Stream of Consciousness
I don't know if I know how to write anymore but here's a bunch of thoughts about surviving a flood.
Two months ago, the Blue Ridge Mountains welcomed me home by shrugging their shoulders and dumping millions of gallons of water and mud into the valley where I lived with my children.
Today, a car we’ve borrowed from our friends makes a whining sound when I start the engine, two days after I replaced the battery.
I’m trying to understand the weirdly complicated soccer programme in this city.
We rent a house, but only until May.
My husband, an immigrant, has no credit in this country.
The belongings we shipped here from England - the things we deemed necessary or significant, mostly toys and bikes and personal effects - still haven’t arrived.
For months, my full-time job has been Survive, and Make Sure Everyone Else is Surviving. I should probably make some money. I should probably send emails to clients. I updated my CV last week for the first time in years.
I think I’m happy? I’ve made new friends and my kids like school. Two nights ago, I dragged myself out to my favourite bar with two of my neighbours, where I drank an old-fashioned and slapped the bar while telling a story, before we skipped down the sidewalk and took selfies in front of the town Christmas lights.
My house is comfortable and I like seeing how the mountains change every day - how the light hits them from a million different angles, so they never look the same. In the early mornings, on the drive to school, I marvel at how the quarry can be beautiful, backlit by the glow of the sunrise reflected off the mountains behind it.
I don’t sleep much. Yesterday I barely moved from the chair in my living room, my legs paralysed by tiredness; when I drove to school to pick my sons up, the fog over my brain was thick as molasses.
I need an American driver’s license, but I’ve been gone so long I have to re-take the test I took when I was 16, and I worry there’s no room left in my mind for road signs.
I worry I’ve forgotten how to write. I want to tell how, on my best friend’s birthday, my son climbed into bed with me at 6am, and I realised the power was out. I want to tell how I could hear the wind howling outside against the siding of the house; how I picked up my phone and saw the words FLOOD and LIFE-THREATENING in all caps. How I went downstairs to find my friend awake in her bed, her face glowing in the light of the same message.
I want to tell how one phone said to leave and another said to stay, and how we made a choice in the pitch-black morning with no information at all, and we survived. How, in the following weeks, I heard stories of Mothers like me who made the opposite choice - cars found with families who tried to beat the river but couldn’t.
My husband says he can’t think about it, but I can’t not.
I don’t know how to write, or work, or be a person whose life - whose children’s lives - hinged on a decision she made that could have just as easily gone the other way.
But I’m alive. And I’m happy. I think I am.
xx
Faith
Seems weird to immediately jump into this, but all of us here are wise enough to know life is everything all at once:
Want to support a WNC business this Christmas? I haven’t been able to get my poop in a scoop to do a full gift guide, but here are two small businesses based near me that I love:
I have the unscented Tallow Cleanse Bar. I wash my face with it at night and it leaves my skin feeling so moisturised in this winter weather - when my skin tends to get super dried-out by indoor heating.
I use the scent Warm Feelings and it is AMAZING. Full disclosure: my high school best friend owns a shop that was under water during the flood, and my bottle is one she salvaged from the flood but couldn’t sell. But I’ve since given her a hard time because I am addicted and it is not cheap. Anyway I love my Flood Oil and you should definitely buy some non-flood oil. In Warm Feelings. It smells amazing and I use it at night on my face and on my hands.
Spiritual Direction
I’ve had a (slightly unintentional) break from my spiritual practice due to my international move immediately followed by surviving a natural disaster, but I’m missing it a lot.
If you’ve ever considered spiritual direction, I meet with clients/directees/whatever you’d like to call yourself both in-person (although I don’t have any in-person directees in our new location yet!) and online, and I’d love to talk to you about it.
You can find more info here.
I understand.
Beautiful, Faith. 💚