The warmth and sunlight belied the scene before me … devastation! Twisted concrete, buckled asphalt … huge rocks strewn in odd places … tree limbs along the sides of all the roads, or hanging like limp, sodden bodies with outstretched arms, clinging without volition to those branches which were still attached to the trees. Every few feet, there was another silent testimony to the violence of nature - the stark white of a broken tree, too recently ravaged to look weathered, too recently dismembered to mourn its own death - now cut off from its sole source of nourishment.

The winter has been long, and very, very hard. Yesterday - April 22, was the first day that the temperatures rose into the 70’s. Today, amazed and befuddled people all over the area made their way out of their homes as if drawn by a piper’s flute … the temperature climbed to 85 today. Brief and fleeting … since after this tantalizing taste, we have only 60’s and 50’s in store for the foreseeable future, but still - it was a glimmer of hope for what is sure to come if we are only patient for a while longer …

Drawn to the outside and the warmth like a moth to a flame, I decided to use the opportunity to take a brief tour of the area; I wanted to assess the damage done by last week’s storm … all the while soaking today’s long awaited warmth and blue skies. I was stunned by what I saw.

Here are some photos, taken today, of the damage done by last week’s rain. You can view them as a slide show by clicking on the first photo, and running your mouse over it until you see “Next” appear near the top right, or “Prev” near the top left. You can go through the entire set of photos that way. If you’d rather, you can click on “Read the rest of this entry” at the end of this post, and see the photos inline. Clicking on them allows you to see them in a much higher resolution, with clearer details. Descriptions are beneath each photo inline, which a briefer description included in the slide show.

Both sides of the bridge over the ironically named “Little River” were completely washed out in last week’s storm. The now placid waters were raging beyond their banks in the April storm, claiming the lives of a 50 year old grandmother and her 4 year old granddaughter.

With echoes of May 2006 reverberating in our memories, New England faced another round of major flooding yesterday.

Power was just returned to our street at 9 AM this morning - it had been out since 5 AM Monday.

Less than a 1/2 mile away, locals had to use a row boat to get from their car to their home, and less than 5 miles away, a grandmother and her grandbaby were lost in Little River when they tried to cross what they thought was shallow water to get to their home. A man who made an unsuccessful attempt to save them nearly drowned as all three victims were washed downriver. He was later treated for hypothermia, and released.

I know that what we’re experiencing doesn’t hold a candle to the nightmare lived by Dr. Hébert, but with our 3rd major flooding in two years, and our second extended local power outage in two weeks, we’re a getting a little ragged around the edges.

Husband and son were both out in the last 48 hours, and reported seeing some pretty amazing sites. Newmarket NH residents were being evacuated from their homes into the backs of 18 wheelers; parts of the town soon became completely unreachable, as it did last year. Dozens upon dozens of local streets were rapidly vanishing underneath quickly flowing water, and my son reported seeing a gazebo in Exeter, NH which was flooded to its roof. Getting from point A to point B began to be a race against the rising waters as street after street became impassable. The bridge between Berwick, ME and Somersworth, NH was closed, with the water reaching and flowing over the bridge.

Here in York County, Maine, January has been the warmest and most pleasant month of 2007 … that’s pretty sad, considering we’re in mid-April.

We’re ready for a bit of warmth and sunshine! More than ready!

And now that I finally have running water again (inside of the house, that is) … HOT water … I’m going to go luxuriate in the shower before having to leave for my doc’s appointment this afternoon. Actually … the last appointment I had scheduled with him also found me without power … hmmm … I begin to see a pattern here … 0.o

Leaving those of you who are interested with a few articles to read. I hope to get to a few things which I’m behind on when I get back home from my doc’s appointment today … like the piled up dishes and laundry, the emails in my backed-up inbox, and a live classroom lecture which I need to attend this evening, especially since I missed yesterday’s due to the power outage. It’s amazing how quickly a body can fall behind …

As you sow, so shall you reap. (Cicero)

Wise man, Cicero. A truer truism is to not be found anywhere …

Alas my friends, I am reaping the bitter fruit which was sown by my own hand …

If you look at all of those Meme’s, you’ll find that they have one thing in common: each one them has Vijay as a tag-ee! In fact, I think that the only time I was ever tagged that I didn’t in turn tag Vijay was on March 15, 2007 - An Award - in the Form of a Tag - because someone else beat me to it, and he still got an honorable mention in that one!

