flood

I caught a glimpse of what people in New Orleans must have felt like as they watched their belongings washed away, and later were forced to pick up those pieces...it was a very small glimpse of that but it was a burden all the same...my basement flooded due to a huge thunderstorm and because my family is waiting to move, alot of our boxes were stored down there...my face crumpled throughout the process of mopping up the water because with each infected, watery box, some family treasures had been soaked...perhaps it seems silly to mourn books, but I have a great love of them, especially our children's books from england--I dunno, they pull me back to times of reading with my parents, and to see them soaked and sticky with water tugged at my tears...while wiping off several old photos of my parents, a piece of me felt like it was being torn but I was numb and I couldnt' feel it and it occured to me that it was the same sort of feeling I would expect to feel one day when my parents weren't around any more...the idea startled me and I felt quite peturbed at the sense of it, but at the same time I felt numb to the emotion it would entangle...

thanks to mr. huizenga, he and I finished mopping up the basement in a much quicker time than I would have been able to accomplish on my own...I think, had I been forced to face it on my own, I might have cried throughout the process...but with his aid and the busyness of moving boxes I numbed my way through the experience and it was only when we got back to the concert at the huizengas and cait and jen sidled up to give me a hug, that the numbness took its leave...a few tears and explanations did the trick and I was able to cast the memory aside for the rest of the night...

I think, in hindsight, only a few things were messed up..it's interesting, what experiences pull at our emotions, sometimes teaching us a few things about others' experiences, like the concept of a real flood...I think as a kid I always pictured a flood like a big wave pool in the house, but now its sunk in as entailing so much more...sigh...the things we learn