My father's ice skates

It's been a long, long 10 days.
My mother is still without power,
and to compound things, when I went
by her house to see whether the power
had come back on, I heard a noise inside.

I'm not even sure why I went back by there--
I had already been today. It was dark. On her
street, the lights were on in most of the houses,
but not hers. I opened the door and lifted
the light switch, but nothing came on. Then I noticed
a sound--like white noise or a fan--something running.

So, I walked into the dark house and walked toward
the sound only to discover I could not see well enough
to know what it was. So, I left.

My brother called and I told him. He went to the house.
He called and said that the water line had burst and what
I was hearing was watering hitting beneath the floors.

So, he and his girlfriend's father turned the water off.

Now, no power, no water, but the rest of her neighborhood
has both.

I know she's ready to go home, and I know I am at my limit.

And then she says to me, after I tell her I heard a noise
at her house and before my brother went over there,
that in the room I heard the noise, beneath the desk
were my father's ice skates and marbles and some other
things he had when he was a child. And she said I want
you to take those.

And I could not give her anything. And I could not look
at her. And I kept working on the meal. And I would not
turn around and face her. But as I cut the onion up
I managed to say I didn't know Dad ice skated. I've
never seen his skates. And I would like very much
to have the skates and marbles.

And I was most grateful I was cutting an onion.
And the tears really were from the onion and not
the skates or marbles or the days and days of close
proximity and not the exhaustion and not the worry.

Just the onion.

Jeopardy

Answer: Must contain literary
references and lots of metaphor.
Must be clever and contain strategically
broken lines. Must mention
absent mothers and/or drunk
and absent fathers without really talking
about absent mothers and/or drunk and absent
mothers or fathers. Must stray
from straight talk. Must be bowled
over by the grand pooh-poohs. Would
be nice if it likened the self to a natural
element. Must be tercets or quatrains
or couplets (which are particularly
pleasing when sex is involved). Must
not sound sycophantic--i.e., don't
reference wheelbarrows or plums
or how nothing has such small hands
or a crab scuttling--must pay attention
to sonics (no nonsonically inclined posts
allowed). Must be devoid of feeling
(i.e.--no I's) but filled with feeling
which does not include I's. Must not
be about snotty-nosed kids across
the street or dead neighbors or ravaged
trees or changing a light bulb. Can be
about the sirens and soothsayers
and war gods and temples crumbling
to the ground. Can be filled with all
the right sonically pleasing, rhythmically
stroking, killer line break, enjambment
loaded, artfully studied scenester
elements. Can arouse slightly centers
set for arousal. Can refute and rebuke
and puke and spoof (albeit rather ineffectively)
all the reader knows. Can be lauded
as the best thing since heat. Can elicit
lovers and strangers and familiars.
Can ask without asking and tell without
telling. Cannot (let me say this again)
cannot be about the home town grill
keeping the fires burning or the neighbor
warming up Jambalaya on the grill
or the trips to the toilet in the dark
and cold, or the cats accepting the dog
on their longest night alone together
or shit like surviving unless there's some
clever way to share the story, like maybe
how your mom drank so much beer
the first night she thought she was back
home, your dad beside her in the bed
they never shared, his arms holding
her so tightly she feared they may crush
her in her sleep, fitful as it was in the
up to 20 degree outside sleeping bag,
which is not really clever at all, but true.
And sad--oh you must must must
resist ever telling in the quest you decide
is worth abandoning--sad cannot, absolutely not
be included--no matter the fact that your fingers
have become too cold to write another word,
and all the candles are on their way out.
Question: What is a poem?

Tonight

They will kill a man in Tennessee.

I wish my daughter had chosen another
profession. I wish she did not have to
be standing outside the gates fighting
for his life.

But she will be, and I know she must be.
And I cried with her and I said pray

and she did not have to say anything
though I know she was thinking

and so then I said do what you must
but don't let yourself be alone.

Oh my daughter, I can't know what it is
to walk in your shoes. I can't know what
it is to be the family of the accused or
the family of the victim. I can't know

so many things in my life, but I know this:
the tears flow for you, for him, for his family,
for the family who lost a loved one, for the
executioners, for the cold hard truth

which may be true and may not.

