Healing and Low Ceilings

Part of my retreat to Washington from Colombia has been to find some solutions for my persistent back ache and I am happy to report that the various activities, one of which includes regular trips to the local whirlpool, seem to be doing some good.

Looking toward the upper end of the Olympic Peninsula under grey skies.

It has been a bit of an adjustment to wake up day after day in the dark, and sometimes grey, skies. That also seems to be making a turn as the days get a little longer and the low clouds occasionally rise up above 1000 feet. Today, while coming back from attending to some things in town, I could see Mt. Rainier very very clearly. The skies surrounding this massive ancient volcano were the palest of blues and the top two-thirds of the mountain are white with accumulated snow. Truly impressive.

There are signs of spring coming here with medium green shoots of narcissus and daffodils trying to push up through the earth, the lilacs and rhododendrons are filling up in preparation for their colorful displays and on my table, as a valentine gift to myself, is a lovely blue hyacinth - a reminder of the ones that used to pop up long ago in our NH garden, sometimes still with snow around their little roots! (The scent of it is just divine!)

Blue Hyacinth on kitchen table offers up hope of spring.

Due to sightings of cougars in the woods nearby, and the movement of male elk with their spring-time desires overriding their good sense about staying away from humans, I have not been able to do much walking out and about. The malls are too small for any really good striding, but I am making friends with people who have some safe trails so gradually I am increasing my outdoor activities.

My watercolor art classes are intriguing and I really enjoy the teacher's methods, even if she does go on a bit about things unrelated to art. Tonight I went to the Museum of Art & History in Sequim and heard a presentation by a quilt artist on how to incorporate photographs into a quilt... it is totally amazing what people are doing with fabric and thread and other things here! The local Episcopal church, St. Luke's, has created over 50 quilts this past year and had them blessed and delivered to people in the community who needed a prayer quilt. An astounding amount of work, in my opinion. So there are vast groups of artistic people here on this 'spit' of land in western Washington, motivating me to be even more creative.

The ancient volcano called Mt. Rainier loomed out on the horizon as
some of the grey clouds lifted for awhile from the Olympic Peninsula.

The biggest challenge has been that I am not doing much photography as the greyness makes the images less than sharp, more often than not, and I never seem to have my tripod ready for those days when I see something worth photographing. But the Sequim-ites (??) assure me that sunnier days - or at least brighter ones - are just around the corner. So come back and see if they were right and if I have indeed started finding some interesting things to photograph.

Ohhhhh, and lest I forget... my sister is celebrating a big "0" birthday today. In order to protect the innocent, I am not going to reveal which number precedes the zero, but I am intending it is a day filled with happy surprises... hugs to you, dear little sister!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

(GOES Satellite shot of Hurricane Irene taken on August 25, 2011 provided by NOAA)


It's all over the social networks (FaceBook, Twitter, IMs, etc.) in the United States at least. Hurricane Irene has rapidly built itself up from a mere tropical storm into a Category 3 (winds are at 115 mph as I write this) hurricane with threats of intensifying. As you can see from this infrared satellite shot from the National Oceanographic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), this is an impressive storm, well over 400 miles in width, taking direct aim at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. (NOTE: This information was accurate at the time of posting, but overnight the storm was downgraded to a Cat 2 and while this is a huge weather event, it clearly is not the monstrous Cat 4 that was threatened earlier.)


As I listen in on the chatter, I realize that this storm has the potential to hit every place I've lived in the past 50 years, barring the western states. If it comes ashore the first time in Morehead City, NC, it will cause enormous heartache and devastation. I lived aboard a sailboat there for almost three years. Then it is forecasted to head for New York City, NY, and while I didn't live there that long, I have visited and been with relatives and sailed those waters for years so it is as familiar to me as any home I've lived in far longer. The last stop could be the Boston area and whether it is Boston itself or Cohasset or Scituate or Cape Cod, those are all places where once I called the place 'home.'


I think the information I've gathered today in listening to some of the questions asked on a live chat (there were over 16,000 on the chat, so I didn't hear ALL the questions) is that many people have never been in a hurricane, never went to volunteer for a service agency after a devastating storm, have never even had a friend or relative in a major weather event or earthquake, and have NOT A CLUE as to how to be prepared or what to do.


