? Nothing looks right.  

Moment of panic. How could I lose track of myself in a place I've known and loved so long?

I blame sleep (disturbed) and stress (sick son) and feeling overwhelmed (work work work). Now I'm looking at the laptop screen through tired eyes and trying to make progress on a project that keeps getting thwarted by other people's (in)actions (because I'm not the only person who's stressed out and distracted right now), but all I want to do is put my head down on the desk and sleep, except I can't because I have to check my phone to see if there's any news from my son.

He's in the hospital again, in Columbus. He had some funny numbers on a blood test yesterday so, long story short, my husband drove him to The James last night, which was a relief because my night vision makes driving in the dark stressful. Downright dangerous, even. But it means I'll be on taxi duty when our son gets released, which could be today or tomorrow or Friday or whenever. If it's Saturday, he's out of luck because I have to teach a class (and probably I should go ahead and print out the handouts today in case I can't get back to campus or in case there's another power outage or in case, I don't know, a meteor destroys all life on earth between now and the weekend).

So last night I had trouble sleeping while awaiting news from the hospital, and then I had trouble sleeping after my husband arrived home in the wee hours, and then suddenly it was morning and I had trouble staying awake while driving to campus but now here I am trying to get caught up on a ridiculous workload while awaiting a text telling me to drop everything and drive to Columbus. Frankly, I'm hoping that they'll keep him until tomorrow because I don't believe I'm mentally or physically alert enough to drive to Columbus and back today. 

And frankly, I'm tired of hearing myself complain about sickness and uncertainty and work. I am doing all the things I need to do because I love my son, which is my immense privilege as a parent. It's just hard to do the Mom things when the work things are also in disorder, and it's hard to make progress on the work things when I might have to drop everything to tend to my son.

This is temporary, I keep telling myself. Someday this will be over. True, but while I'm struggling through this ridiculous journey, maybe I can forgive myself if I occasionally lose my way.

A different type of classroom

Teaching in the middle of July--outdoors, in whatever weather, for an unknown number of students of various ages and abilities? Sure, sign me up. 

It sounded like a fabulous idea a few months ago when the director of the local Master Naturalist Program asked me to teach a three-hour elective on Nature Writing for people seeking to become certified Master Naturalists. I can teach nature writing with my eyes shut and both hands tied behind my back, I told myself, but it'll be better if I prepare. So here I sit in my office on a hot July day putting together activities and discussion questions for--well I don't know who these people are. Who signs up to take this kind of class? The classroom could be full of curious retirees, young professionals trying to broaden their skills, or bored teens whose parents are forcing them to attend something educational. How do I engage a wildly mixed group?

And when I say classroom, I mean outdoor space with gazebo and lawn chairs. Unless it's raining, in which case we go inside and I figure out how to adapt my exercises to the indoor environment. How do I get them to closely observe nature if we're sheltering from a thunderstorm? Oh, maybe we can observe the thunderstorm....

I'm planning to focus on observation skills, starting with a description of the Claude glass, that handy-dandy accessory so beloved of 18th- and 19th-century nature lovers. Nature observed directly can be unruly, poorly composed, overwhelming to our refined senses, so the trendy traveler carried a Claude glass, a small, darkened hand-held mirror. Viewers would stand with their backs to the sublime scenery and observe its reflection in the mirror, flattened and framed and filtered until it resembled a refined piece of art. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear, but we'd prefer to keep them at a safe distance.

Today our cell phones take the place of Claude glasses, offering an instant image of the natural world, framed and filtered and flattened so we can carry it around easily in our pockets. But are we really seeing what's out there? How can we get an unmediated image of nature?

When we first moved to the woods, I thought it would take forever to identify all the types of birds that visited our feeders. I keep a bird book next to the big front window, and I still spend time trying to distinguish between, say, varieties of sparrows, or similar types of woodpeckers. The downy and hairy woodpecker look nearly identical, but the hairy is bigger and has a longer beak--longer both in absolute terms and in relation to its head size. To get to the point that I can tell the difference instantly requires time and attention to details and the willingness to make mistakes 

These days people can just snap a photo of a bird, post it on social media, and ask for an identification. It's a quick and easy way to learn the name of the bird, but knowing the name is not knowing the bird. To know the bird, you have to watch it, not just for a moment but over time, repeatedly, directly, persistently, seeing it in all its behaviors and shades.

This is the kind of observation I'm planning to promote at my nature writing class. I have these people, whoever they are, for three hours on a Saturday afternoon when maybe they'd rather be kayaking. How much can we really accomplish in that length of time? I guess I'm getting ready to find out. 

 

Friday poetry challenge: It's not about the Vikings

We stumbled upon the Indian pipes just past the Viking encampment and immediately tried to protect them--the plants, not the Vikings. 