Surrender

To have heat, to remember warmth.
To have someone and to have no one.

To listen and know when to stop listening.
To have conversation unforced.

To eat a meal you cook. To accept
the meal offered. To know what it is

to feel alone when you are not alone.
To drag the dead to the front of the house

in the balmy 60 degree weather. To mourn
the loss and have the strength to continue

the work. To let go the losses so irrelevant
and embrace the new. To up the ante

15 pennies to make sure you can't lose
if you make the choice. To surrender

the heart to the dark places it has yearned
to go but not been free to do so. To open

the heart to the filtered light. To lay
the body down at night in complete

and utter exhaustion and to not expect
anything more than perhaps waking up.

On Happiness

"I'd rather have one phenomenal year
than 90 mediocre ones. When you are really
living, it really doesn't matter how long
you're here."
Kris Carr

That statement from an article in Psychology
Today. Kris is living with cancer. Kris changed
many things in her life after her diagnosis.
She changed jobs, towns, her diet, her outlook
on life.

I think the message is one we all need to heed.
That being said, I think it is hard for those of us
trapped in a mentality. It's hard to change
how you've been and lived your whole life.
I applaud her and hope some day I will get that
message and that it won't take cancer or a terminal
illness for me to do that.

*****************************************

I took Molly out to the bathroom a few minutes ago.
The sky is clear, the air frigid. I thought to myself
how beautiful to see the Big Dipper and all the other
stars lighting the night. And then I thought if I was
one of those people in this town still living in the dark,
I'm not so sure I would appreciate the beauty. I had
the luxury of coming back into the warm house.
I had the luxury of being warm when I walked outside
to take Molly to do her stuff. If I was still in darkness
and cold, I don't know that the night would have been
so lovely.

There seems to be no middle ground.

We have what we have and know what we know
and when what we know is no longer a language
we can speak or a face we can recognize or a taste
familiar, we are thrust into a zone which tends to
dominate all of the levels of being we consider
uncomfortable.

********************************************

Tomorrow we canvas the shelters. We ask questions.
We help in the small way we can. I can think about
that now that I am warm and full and have a familiar
place to sleep in.

I don't know how useful I would have been last week.

I am grateful for those who have been doing what they
have been doing for a week now.

I don't think there is one person in this community who
has not been affected by this.

Daylight comes. Cars drive by. Those in cold places with
no water know that others are taking their showers
and eating a hot breakfast and going on with life. But
they aren't fixated on that. Fixation is on surviving
another day.

This isn't Montanta or Wyoming or Siberia. This is a small
town in Western Kentucky. A place you would not know
much about unless you knew someone who lived here.
It is a place not so isolated as it is nondescript.

But we are here, and all around there is need.

*****************************************

The First Night

We sat around Mr. Heater,
me worrying about propane
fumes, trying to find the carbon

monoxide alarm I had removed
from the hallway weeks ago, a fresh
coat of paint going up, all pictures

and necessities stuck in closets
or packed away. The cold had not
yet settled into my brain. Naiveté

sang its allegros, lifted its childlike
soprano into the unheated room.
A moment's joy rested on my

shoulders and sat there as uneasy
as a first time root canal candidate
as I lifted it from beneath the bed,

dog and cat hair claiming it. The wall
neither rejoiced nor rejected
the newest encroachment; the occupants

of the bed and floor quite unaffected
by its presence. But I, the doer of deeds
and the worst of worriers, could only

lie there in the darkness and pray
to the off-white circular god, unseen
and unheard, hanging there like a martyr

in the midst of my most defining moment

Back to work

My clinic is still not open--don't know
when it will be, so I will be working
at the main clinic today. Not sure what
we are doing today but think we are
going to have a First Responders training.
Crisis is supposed to go out with First
Responders, but I don't have my certification
yet.

Yesterday's paper confirms one weather-related
death. It stated that an 84 yr old gentleman
was found dead, hugging his hot water heater.

Hugging up against his hot water heater.

The last little bit of warmth not enough.

Cause of death presumed to be hypothermia.

It was about 13 the first night we were without power.
18 or so the next night. Then it gradually warmed
to 22 and finally around 38 or so. The nights were
long and cold.

