The Furious Spinner

Wow. Has this been the time in the Pacific Northwest, or what? You're probably getting weather elsewhere (that's a safe bet, eh?), but I know nothing about anything anywhere else. We had ourselves a bit of a storm. Last night the wind and especially the wind gusts were so wild and seemingly violent that I moved us downstairs to our couch, which fortunately unfolds into a bed. It's not a comfortable bed, but there you are. The electricity had already been out for a couple of hours by then. Mario was sick; he's been sick all week. So I made sure the living room was warm enough; I made the "bed," and then I went up and got him. We tried to sleep, but the wind just got hold of the house and shook it, again and again. I kept thinking of those people during Hurricane Katrina. How terrifying that must have been. I mean, I knew it had to be terrifying; I've read dozens of accounts of what it was like, but the winds we had last night were just a teeny tiny bit of what they went through during the hurricane, and I was very nervous. I don't know how bad our winds got. I know they were hurricane-force in some areas of the PNW. I moved us downstairs (never done that before) because I was worried about the tree in our back yard coming down on the house.

Mario eventually fell to sleep. I couldn't sleep, so I wandered around the house in the dark. Mario woke up a couple of times and said, "So this is part of Kim's world?" That's what he calls the times I'm up all or half the night while he slumbers on. Finally, I went back up stairs to our bed and crawled under one of the quilts my dad made for me. (Mario was under about four of them downstairs.) The wind didn't seem quite as bad. I thought of Grand Mother Yemaya and the 13 Quilts. I imagined the quilt over me had a thread in it from at least one of those 13 quilts. I'd be all right. I whispered to the tree, "Please stay standing if you can manage it." I fell to sleep. I woke up several times in the night and went down and checked on Mario.

The electricity eventually came back on.

In the morning, our yard was strewn with branches, but the tree was still standing. Hundreds of thousands of people are still without power. I've lived here a long time. We've been through many bad storms. I don't know why this one was scary. Maybe it was the sound. I kept thinking a train was coming right up onto our lawn.

It's been a hairy winter already—and winter hasn't even started. I walked down to the river and the creek. They are both swollen and coffee-with-cream brown. The creek is running dangerously fast. When I told Mario about it, he said, "I bet all the fish are drowned." It had that look.

Stay warm and dry! I hope they find the climbers up on Wy'east soon. The weather and that mountain are about all we know these days.

Labels: Church of the Old Mermaids, nature, sleep

2 comments

2 Comments:

Kim, so glad you and Mario made it through the storm OK. We did too. We too slept downstairs on the north side of our house, preparing for the worst. But this time it passed us by. I'm still waiting to hear from friends in Seattle who have been without power since Thursday. Healing hugs to Mario.

By  Joanna, at 8:27 AM  

I'm glad you're doing well! Mario is recovering nicely, knock on wood. And the tree is still standing...

By  Kim Antieau, at 8:38 PM  

Post a Comment

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.