It's probably my favorite conditional phrase: "God willing and the creeks don't rise." Rarely do I use it literally, but it seems appropriate right around now. All of my family back in Oklahoma and Colorado, and even some in California have been watching the rains for a while now, and wondering when all this water from the sky is going to translate into unhealthy amounts on the ground. A few years ago, the Central Plains states were suffering under exceptional drought, the kind California is feeling now. I keep the drought map overlay on my NOAA radar app that I consult frequently, and I have been watching the severity of the drought diminish in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado (and grow in the Golden State). My Okie friends and family are complaining about the water, but I'm just hoping it's all sinking down and refilling those big aquifers that we all thought were never going to replenish. My Colorado kids are a little more skittish, having gone through catastrophic floods so recently, and having waited so long for homes to be restored to usable conditions. Even my girl in California is learning that the sound of a heavy thunderstorm brings back bad memories of 2013. Yet for all of that poignant knowledge of the fury of too much water, my daughter suggested that what she would like to do for her birthday this summer is to go tubing on Boulder Creek. Hey, kiddo, what say we wait until the creeks UN-rise, shall we?
I have been stuck on one task for weeks. I have had so many dominoes that needed to fall, but until I knocked out the first one, nothing else was going to happen. I tried packing a few things, but I need to get rooms perfectly clean and staged for real estate listings before I can completely strip them, pack up furniture, and pull art off the walls. I tried day after day to make a dent in the office/guest room, but it was absolutely impenetrable. In my mind, this was the key to unlocking everything. I needed to fix this room, and then I could empty everything upstairs into the two spare bedrooms. After that, it would be no problem to finish downstairs. Finally today, I found the right thread to unravel, and got the room clean and staged. Lots of things, like the old Model T computer, have just been pulled out and set in the other room, but papers have also been sorted and trash has been identified and removed. Suddenly a weight has been lifted off of me, and I am unstuck. I can find my way through this maze. I progressed from the office to the dining room, filling a couple liquor boxes, packing up the sewing machine, and nearly uncovering the table. By mid-day tomorrow, I should be able to stage that room for pictures as well, and then I'll really be off to the races. My time is running short. I need to have it all ready to load in a truck in just under two weeks. It's about time I sorted this nonsense out.
By sundown, we were ready to go to Bonfire Gardens to unwind a little bit. It's sinking in to all of us that there are only so many trips over there left we can make. I have to work hard not to get weepy when I think about it, and I am not the only one. I am going to spend the next several years trying to convince the Bonfire Leader to follow me out West, but she insists that is never going to happen. She swears she doesn't want to leave the beach and the warm climate. Well, if the climate keeps changing, her Gardens will be beachfront property whether she wants them to be or not. So if the oceans rise, years from now, I'll be waiting in the hills for her to throw in her towel and join us at Park West. She'll always be welcome there, even if it takes her a decade to accept the inevitable.
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