Well… If I had written yesterday, I would have begun by crying out, “God hates me!”  Now I know that isn’t completely true.  And, I know everything could be a helluva lot worse.  And, I don’t even know for sure there is a God to hate me afterall.  Is anyone really up there watching over us?  Does he or she reside within us?  Does anything make any sense?  Are my prayers heard?  Are my curses ignored?  Will I burn in hell – or are we all living in hell right now?  All these questions and more would have tumbled from my fingers onto the keyboard…

After my debut performance as a stand-up comic on Tuesday night and the resulting freedom and exaltation that came from that, Wednesday was wonderful.  I felt different as I drove to my weekly appointment with my therapist.  The colors seemed brighter along the road – and don’t just tell me it’s cause they were brighter… My soul felt lighter and I thought I might have turned a corner.  Proud of my progress through this trauma, my therapist acknowledged my inner resources and ability to rely on my many years of personal growth tools.  I felt it too.  Ahhhh.  Life was shifting. 

After being gone much of the day, I returned home to Flame a tad on the tired side and discovered an odor.  A somewhat familiar odor, I might add.  Looking in the place I now know to look, I observed the drip drip drip of raw sewage falling to the ground in the same pattern as before.  Again?  Really???  Dollar signs began racking up in my head from the conversation with the repair person who felt so happy to be saving us the “big” repair by attributing the leak to merely a seal on the tank.  And, then the rain started to fall.  I quickly did my business in the glory of nature and returned to the warmth of Flame to retire.  All through the night, the rain grew more intense, the thunder boomed and lightning flashed.  Besides not being able to sleep well, I didn’t think much about it.  Until morning that is.  On my trip out to do my morning constitution, I discovered what all of us “homelosers” had been afraid of.  A bad case of erosion was there to greet me.  And, yes, many people dealt with storm related chaos and damage from this deluge – and ours was due to the lack of vegetation on the ground – and you already know what that was due to…

I felt the psychic clouds roll in even as the sky was clearing.  Too tired, smelling the stink of the dripping “blackwater”, and seeing the devastation of the land once again, I began to fold.  My morning was consumed with rallying the troops, finding out who else was dealing with erosion, emailing Channel 7, taking pictures, reaching out to our community resource team all while waiting for the RV repair guy to call me back.  Shirley Septic (my heroes) arrived mid-morning, delivering a porta-potty and pumping the holding tank to slow the leakage and make the repair guys job a little bit easier and lot less messy.

The light I had sensed the day prior evaporated in the stink, running down the newly formed gulley’s that covered our property where once there was earth.  I watched it run down hill and wondered if I would ever have any consistent feeling ever again.  Did I have the energy to deal with this?  To reschedule my clients (again), to change my plans for the day (again), to make calls to strangers (again) and beg for their assistance?  I wasn’t sure.  In between making things happen, I talked to one client and suddenly a small bird flew into the trailer, got trapped and began to panic.  I felt my panic rise as well as I watched it’s wings batting against the walls as it tried to escape.  Finally, I managed to open a stiff plexiglass window wide enough for the bird to slip out.  As it flew away to safety, the panic stayed with me.  Sinking.  Should I sound the alarm, call my therapist and ask to be diagnosed or maybe committed?  Was this a “normal” response, would I ever see my sun again?  What did I think was funny about the fire anyway?  I wanted to take it all back.  I give.  Uncle.  Help.

If there is a God, I am certainly happy he (or she) can tolerate my anger with him (or her).  There is some satisfaction in taking the lords name in an excessive level of vain.  I don’t know if threats work, but I feel better in the moment.  As the day progressed, my actions began to pay off.  The repair guy came – and will come again with more parts on Sunday to hopefully really fix the problem.  Channel 7 came and did a headline story that aired twice last night.  And, we retreated to Jessica’s for the night.

As I use her facilities, I am amazed at what a real toilet sounds like when it flushes.  I marvel that I don’t have to press a pedal on the floor to evacuate it.  My dogs actually have a floor to stretch out on and can run through the house as they love to do.  I will actually take a shower standing up today!  Amazing.  We won’t run out of water, electricity or propane.  I am doing 5 loads of laundry as I make some phone calls from a landline.  This living in a real house thing is kinda nice.  Tonight, we will join friends at the glorious Red Rocks stadium under the Colorado sky to see Michael Franti sing his magic.  Shortly, we will take these now sleeping dogs to expend some more energy at the dogpark in Evergreen.  We will stop at Home Depot and check out kitchen counters and cabinets.  I will show David some recycled glass counter tops that we might fit into the bathroom budget.

The sun is shining, the aspens are shimmering and we are breathing.  Maybe there actually is a God, and maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t really hate me afterall.