Rising Water

Parked outside late tonight. Water is almost over the bridge.  There is too much snow on the ground. We have just about a foot of snow in the woods left, but I can imagine the snowpack is that much higher in the high country. This weekend could get ugly if we receive even an inch of rain - timing and amount will be critical.  Our road may end up downstream...

This morning I went out to the car right around 6 am. Just as I opened the car door I heard a plaintive cry of what I imagined to be a Canadian goose.  I stood there for a minute staring upward into the darkened, morning sky trying to pick out that familiar shape.  The light just hadn't made enough headway over the eastern mountain.  Again, that same call echoed across the valley.  Again, the call faded off into the distance, but not before I hesitated, a bit ill-at-ease with what I had just heard.  It isn't hard for me to latch on to an Aboriginal perspective, if I should even know or sense what that is.  But for a few seconds, then down the half-mile lane and off to town, just shy of fifteen minutes as the car flies - to work.

Back home this evening, close to 6 pm.  Snow has had a chance to melt a bit today with the temperature in the 40s (degree Fahrenheit). The water still has maybe two feet to rise before making it to the bridge deck.  But, I decide to park the car on the other side of the bridge tonight.  The last thing we need is to be marooned without a vehicle on the outside. I wait until 9:30 pm or so before I head back into town to pick up milk and other odds and ends just in case. As I head down our lane I bump into a furry, black butt ambling down the road.  The deep snow channels most furry friends along the same paths and this neighborly skunk is doing the same.  He steps up his pace as he realizes someone is tailgating him. This lasts for twenty yards or so when Mr. Skunk reaches the bridge.  He discovers he has reached the bridge just in time to encounter a fellow night critter, an oppossum.  I smile as I watch Mr. Oppossum and Mr. Skunk apparently discover they had no intent on meeting tonight.  Mr. Oppossum bares his teeth at Mr. Skunk and that is enough to send our furry friend along his way - still along the road.  Given that our friends met on the bridge I gently nudge Mr. Oppossum along and out of my way as he finally stumbles off the maintained road into the crusted and wet snow.  His trail isn't quite so comfortable now.

The trip into town takes a bit of time, but eventually I make my way back home and realize the water is rising faster than I had thought earlier.  I had hoped the slowly dropping temperature might allay the water level from rising any further.  No such luck.  I drop off the milk at the house (but not before chasing a red fox up our lane) and return to the main road to park my car.

It is on the walk back that I remember the day.  The goose above in the night sky, the skunk and oppossum settled on their man-made paths, the red fox dashing off ahead of me, and the deer off in the distance (that I did not mention that started their evening meal early tonight as they often do before an approaching storm). The dark ribbon winding its half-mile way back back to our home obligingly contrasts with the plowed-high berms and the surrounding blanket of snow. Flickering stars in a clouded sky beckon. How many others share this same sky...

Geographic Landscapes

Watched the TED talk by Murray Gell-Mann a bit ago. It brought back long ago memories of the Santa fe Insitute, its intriguing focus, and the beautiful southwestern view falling away from its doorstep. Complexity science and a very, human quest to push the envelope on understanding the world about us. But part of my need I suppose in thinking a bit further on this is that geographic landscapes hold a particularly strong attraction for me. Growing up in the wooded hills of Pittsburgh and my walks with Sal (a half German short-hair pointer and black lab), or the short Robin Hood forays with my recurve bow, or the days when I pushed myself to overcome an injury that I suffered in high school as I immersed myself in the nooks and crannys surrounding our home there in Lincoln Place. Pittsburgh, albeit not as glamorous as the polished, sandy Southwest carries a steadfast, storied landscape carved into southwestern Pennsylvania and etched by the three rivers.  So too, consider two years into a Guatemalan land of tropical sun and sand, two years into a high Sonoran desert, another six or seven years in a transitional boreal forest along the international boundary with Canada, or the present home in east-central West Virginia. It makes me smile because I know the twists and turns of my life are leading me on.  And as our children emerge from our oft-times, too close hold on their paths, they too will engage themselves into a world that is more diverse than one can really imagine.  It is that world out there that may engage you or your loved ones in an intricate dance with life that may only be understood in passing. It is a venture that I would suggest that you must volunteer yourself and allow yourself to play across the providential winds that blow. The first photograph that I added to this post is of bear grass, found within the ancestral grounds of Apache clans in the southwest.  The grass of yesterday was used for many uses. I spent a couple of years working with San Carlos Apache Nation. I do not easily forget the people or the land.

I think if I were gifted as a Bard of old I might regal you with tales of the past, but perhaps over time I can reveal something of those lands that might engage your curiosity...

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In honor of those many individuals across the world that in normal times, from Guatemala to Ethiopia, struggle to simply survive. And then too to those in Haiti and Chile, those who are now arising with the morning sun and praying for a hopeful day.  Toward...