More troubles this morning. I went to the basement
to do some laundry. My son was upstairs taking a shower.
I noticed water pouring from two pipes. Oh, on it goes.
It's fixable, though. It's fixable.

I can't reach my hubby. He went to his shop today
but he must not have power. No phone service either.
I just wonder what the government will do for all the lost
wages. He's never asked fo anything, but every day he's
been unable to work is a day without money and a day
which gets us closer to the day bills are due.

We, like everyone in this county, lost about 60%
of our trees. Beautiful old dogwoods, strong oaks,
my magnolia looks a wreck but I think she'll make it.

It looks like we've been bombed. Much more damage
from this ice storm than the F4 tornado we had.

Damn, I wish I knew how to get started on repairing
the pipes. Another thing I am going to learn how to
do. I have learned how to be very resourceful through
all of this. I think most of us have learned we must
never forget how to take care of basic needs. Preserving
food, creating heat, keeping basic supplies.

All was not gloom and doom, though. We just sat around
at night talking, playing cards by candlelight, cooking
on the neighbor's propane grill. I don't know what
we would have done without our neighbors. They
are fantastic, amazing people.

My mother's been with us since Tuesday. I am glad
she had somewhere to go. I am also taxed to the max,
but I am hanging in here.

I seriously think Molly has some PTSD. She is so jumpy.
She started the night the limbs started breaking and falling
to the ground. Now, when I take her out back, she stands
there and looks at the devastation, knowing something's
wrong with the picture. The cats want to stay on my bed
all of the time now. They stayed huddled next to us at night,
my mom on a pallet on the floor. My youngest son on
another pallet. Molly in her crate with a comforter draped
over it.

Yesterday it was 64 outside. The only clue that anything
went awry here were the downed trees and snapped
power lines.

Time to go. Time to get back to work. I am grateful to
be going back to work.

To be forgotten

I know a bit about how the Katrina folks felt.

We have been without power since Tuesday morning.
As a matter of fact, the power went out about 5 minutes
after I typed in my last post.

No one expected this. And apparently no one (out there)
seems to know the severity of this county's situation.
This county and the four surrounding counties
all without power until yesterday.

Ours came on at 11 or so last night.

On Wednesday, the mayor ordered an emergency evacuation
for anyone who could evacuate. But that was a tricky
situation. You could not get gas, kerosene, propane,
food--nothing at all for days. We were fortunate that
we had gas in our vehicles. We drove to Clarksville, TN
to try to find a generator but were told there were none
to be found anywhere closer than AL. We couldn't even
find an oil lamp or a cooking stove.

On Thursday, our neighbor drove to Terre Haute, IN
and bought two generators. We bought one from him.
So, on Friday morning, we had some power in the house,
but the generator was not compatible with our heating
system. It did pump out the two feet of water that had
risen in our basement and it kept the fridge going and
the microwave and a small electric heater and a few lights.

We had been told it could be up to four weeks before
we had power again. And it is likely that the outlying
areas in the county will be without power that long.
I am only a few blocks from downtown--the city
center--so I hoped we would get ours sooner than
the predictions.

It feels strange to be connected again. We've all been
in survival mode all week. Just trying to keep warm and
keep food in our bodies.

It's odd, too, to become connected once again and find you
haven't been missed. Odd indeed. This whole experience
has much to say to me about my life, who I am important
to, and what is important to me.

It's hard to say what was most missed. Had we not had
a small propane camping heater which kept the room
we stayed in around 40, I would say the heat. But you don't
know how much you miss the light until the night comes
and blackness is all around and there are no trains
running and the only sound is the occasional passing
on the road of an emergency vehicle.

I feel humbled. I feel happy to be alive. I feel strange.

I am looking at the wreck that was my backyard. It looks
like a war zone out there. But we have out house. I don't
know how many burned down in town. We had no radio and no
paper until yesterday.

Yes, I feel we were forgotten. We were all saying
Where's FEMA, where's the National Guard, where
are supplies? But nothing was happening, or it was
and we just didn't know. That remains to be seen.

And, yes, I was forgotten, but that doesn't seem so
important either.

More to come.