Well, just a bit ago, I went to take a peek at my dear friend’s blog, and lo and behold, this is what I saw:

Congratulations to Ian for tagging me before the usual suspect got around to doing it.

And thanks Ian, for giving me an opportunity to do unto the Moof before she does unto me.

Moof, I can’t wait till the end of this post to say this, so here it is…

You Are Tagged

… And he did it with such apparent relish! You would think he actually enjoyed picking on a poor, sweet, innocent, little Moofie … *blink* …

Well, there’s nothing for it but to drink the bitter dregs of revenge … *tries to muffle a stray giggle*

And so, without further whining ado … here are my 5 Reasons for Blogging …

1) Capability - It’s far, far easier for me to write - than it is for me to speak. Although I’ve gotten better at speaking up in the last year or so, my deepest feelings and thoughts still find expression far more easily (if at all) in the written word. Many of the things I write in my blogs would otherwise never find an outlet.

2) Therapeutic Value - How would I ever broach some the of subjects I write about here if I were speaking with someone face to face? Blogging gives me a means to indulge my whims (and needs) … and release the pressure wherever it builds up.

3) Friendship - What began as a mere journalizing tool - soon became an affective, and vital means of reaching out to other people. I’ve “met” people through blogging that I’ve not only become very fond of - I would really be desolate without them.

4) Growth - Reading other blogs has expanded me far beyond anything else I’ve ever done in my entire life. Getting to know people from other cultures and countries, who speak other languages, and live far different realities than my own … and all the while realizing that we are all far more alike than we are different … has stretched me, and caused me to overflow my parochial boundaries. More than anyone else, I want to thank Vijay for that. I have to keep reminding myself that we’re not next door neighbors … நன்றி விஜய!

5) Connectedness - I’m part of something far bigger, far greater, than I could ever be alone … something I’m fiercely proud of, and which I believe has the capacity to change the world - one reader at a time. I feel connected to distilled purpose - driven by the the gift of so many who continue to pour themselves into the greater work, unique and individual, yet unimaginably interconnected, and therefore immeasurably powerful.

We have no idea the strength of the material we weave through our blogging …

And now … for my five. I can’t believe that I can’t tag Vijay … 0.o …

1) Ipanema … citizen of the world … in the hushed green of the rain forest, why do you blog?
2) Pattie … sweet and gentle, a thoughtful friend. Why do you blog?
3) Cathy … my fearless friend whom I admire, why do you blog?
4) Fat Doctor … who’s been a guest in my dreaming, of late … why do you blog?
5) Dr. Wes … ahhh yes. You thought, perhaps, that I wouldn’t eventually send it back in your direction? >;o) Why do you blog?

If you link back to the Blog Meme Tracker, you can see who has already been tagged and record who you tag.

He was trusted with people’s deepest fears … their deepest, darkest secrets. He was trusted to bring healing to those who were considered beyond being helped. He was trusted to love - unconditionally - everyone who crossed his path.

And there was a reason for that trust.

Wherever he went, whoever he touched, remembered him - his touch … its effect on their lives.

I saw things come through this man which defied my understanding. The cripple walked, the blind saw … an old Irish lady regained a lost life … hardened spirits were healed … he fluttered on colorful butterfly wings and spread his glow to all who asked … and he was trusted, and loved.

I know, because I trusted him, and I loved him.

I was drawn into his circle of love and healing, and helped him to feed his broken and despairing followers … and as I watched him reach out his healing hands, in awe I trusted him, and I loved him along with all of the others.

