Snakeskin Journey

A friend of mine has property that borders the San Lorenzo River.  In the summer the river lazes along…the kind of thing you put your feet in to cool off as you warm your back on a large boulder.  But in the winter, when the storms are in full force, the river roars to life.  The last photos show two fish ladders, one old and another older that help steelhead on their way upstream to spawn.

The theme of reinvention seems to be a thread winding through much of this snakeskin journey.  For a large part it’s been a forced theme, at least initially coming in my case from the sudden death of a spouse a decade ago.  (“Who am I now?”)  Forced because I do not believe I would have been brave or strong enough to make this journey if I hadn’t been kicked to the curb by loss.

I’m willing to admit that it took at least five years for me to truly understand there would be another chapter—perhaps even a book—to my life.  Those first five years were a muddle of raising teenagers, becoming a contractor, leaving behind my beloved work as an administrator and cheerleader for a tiny school.  They were years spent drifting through layers of fog and sifting through deep and dark emotions with occasional glimpses of the sun.

After that came a willingness to peek out again and try to see anew what life might hold for me as an individual, mother, friend, business person, daughter and sister.  Thus began what came to feel like a giant game of “catch-up”, with me never feeling quite adequate to the challenges.  Part of the dilemma resulted from my ability to mask my confusion and struggles enough to convince my friends and family (and even myself much of the time) that I was “doing OK”.  ”Doing OK” is an acceptable response to that question we all ask whether we are seeking an answer or just passing by.  Don’t misunderstand me, I realize we can’t go all sincere and honest on people when faced with a casual “how are you?”.  But when tackling the hard bits, the truly festering boils life sometimes produces, we need more than an acceptable response.

My “catch-up” game, quite frankly, caught up with me and is even now forcing me to face myself and come to grips.  My arms ache from the gripping, my shoulders no longer remember to relax naturally and my chest tightens in reflex to the challenge of reinvention.  If this all sounds too grim, please give yourself permission to walk away but it is in fact just life.  And it is a life I intend to say yes to even as I continue to peel away the layers (skins, if you will) that have led to and kept me in this state of tension.

I have never much feared going against the grain when called for, but I am only beginning to comprehend how much I have feared facing my own failures and solitary self.  I can laugh when I think that as much as I have prided myself on trying to love others for just who they are, I rarely do the same for myself.  So this reinvention cannot be about changing in order to become acceptable, but rather changing to embrace what “is”.

It is shocking how many people I know who are nearing retirement age yet find themselves needing to reinvent themselves. Reinvention can be a good thing, but when it is an intervention due to job loss, it is just plain scary.  Last night while strolling around downtown in the rain I saw some old friends and their news was more of the same…working part time due to cuts, not working at all due to closures.  I found myself actually physically backing away from the conversation (what was I thinking? that these things are contagious?).

We’ve been hearing for some years now that the model is broken, the standard that says one can get and keep a job in the same field and enjoy health and savings benefits until one hits retirement.  Perhaps this is not so true for government and school employees (yet) but it certainly is true in the private business sector.  The entire system needs an intervention…but until then many of us are stuck with trying for reinvention.  I hope my heart can take it.

My refrigerator is humming, the ceiling fan is slowly drawing the heated air from the roof pitch and cycling it down into the room.  The lamp beside me shines cheerfully, augmenting the light in the kitchen. Darkness approaches and all is calm.  In the other room, my computer rests after being used to do a fact check.  Earlier today I emptied the clean dishes from the dishwasher and between tasks completed a couple of loads of laundry.  Printed off an invoice for the business and entered some checks into the Quickbooks program.  An evenly paced day, not particularly noteworthy…except I had electrical power.

After our six day electrical outage this past week I’m still appreciative enough to notice all the little things that are made easier—and sometimes possible at all—because we have electricity.  This feeling will fade soon enough and I will be back to my dismissive expectation of how life should be.  But this day, I’m hearing the hum.

Let there be light.

Wednesday of this week during a storm, I took some photos of the water that had jumped from the intended drainage ditch and made it’s way through our pasture.  How quickly water can carve through carefully maintained ground, leaving destruction and chaos in it’s wake. The war isn’t over, but the battle was lost.

View from below:

View from above:

It was a dark and stormy night? day? week?  Yep, week.  We are on day four with no power up in our little neighborhood.  Let me be honest and tell you that I own a generator, a very good one, so  I DO have a power source.  My generator is wired to plug into my electrical panel, a great convenience.  I have a rocker switch in my electrical panel allowing me to safely keep power from back-feeding into power lines should the power ever come on (ha!) while the generator is running.  I like having a generator.  Yesterday a neighbor came over…to grind coffee in my generator supplied coffee grinder…and proclaimed that she really doesn’t mind being stuck up here without power.  As I ground her coffee I thought:  ”Spoken like someone who does not own property, particularly property with rentals on it and serious drainage issues!”

Yesterday a redwood tree came down on the road, the only road, that leads to our houses.  The root ball filled the entire road way and soon my well equipped neighbor from above had his small tractor down there and several men dressed in raincoats and boots were mobilized.  The sound of chainsaws filled the air and by 3:30 in the afternoon after much struggle and chain work with both tractor and truck, the road was passable.  Thank goodness for these hard working men.

This morning, as yesterday, I pulled on my knee high rain boots, zipped up my red raincoat, grabbed my cup of coffee and strode out to survey the storm activity.  I suppose if I were not a property owner, the walks would have been happy ones…stepping in puddles, pulling branches off the road and launching them down into the ravine, waving to the neighbor up above as he returned home on his tractor after completing an early morning clean-up of yesterday’s slide.  But I am an owner (thinking of my mortgage that seems a silly term, but that’s another rabbit trail altogether) and so my take on the storm is less like Christopher Robin and more like someone dodging bullets.  Too dramatic?  Probably so, but this is my hard thing.  Being responsible and taking care of this small piece of land and the people on it.

I am the keeper of the generator and spend much of my day refilling it and monitoring it and switching on and off the breakers that power various appliances and houses.  The water system goes on first and stays on.  None of us can do without water and the well pump and pressure pump have to remain functional.  Next my kitchen lights.  Through the day I rotate breakers.  I switch on my refrigerator, then my renter below me, then the one in the barn.  We lost power on Monday, the very first day of my friend downstair’s new job…one that is done from home and requires a computer.  So, keeping her going is at the top of my list.  Education is also part of my generator job.  (“No, you can’t run an electric stovetop, a refrigerator and a stove fan, along with all the rest of the things, without the breaker on the generator flipping.  Let’s try this again!”)

Am I complaining?  I suppose so.  But I really don’t mean to…I mean to do what I can to get through these series of storms and help my renters, who happen to be friends, get through them too.  I mean to be brave and strong and meet these days with humor and hope.  I mean to trust and be willing to look directly into everyone’s eyes as I scramble to keep it all working.  I mean to, above all, be grateful.  That is worth something, all that good intention, but it it feeling pretty thin about now.  Time to take a shower (and I am very grateful that I can!)

My friend came up to me yesterday.  ”Hey!”, she said, “did you ever find the rat?  You need to let us know these things!”  I had  to laugh—not because, indeed, there had been a rat in my walls, but because she has expectations.

This is what it’s come to…like someone scattering bird seed, I’ve tossed out facts and fancy about my life and created a habit.  My friend and I chatted for a few minutes before moving along and I resolved to do better at tying up the easy loose ends.  What I can’t promise…what I could never even attempt to do…what remains to flap in the wind…well, that would be the tidy tie-up of this thing we call life.  Don’t touch that dial.