Relative Something

Waiting, powerless, for nature to take its course and drape our trees with heavy burdens of ice and then snow, is a real exercise, but not one that is very rewarding. I am always fascinated with dramatic weather events, but when a storm involves the slow stress of accumulating ice on otherwise innocent tree branches, my fascination becomes tumbled with a bit of anxiety. Presently, this region is beset with an ugly, grumbling winter storm. Trees are drooping big time.

What can I do? I binged on a few extra Girl Scout cookies last night that were left as gifts by guests of our weekend event. It doesn’t quite solve the helpless feeling, but it massages the pleasure centers of taste and texture, providing a temporary distraction. (All those good intentions of last week, where I walked and exercised every day, diminished, by a moment of weakness.)

We have lived in the house on this lot for about 25 years. Just 3 days ago, Cyndie and I met with a realtor to begin the process of selling this home, and buying a horse farm. It would be a shame to lose trees any time, but right now would be very unfortunate timing. I won’t be available to clean up downed timber. I am tasked with removing wallpaper.

What is the deal with wallpaper? When it was installed during our remodel, it was the crowning achievement. It finished the rooms beautifully. All the comments we received were positive.

Now that it is time to sell, wallpaper has got to go. Out with it before somebody sees it!

What changed?

Why do people even bother putting wallpaper up if they are going to have to take it back down again, and it is such a pain to remove? I don’t understand “decorating.”

Drooping tree limbs. Wallpaper that has fallen out of favor. They both give me a helpless feeling.

Just a (not really) typical night down at the U…

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Did I mention that it rained? Rained and rained? It did. That was the wettest I have been from rain that I can recall. My fingers became pruned. I am only a casual fan of U2, but I have the utmost respect for them. Being there was definitely special. It was a really remarkable event Saturday night. In addition to the natural excitement of such a large gathering of fans, and the world-class production of the show, we were able to view the fireworks of the Minneapolis Aquatennial Festival during the concert. And it all coincided with a pretty dramatic lightning display traveling across the sky. It was not very clear which of the flashes and booms were coming from which source.

With the weather having been so incredibly hot and humid lately, the fact that the evening started out pleasantly comfortable may have caused me to drop my guard. I did not fully prepare for the obvious outcome that played out. Not only did I get really wet, so did everything in my pockets. Luckily, both phone and camera survived. My wallet looks a bit worse for the wear.

Actually, the soaking was not the worst part. Waiting can be a real drain, but waiting in the middle of the night when you are soaking wet was a real buzz-kill. There was gridlock in the vicinity of the stadium for a long time. We were prisoners in the parking ramp for 1 hour, 45-minutes. The eventual exit involved turning around and driving the wrong way down, since everybody else was doing it.

Eventual bedtime… after 2 a.m. Fitting, I’d say, for such a significant event.

The good news is that the volatile spring weather calmed down enough to allow the asphalt company to seal our driveway as planned yesterday. Meanwhile, my car is in for service, and I’m using Cyndie’s, since she is out-of-town. I got home from work to find the promised ribbon across the entrance to our driveway. The asphalt looks practically brand new with that fresh coat of sealant. I parked the car in the street at the end of the drive. The bad news is that the volatile spring weather reared up and stormed hail down on Cyndie’s car about an hour later.

Last night at the lake place, we received some pretty intense rainfall. A spectacular show of lightning kept us entertained just after sunset. The power went off briefly, but recovered and has been stable since. When we started to hear the pangs and clanks of hail, there was a hurried effort to rearrange vehicles to clear a spot in the second stall of the garage under cabin 3 so our friend, Rogie, could get his special car out of harm’s way. That is all it took to stop the hail. Never heard another whack after that.

One particularly dramatic moment came when someone spotted what looked like smoke coming from one of the landscape lights. We all squinted through the wet windows to clarify what we were seeing, and my first impression was that it didn’t look like steam from the hot bulb, as would be expected. It really looked like smoke! One opinion fed another and soon Cyndie was reporting that she saw sparks. A moment later, I was sure that I saw flame. Could it be that some part of the wiring was short circuiting out there in the rain?

Cyndie jumped when she heard ‘flame’ and ran to do something; I didn’t know what. I walked out the door into the rain and over toward the light to investigate. Just like Mike said, it wasn’t sparks or flame, it was the rain drops hitting the light and splashing up. The “smoke” was actually steam, after all. Just goes to show the power of the mind to perceive what it expects to see. I was so sure I had just seen flames from inside looking out.

