I love weather, which is a good thing, since we have a lot of it, and this week it seems even more than usual. I postpone the daily walk when it is raining sideways at 9 because it may be (and is!) glorious a few hours later and my friend Teresa is ready and so are the dogs– I spent a good deal of time yesterday bird proofing windows after a wren crashed into one in the feeding frenzy around the mountain ash tree berries. I put up the birthday banner, Christmas stained glass snow flakes, colorful baby board books in every window to show them that the windows are solid. I closed the curtains upstairs on the windows facing the trees, which are heavy with berries.
It seems to be working.
Although, a brown bear sow and her cub walked through in the night, and apparently tested the berries, which bears usually don’t eat — and they clearly didn’t agree with them, judging by the runny scat on the beach, which may have been throw-up. (I know, too much information, yet it is all part of reading the news of this place they call home too.)
One minute the sun is out and it’s suddenly too hot for my jacket and the next it is raining buckets and I am in the museum checking out the latest exhibit.Debra Schnabel created it on the many meanings of home, and she included a half a car with a Bible on the dashboard, quilts, pillows, a gas cooking ring and a crate of books in the back seat.
The baby toys on the front seat and the leash and bowl were more powerful than any op-ed on the need to address the crisis of so many people without adequate shelter, food and security.
My dogs were out in my car, and the windows were down so they would have plenty of fresh air and I would have a less doggy smelling ride home. When I left the museum it was raining again, and the car seats were all wet and so was the book I just bought at The Bookstore. It seemed a small thing to complain about.
— The photos and statistics on refugees were equally moving.
And so were the quotes Debra chose…
“Places don’t belong to us. We belong to them.”- Kazim Ali.
It made me feel so lucky and so sad–
Now today, there is an “atmospheric river” in the NOAA forecast, which causes hearts to clench ever since the December landslides that followed a similiar forecast using that term — that destroyed houses and roads, and took the lives of dear Jenae and David. I read the forecast on the radio on Tuesday during the Back Country show ( I volunteer Tuesdays most every week, 1-3 on KHNS) and just plowed through it rather than pause and think too much. It’s the same way I drive through the slide area on route to the Battery Point Trail. Eyes averted. So, I hope the forecast is not as dire as they warn — it notes that there is uncertainty as to the rainfall totals and locations– and that Haines and Klukwan don’t receive 7 inches of rain, or that if we do it soaks in.
Meanwhile, I sit typing in my warm, dry home thinking about all of this. It’s a lot for the first day of September. I want to do more to make the world safer and kinder on every level– don’t you? How? Well, I am saving some birds, at least.
And the electric fence around the chicken coop and my bear-proof trash cans are keeping the bears from getting into trouble with the police.
I can write checks for flood victims in Pakistan and Kentucky, and to the Salvation Army here. My daughters are public school teachers, a music teacher and a leader at Big Brothers, Big Sisters. My son builds houses and is a chef. That’s something: caring, capable adult children who do good. They are wonderful parents, too. I can support Haines’ public spaces of welcome and warmth that also generate social capital by using them — like the museum, the library, the Chilkat Center where the radio station is– and the pool–
There is also something fine about caretaking a beach that everyone (and their dog) can walk on, that we share with bears, an occasional moose, the pigeons, crows and eagles. There were three herons yesterday, and a hawk. Seals. Older friends walking slowly with trekking poles, little kids building a fort with driftwood, and a girl on a mountain bike with a black dog racing after her. This is home, too.
I don’t know who left the small offering of gratitude — feather, pebbles and stick placed to catch the eye of passers by. Thank you.
