Too exciting

I tried to post this last night but couldn’t, so this is Friday, the 3^rd’s entry:

What an exciting day! And, I will admit, not in the most desirable way—still, all is well and I am here to tell about it…

We had tornado warnings in Denver today—not watches, but warnings, which are unusual here in the city—and huge line of powerful thunderstorms that were dropping torrential rain and large hail--though, at our house, we only got small stuff. At the beginning of the storms, I was on the phone talking to my dad, who had arrived at the cottage and was telling me of his various triumphs and travails. I had him on speaker so that I wouldn’t have to touch the phone, but as the lightning and the booms got so close together, I couldn’t even count to “one” between them, I finally decided to get off the phone. Just as I did, the tornado siren in our neighborhood went off. I calmly got the dogs down to the basement, changed shirts (in case of emergency, I certainly did not want to be stuck wearing the ill-fitting, unflattering one I had on! Not that I put on anything fetching—just a tee-shirt that I wouldn’t feel embarrassed to be seen in.) Rick had called to say he was leaving work late and that he was stopping by the library on the way home so I called him back to tell him to skip the library and just get here, but he’d already left the library and was on his way home. He said there was a tornado siren at the library that had been screaming.

So once he got here, we were all in the basement, but just as things seemed to be calming down slightly with the tornado situation (we watched the local news in the basement), I noticed that water was pouring in through one of the window wells. You may remember that we’ve been working on the basement to get it cleaned out. Well let me tell you—I now have new incentive to finish. I had to move a lot of things out of the way of the flooding, and there is still quite a bit of stuff that needs to go away! I noticed that I was less and less attached to things as the water rose and the futility of trying to stop the water dawned on me. That was a gift as one of the hardest parts about cleaning out is attachment--now I know just how valuable much of that stuff is NOT! Rick was outside in the storm bailing out the window well while I made dams with towels inside and worked to sweep the water toward the floor drains. He valiantly continued bailing in the rain, wind, and lightning, (which by this time, thank goodness, wasn’t, for the most part, nearly as close). Normally, I’d have been really nervous about him being out there, but this time, I just let go. I felt that was a personal triumph!

Fortunately, the rain slacked off and he was able scoop out enough water that it stopped pouring in, and only the perimeter of the basement is now wet—but the water did intrude about ten or so feet in places and was a couple of inches deep in the corners. I’m praying that it will not rain hard in the night—showers are forecast from now through the morning. And to add insult to injury, it’s predicted to be a high of 57 tomorrow. We’ll be lucky if we have tomatoes before frost at this rate! But we have grass, by golly. Lots of thick, green, LONG grass!

While the water is an inconvenience, I am thankful that we did not have a tornado--to my knowledge, there was no tornado damage in Denver today.

After weeks and weeks of mostly numb, my spirits are high, despite the stress of the late afternoon and early evening, because I finally got back to my routine today, and sat and did some release work while listening to Cris. I’m clearing out and clearing out all the stuff that’s depressing my frequency. I also listened to Earth Wind and Fire for the first time since coming back from Louisiana, and you know that’s my happy music! Speaking of Cris, I had written her to tell her all the ways that Ashes had proven significant and helpful in my life and the lives of people I’ve shared it with. I sent the email last week, so I was surprised today to get an email back from her saying my message had put the shine on her day. That was very cool.