The storms keep sweeping through. The trees come down, leave craters were they used to be, and the mud slides down the hill. We haven’t been near death, although I have had some nervous moments driving on a muddy cliff edge, forced over by some monsterous tree’s evacuation and death all over the road. Mostly it means roads are shut and sometimes we can’t get to where we want to go. We’re lucky to live in the flatland but we do have to cross mountains to go anywhere.
So instead we walk through puddles, we walk where it’s flat. When we try to walk in the woods, we mostly now can’t get to where we want to go, so many trees laying down. Not trees you can easily go around. Big trees, hundreds of years old, ones that don’t move once they’re down til someone with a chainsaw can spend some time and cut through. Or not. There are places that we walk where no one much goes, and those trails will eventually go somewhere else, and somewhere new. Those trees aren’t going anywhere. So many going down that we have been avoiding, for the most part, walking under them.
The sun comes out every few days, I put on my boots and we see where else we can walk. I never knew about the springs, now I know where some of the creeks start, where their beginnings bubble straight out of some mud in the ground. There is more water everywhere than I’ve ever seen in my life. The invisible spring now sounds like a bus fleet roaring by, the dogs are afraid to get in, these aren’t creeks like they’ve ever seen.
Mostly I can only listen to Metallica, Slayer, and Judas Priest. Some Iron Maiden. Oddly, Rush. This started with the election. Sort of like when you have an aversion to a smell, or a taste and you can never eat peppermint again. But opposite of that. It’s quietly soothing to bang my head over and over to the old Metallica back catalog. I thought this was a phase, but it doesn’t seem to be going away. It’s a concern, for sure. Oh, I do perk up for the Hamilton soundtrack, I know all the words.
Some rainy days I just give up and sit in the living room wearing this tunic thing that looks like a bathroom rug. I believe it was originally a sweater. It’s horrible and has a mock turtleneck. The dogs climb up on the couch, well not Banksy, because god forbid she ever sit anywhere near me, but the others do and I watch documentaries and track the doppler radar and listen to the wind tearing things off our neighborhood.
Those are the bad days. We do get out. It stops raining in little bits. The dogs run, me and Ruby shuffle along. There isn’t really any agility to speak of. There were few runs at Turlock the other day, I drove out for a few runs on a Sunday and didn’t come home with a Q. It felt shitty for a while til it didn’t.
My rain boots have sprung a leak, this saddens me, and I love them so much that I keep wearing them as if they aren’t leaking and I don’t have wet feet all day. My feet now have this permanent moistness. Always damp, always clammy, til night time. I think this defeats the purpose of rainboots. But I’m still holding on. Maybe today, they don’t leak. I stuff in my pants legs, and off we traipse, at about half speed. Looking up towards the mountains, maybe we have an hour or so til it starts again.
