Flooding, inside and outside

Well, I spoke too soon . . . way too soon. Indeed, ten minutes after my arrival at my old tribal friends Judy and Dick's home in Oceanside, we sat down on the patio and the sprinkler system went haywire. Nothing seemed to affect it, no amount of tinkering with the controls, until that night when we turned the main water source to the yard off completely.

Next day, around noon, no one else was home. I thought I'd throw a quick load in the washing machine and get that out of the way. Went downstairs and started to talk with a friend of mine who has seemingly terminal cancer on the phone when I heard the tinkling, then the pouring of water . . . through the ceiling . . .

Ran up, turned off the spigot to the washing machine, unhooked the hot and cold faucets, and still the water poured out from underneath the machine. Thereon followed 30 minutes of trying to catch up with it, using every towel in the house and probably 10 large bowls to catch the ceiling leaks, running up and down stairs, having cut off my phone call with this incredible woman to do this awful task.

And here's the really horrible part: as we sat around the patio the evening before, I heard the story of their recent flood from the washing machine, how they had to get 28 industrial fans in to dry out the whole place for a whole week, how they had to vacate the house for the interim and that it cost $3800 . . . and thank god it didn't happen this week or the next because there's a whole housefull of guests coming for the entire two-week period!

I HAD JUST CAUSED EXACTLY THE SAME SITUATION TO OCCUR AGAIN . . . because I had not put two and two together. Apparently Judy had said that we can't do wash right now because the washing machine is not yet fixed, and I had not heard the remark; but had I had my wits about me, would have paused and paid attention to the fact that I had to hook up the faucets to get the machine to work.

I—that is, WE—have been living with the consequences ever since. Big consequences, ongoing. I did a load of 24 large towels and uncounted small ones in laundromat that evening. Can't use the house because of fans. Camping outdoors. Who knows what the fan cost will be this time, but I will pay it. Everybody incredibly inconvenienced.

And, one more twist: the plumbing under the sink in the laundry room also now leaks—no relation to the washing machine . . . I can't help but think that I am bringing some kind of huge energy with me, and that it is related to GRIEF (WATER). Hopefully, it has all spilled by now.

Meanwhile, I had three book events to do here, and given that the events of that day unhinged my entire physical and emotional system, i had to repeatedly lie down and rest, try to nap, any time I could for the next two days since I wasn't sleeping well at night. Thankfully, these events are all now behind me, and all went incredibly well despite the fact that I had been (and still am) living with the devastation that I caused and attempting to absorb it, to forgive myself, to stay present, etc.

This water event not like the rogue wave and dog attack were, and I don't see it as coming from out of left field, out of my control. There is no question that I caused this event to happen, due to my momentary inattention to extremely pertinent details. And the consequences still cascade down—some of the fans still on, still camping out, bill not yet known or paid . . . and the worst part about it was it's effects on others. It's not so difficult to stay present at least at some level, when I'm working with situations that only involve myself. But when I CAUSE problems for others!!!!!

Any tendencies towards arrogance and feeling like I've really figured out what I'm doing and can do it well on this kind of trip—DASHED TO SMITHEREENS. I know that's good, and that this will all be a hilarious memory and story ub the future, but frankly, I'm still feeling like a complete fool and idiot . . . and I know that's good, too! Or that I will have that perspective on it someday.

Meanwhile, some highlights from the three events:

The first was Judy's soroptimist group, about a dozen women, who are used to a "social evening" with a speaker, and so at first I was taken aback, and felt (especially since this event happened only one day after the flood, and we had to move the event from Judy's house to a neighbor's, and dear Judy cooked chicken for the event in her hot, thunderously noisy, fan-filled kitchen) quite unsure of myself, whether I could "pull off" my intention to start a deeper conversation around death, loss, grief and its gifts in this kind of situation.

To my surprise and wonder, the social veneer of many of these woman stripped off easily once I began to read a passage from the book that Judy recommended I read to them. And there we were, once again, in a field of energy that allowed at least somewhat of a deepening into the numinous, mysterious reality that our contemplation of Death presents.

The second event was the next day, in the community room of the Kroc Center in San Diego, thanks to Jean, a woman who works there. This time about 15 women present, most of whom had been aware of my written work for years due to their involvement with the Crone movement and Crone Chronicles magazine. In fact, these women seemed to want me to show them who I was more than what I was interested in, and so I found myself telling my own stories more than usual. But still, the conversation did deepen, and I sensed a real camaraderie among us. One woman who has already read the book said it helped her a great deal to get in touch with unprocessed grief that she had still carried from the death of her 20-month old daughter more than seven years ago when she was pregnant with a second child. Her doctor had told her not to grieve, because it would harm the developing fetus!!

The third event was held at Crone friend Ginger's home in Oceanside. Seven of us sat around an oval table on her garden-surrounded patio. These were women that had somehow got onto Ginger's email list, and she did not know any of them! We introduced outselves, and discovered that all but one were widows! A wonderful conversation followed, which ended on this note:

One of the women's husband had had Alzheimer's for eight years before he died. During the first four years she took care of him before placing him in a care center and, she said, while she took care of him she was full of rage, a rage, she said, that she has still not moved out of her, despite three operations since his death a year ago, from breast and ovarian cancer.

But, she said, "last night I had a dream. All my dreams until this one have been nightmares, Alzheimer dreams, when he does something completely unpredictable and floods me with rage. But in this dream, he was clear! He was clear and he looked as he used to look, normal and present, there with me." As she said this her face flooded with light and love.

We had just been talking about my discovery (or interpretation of my inner experience of Jeff's continuing journey) that people continue to change after they die. The dream felt like a gift for all of us.

Next up, Palm Springs event, on the 18th.