A very hard rain last night. My phone squawked an alarm. “Flash floods! Flash floods!” I slipped on some sandals and set out in the downpour to clear the storm drain.
It was dark. A large pool glinted with street light just beyond our driveway.
The rain had collected in the street’s low point, stretching about a half block on either side of the blocked drain. When I squatted down on the curb to begin removing the leaves, I was shocked to see that even on the curb, I was standing in four inches of water — four inches of water above the curb!
I grabbed fistfuls of wet leaves and flung them over my shoulder. Again and again. Over and over. Soon there was a sucking sound and not long after, a tiny eddy that quickly turned into a bigger eddy.
Shazam! The entire pool disappeared right before my eyes in about three minutes.
It was the most satisfying thing I’ve done in a long time.
Quick simple action for the greater good. Immediate positive result. Doesn’t get much better than that.
On our walk this morning, you could see where water had channeled down the hill.
The leaves plastered on the road and sidewalk formed a decorative backdrop to what has become an unstoppable train of thought these days: about the power of lying.
And meanwhile, the Virginia creeper which was green a handful of days ago, blazes vermillion.
Have a great Sunday! Thank Christ there will be no debate and no dreadful charity dinner to watch. Perhaps I should even thank our newly installed Comcast card for fucking up repeatedly and crashing during attempts to catch up on CNN coverage of the campaign. Telling me something?
For now? Project Runway, if for no other reason than to hear Tim Gunn say, “Make it work.”
What poetry of title! How beautiful every photograph and all those magnificent leaves, and yes thank all the powers that be we may surcease by force or circumstance our political hypervigilance and giddely indulge in whatever ‘fashion’ suits our fancy :–>
Read a Washington Post article today about our addiction to trump. How it will be hard for the media to stop covering him. Hopefully HE LOSES. And hopefully we can all turn away.
HA ! you sure MADE IT WORK … Dee !!!
A very good, and I can imagine satisfying, action you did there in the downpour !!!
Ahhhh the creeper is such a delight to the eyes …
Have a good (quiet ?) Sunday too, Dee.
Thanks Els. I did make it work. By letting the distraction hold me. Lately my shows and reading haven’t had the same sticking power.
beautiful photos and well wrought words
Thanks Mo. it’s been a sunny and very warm fall here. The pounding rain seemed so unfamiliar a thing. Today it was blustery and cold. Much more seasonal.
Through your words I too feel the satisfaction of draining water…taking action that has a real and instantly apparent effect. That kind of power seems rare in my life. Thanks for sharing.
well it’s rare in mine too — so much effort going toward intangibles, to the long plan… this was just so, so immediate!
Results can carry us far, that’s for sure. K. is always out clearing the drains on our hill of a street, the neighborhoods thank you both!
it helped crystallize a decision to hire a crew to clear our yard of leaves (at least once) this fall. never done that. they’re coming Friday~ typically it’s a six weekend effort (on and off, of course, and enjoyable, but). Traveling husband, aging backs, and maybe I want that immediate effect again.
why don’t you just compost all the leaves for mulch?
Shazam…love that shazam….the feeling of an action being so driven, so immediate
i can see you flinging and flinging….
the critical part, the different part for me was that the results were so immediate… sometimes my actions are driven, immediate but the results are not.
I’m listening to you, though I watch MSNBC media – you’re really helping me cope!
this may interest you if you haven’t read it…
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/us/teaching-seventh-graders-in-a-total-mess-of-an-election-season.html?emc=eta1&_r=1
and now, enter stage right, Weiner. Gawd. I didn’t read your link, but I do get Southern Poverty Law Center’s newsletters and read a long piece about how troubled and scared young people are and how difficult it is for teachers — many of whom previously hewed to a policy of no-politics-in-class….