You wouldn't expect to encounter Vikings deep in the Hocking Hills, but the absence of longboats suggests that these weren't real Vikings. If you want to encounter grown people dressed the way they imagine Vikings might have dressed and living in tents in the woods for a weekend in July, then stroll through the Viking encampment, buy some sourdough bread, look at some taxidermied foxes, and try your hand at tossing a hatchet at a target--at no charge.

We hadn't driven 90 minutes through intermittent rain just to see a Viking encampment, but the parking area for Lilyfest was Viking-adjacent, so we dutifully walked past the Vikings' tents and through thick woods to enter the annual art and nature festival at Bishop Educational Gardens. When we saw Indian pipes growing smack-dab in the middle of the trail, my husband stuck a stick in the dirt to mark the spot so they wouldn't get trampled. A futile gesture: a few hours later when we left there was no sign of the stick or the Indian pipes. We saw some clumps growing in the woods nearby, but you can't expect hordes of beauty-starved visitors to notice tiny delicate plants in the middle of a trail through dark woods.

It's been a few years since my last visit to Lilyfest but it was just as wonderful as I'd remembered. The rain kept the crowd thin and made photography difficult but also provided a welcome respite from oppressive heat and humidity. We wandered the gardens, bought some lilies to plant at home, and sat beneath the trees eating lunch while a young girl nearby played bluegrass tunes on a fiddle. 

You never know what you might find among the gardens: gorgeous orange lilies on one side of the path, sinuous glass sculpture on the other, a butterfly flitting between them, and always music wafting through the air. Despite the presence of vendors, visitors, and Vikings, it feels like a place of peace and poetry. To celebrate small but intense pleasures, let's try some haiku:

Lilies, lotuses, 
sinuous glass: nature, art,
and music bring peace.

Indian pipes, before the crowds trampled them

At the lotus pond. I love the subtle colors.

They seem startled to see us. 

I love this cat hanging from a tree.

Dumb luck

Lucky guy, the aide said as he handed my son a chicken salad sandwich and a bag of chips. 

Lucky? A luckier person would have avoided lymphoma entirely, but I guess luck is relative. If you get out of bed just after 4 a.m., eat a quick breakfast and then vomit it all back up again before being driven two hours to the James cancer hospital, and if you survive the first two (of four) annoying procedures before 11 a.m., and if you then realize that you're feeling a bit peckish and ask the aide for a bite to eat before starting chemotherapy, and if the aide then delivers a chicken salad sandwich and your favorite brand of chips, that's some kind of luck! We have to take our victories where we find them.

In the four months since my son was diagnosed I have been lucky enough to avoid driving duty on four-procedure days, but yesterday I drew the short straw. Blood work, chest x-ray, two kinds of chemo, lumbar puncture--a scenic tour of hospital procedure rooms and a very long day. 

Twice my husband has been the designated driver on multi-procedure days that have stretched beyond twelve hours, but then he is also better equipped to entertain himself for long periods at the hospital. By the time he's ready to leave, he will know the personal history of everyone in the waiting room and will have stories to share about their interesting lives. 

I have a different method of surviving long hours of waiting: I mentally wrap myself up in a warm cocoon sequestered from the hospital milieu. Sure, I'm up for a conversation with my son and I'll ask for his help on whatever crossword puzzle questions fall within his areas of expertise (like what's on the flag of Mali or which U.S. state capital has the second-smallest population), but mostly I retreat and try to be anywhere but where I am. On good days I can read a book or article or draft a blog post on my phone even though I can't even see the letters on that tiny keyboard, or I'll play some mindless game that makes my eyes so blurry that I can't read road signs on the drive home.

It's hard to wrap myself in a warm cocoon, though, in those frigid hospital rooms. When we arrived before 8 a.m. yesterday the outdoor temperature was already close to 80 with humidity to match, but I carried a thick sweater because I knew where we were going. The aide who provided the lucky sandwich also gave my son one of those wonderful warm blankets, but no one ever offers me a warm blanket. 

Of course I'm not the patient, the person whose suffering is the center of everyone's attention, but that doesn't mean I'm not miserable. His illness shrouds my every thought, especially when he e gets coughing fits so severe that each cough feels like a dagger stabbing me in the heart, but I'm the healthy one in the room, the one who doesn't have to choke down a dozen pills a day or inject himself with medications that seem to make him sicker or shuffle through a growing pile of medical bills. Lucky me!

I try to hide my misery so I can be helpful to the sick guy; I count my blessings to counter the nagging malaise, but every blessing comes shrouded with a but. I found a great parking space--but it was in a hospital parking garage that fills me with dread. I remembered to put barf bags in my car--but I'm living a life that necessitates barf bags in my car. The treatment is allegedly eliminating every sign of lymphoma--but the side effects make me want to lash out at whoever is hurting my kid.

So I guess I'm lucky, ish, but I won't feel really lucky until we can banish the word lymphoma from our family's vocabulary. Meanwhile, I could really use a warm blanket.