In case you were not aware of it, there was a 5.8 earthquake just last week in Virginia, felt as far south as South Carolina and as far north as New Hampshire. The social media network was almost overwhelmed with all the chatter, and from what I could interpret, the greater percentage of those sharing had never been in an earthquake before either. The natural tendency is to run outside of a shaking building. But the suggested safest choice is to find a secure doorway and wait there until it is over and the falling stones have landed.


Although 9/11 awakened people to dangers, it did nothing to educate them to becoming prepared for them. I will be willing to bet that after Hurricane Irene has passed by, there will huge pockets of whiners who complain that they didn't have enough water, or food or batteries or common sense to see them through it all. And for a few, like the 16 minutes required to be able to outrun the Japanese tsunami, it is too little, too late. Depending on a commercial meteorologist to answer your question on a live chat three days before a major hurricane hits your area is like asking a new barber a political question. It's not very productive and is coming from a source that knows nothing about you and your lifestyle.


Perhaps because I lived on a sailboat for almost eight years, I learned about being proactive and being prepared for various eventualities. The day we almost sank because of a tiny, tiny hole in the bow, I learned my lesson. The hole doesn't have to be big for that mistake to nearly cost you your ship. And while helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina, I learned that small things can cause infections, be driven  by wind like bullets into concrete, and stop engines from working. It doesn't take much to stop technology... wind, water, shaking. And being unprepared to deal with the consequences can stop you.


Prayers go out ahead of the storm to all the friends I've made in all those places that Hurricane Irene is planning to visit and intending they are avoiding danger, heartache and loss in this difficult time.

A Month In the Country

Just as the sun was setting, I was getting ready to have a
look at a house that was for rent, but the owner was not
readily available.

It seems hard to believe a month has passed and I am beginning to count the days until I head back to the NW to start to sort out my life in the U.S. I had a long conversation with my host tonight about the various aspects of "control" and how my life seems very much "out of control" with no particular plan. When I started on this journey, it all seemed to be so clear and now I have no road map, hauntingly similar to what those with MM face as they try to make sense of unfamiliar territory and language.

So tonight I simply sat and watched the sun go down, knowing that tomorrow is another day with new challenges, new ideas, new activities. Like Scarlett in "Gone With The Wind," I have decided not to think about it now, "I shall think about it tomorrow."

And, now just as I am writing this, another surprise from Madre Tierra... more rain - I can hear it on the clay roof, sometimes quite intense and with thunder. This always changes things, because with lots of rain the roads become impassable again. So any plans made have to be adjusted and modified.

Now I really will have to wait to to see what tomorrow morning brings when I get up and assess the weather. One thing is certain, the weather is definitely not within my control!

Finally there was a night's end without rain, so I sat and
quietly watched the sun set and the delicate colors that
Madre Tierra was painting for my pleasure.

In the Pink

Yesterday evening, for the first time in probably two years, I started to have all the signs of a cold... sneezing, stuffy head, feeling a bit chilled and grumpy.

I looked at the symptoms and asked myself, "What is it about all these elements that I am drawing toward me that I need to look at?"

I decided I could best evaluate all this from under the down coverlet and climbed into bed early. Historically, going back many decades to when I was little, faking a cold meant I didn't have to go to school. I got to be so good at it that my mother hated to take my temperature because she knew it was going to be higher than normal and she would have to call the school and tell them I wasn't going to be there. Sometime around lunchtime, when it was too late to take me to school, I would have a miraculous recovery and my temperature would be back to my normal, which is lower than 98.6. And I would have had a lovely day reading and listening to the radio - back in those days, when horses had toes, we didn't have a television.

Jey-hu and I have had a lot of intense things to take care of recently and so when I began my reflection, I realized that it was my mind and body saying, "We need to have a retreat from the activities and go from the very busy "doing," and shift gears from stop to just "being." Kind of like letting the car be in "Park" or at idle. Idyll. Ideal. Yeah.

This morning when I woke up to sunshine and the magnolias just dripping petals all over the yard, I knew I was back "in the pink," and ready to see what the day had to offer. The morning drive to the post office to pick up the mail was crisp, but clear and bright - a respite from the rain and greyness which is about to come back... forecast is for wet weather probably through the weekend.

Later this afternoon on the drive home from a visit with a friend I noticed (and the shutter was too slow so it's a bit fuzzy) that "the pink" was still present... can you see it, too? You can probably see the rain falling over our house as well because we live almost dead ahead of the roadway up on the hill.