Then I looked up, still in the falling rain, to realize that Cyndie had run through the cabin to the basement door, out to grab the garden hose, and had arrived to put water on it. In the rain. I thought that was pretty funny. She was just as convinced as me that we had a burning landscape light on our hands.

The whole place took quite a pounding last night from the heavy thunderstorm. So did the accuracy of my perceptions. It serves as a convenient reminder that things may not always turn out to be exactly as they might appear.

I recently re-discovered this word-painting of a July cloudburst I wrote back in July of 2002…

Playin’ in the Rain

Picture the protracted heat and tropic humidity of the consummate summer extreme. Consider the moment when days upon days of overexposing blasts of intense July sun and heat finally give in to the interruption of boiling piles of cloud and the electric anticipation of pending eruption, as opposing air masses collide overhead. Marvel at the quickness with which change takes place. Wonder at the speed of rushing air that intuition tells you should be cool, while senses still perceive heat. When the cloud finally bursts, and the torrents are crashing down, you barely hesitate. Regardless the natural inclination to seek shelter, you step out to feel the weight of impact on your head. With clothes now sticking and drooping with the weight of water, just try to act mature. The pavement steams and simmers, calming your feet with accumulated warmth, while at the same time infusing you with the irrepressible provocation to dance. Arms fling out, head rolls back and splashing ensues. No matter how old you really are, you are a kid again. Silence is not an option. You are as wet as you can possibly be, and at this moment, you wouldn’t have it any other way.

That surely must have come from memories of my youth. We don’t get rain like that here any more. The metropolitan area surrounding the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul has grown so much that we now have a big enough heat-dome over the area to impact the weather. The majority of weather fronts approaching the vicinity of my home, located at the southwest corner of the metro area, tend to break up and slide around to the north and south now days.

I bet if we got doused again like the writing above describes, I would be strongly tempted to go out and play in it like I remember doing when I was a kid. I remember one time when we were able to swim in the flooded corn field across the road from our house after a particularly heavy down pour.

Ah, those were the days. The good ol’ days. I can say that now that I’m old. I suppose the farmer didn’t think it was as good in those amounts at one time, but it sure was exciting. A time when we couldn’t resist the lure to play in the rain.

Finally, we are being blessed by the first enchanting rumbles of thunder as spring rotates into place here in my homeland. I can’t wait to find out if we will enjoy any dramatic weather in Nepal in April. I am preparing for anything and everything. If I can muster the mysterious power of mental influence, I will see what I can bring about by dwelling on nothing too serious or uncomfortable.  I’ve really been wondering lately about the power of influence of our minds.

Recently, the thought passed through my mind that I did not suffer a cold this winter. I let that thought slip by unspoken, admittedly due to a superstition that saying something–acknowledging it–would lead to, …well, …you know: getting a cold! Why, then, did I suddenly let the words fly when the thought came to me a second time in the car the other night?  I had no conscious reason for these thoughts in the first place, nor any explanation for why I ended up saying it out loud.

I woke up Sunday morning with a sore throat that had me feeling just a bit off and by the evening was struggling with a tickle in my throat and stuffiness in my nose that really hassled my attempts to fall asleep. It continued to progress to an overall feeling of cruddiness with stinging eyes that have me just wanting to snuggle under the covers and sleep for days. So, which came first here, the chicken or the egg?

Is it possible that deep within my essence I sensed what was coming, long before my mind became fully aware? My body knew what was happening before my mind did? That would explain why the thoughts seemed so out of context to me. Or is the onset of illness simply a result of me thinking about it and my body following the path I was paving? If the mind can control the body, I’m sure not displaying the necessary discipline to redirect this now. All day I’ve been floundering back and forth with trying to talk myself, right-quick, back to optimal health and then whimpering that I want to just allow myself to feel all the yuck and stay in bed! My poor body seems to be following both messages equally well and it is no wonder I feel so crazy sometimes.

I’m using this as a reminder to be sure to pack as many little medicine cabinet comforts, the ones I rarely-if-ever turn to normally, in order to be prepared for anything that my mind conjures up while wandering around in the Himalayan wonderland of Nepal.

The duality within me truly believes in the power of the mind to influence the processes and functions of the body, while at the same time, doubts that my little mind is enlightened enough to wield such otherworldly power. Just the kind of thing worthy of pondering in long hours of trudging uphill on unpaved foot paths in the thin air of the world’s highest mountains, don’t you think?

Rain, or shine.