His butterfly wings carried him for a while to a green country across the sea, and while he was there, he was trusted, and he was loved. He became so trusted and so loved … that he needed protection from his adoring faithful, who would certainly have taken him apart to bring pieces of him home as a talisman - a talisman that was capable of giving life where there was death, and of bringing hope where hope had long since died …

And I missed him while he was there, because he was my spiritual father, and because I trusted him, and I loved him.

When he finally fluttered back home, I drew him into my circle, and tried to cover everyone around me with his healing touch … because I trusted him, and I loved him.

Fleeting friend … heart breaking … but still, I trusted him, and I loved him.

Then came a day when bastions of trust were crumbling from one end of the world to the other. Although the absolvers of men’s deepest secrets became repositories of tales never repeated, their own secrets began to emerge … first in tiny dribbles, and then in a nauseating flood of mind-numbing reality.

My friend … my spiritual father … seemed to be caught in this deluge of filthy, muddy waters … and I cried for him.

And still, I trusted him, and I loved him.

Night time only lasts for a while, and then the sunlight crests the horizon of our awareness, and casts its long, revealing rays on what was once mercifully hidden in the darkness …

With shattered trust, I still loved him.

They tore off his wings, bound his hands, and encased him in mortar and stone. From a colorful butterfly that everyone wanted to grasp, he had become a source of derision, a thing despised … an outcast.

And still, I loved him.

But the love had changed … it was no longer a love full of wonder and awe, but the sad love a friend feels for another friend when the inevitability of past actions comes home to crush the soul.

For months, I tried to bring a bit of joy to this friend, encased in mortar and stone … because I could remember that this friend, this human being, in spite of his mistakes, had given so much of himself to so many in such an unselfish and healing way …

It hurt to think that the hands which had brought healing and life to some, had also brought pain and brokenness to others. But don’t we each, in our own way, follow that same path? Don’t we each, in our own way, bring life and love to some, and hurt and pain to others?

We are, none of us, above the human condition …

He told me: “The chorus keeps echoing in my mind, over and over. I wish I remembered all the words!”

For the first time since I’d known him, I was unable to give him the music he asked of me … but I told him the words, and watched them impact his understanding. He realized that he wasn’t alone, he wasn’t forgotten … even as his now frail body weakened, falling to the harsh conditions surrounding him.

Too soon afterward, when I went to drag just a bit of sunlight into his gray, chill world, I was told that he was no longer there. His spirit had broken the fetters, grown new wings … and no one would ever encase him in cold, hard stone and mortar again.

And I thought about him through my tears, and I wondered what he had felt just before the end … what he’d thought … if he’d realized that he was finally getting his wish - to be free again. I wondered if he knew that I understood, because I am human too, and that in the end, I still trusted him, and I still loved him.

The midterm is behind me, and the assignment is passed in. My grades for both came back … and I somehow managed to keep my score in spite of everything. With that week behind me, the new one presented with a whole new set of challenges … a new (even gnarlier) assignment, a follow up with my brand new primary care, and trying to get caught up on what I hadn’t done last week …

Well …

I managed to get out and get my bloodwork done, and take care of a few other loose ends - and I was all set to go! However, the day before the appointment, it began to snow. We got reports of people dying on the roads because of the traveling conditions being so dangerous. Throughout the day, the snow looked more and more like a white sheet of lace flowing past my windows, and I wondered how well any of us were going to weather this one …

At about 1 AM, I sent off my last email, and started quietly playing some Enya on my lap top to fall asleep by, however it wasn’t too long before I had to shut it down, because we’d lost our electricity. The electricity was still off when I woke up in the morning, and as the time for my appointment drew near, I wondered if I would be able to get the car out of the yard … moot point, actually, since I wasn’t going anyplace without a shower anyway. So - I called the doctor’s office (they had power) and explained my situation. I have a feeling that I wasn’t the only one they’d heard from! The area had only isolated pockets of power … although the hospital and large medical buildings were apparently running on their own generators.

Since I couldn’t keep my appointment or log into my classroom, or … well, do much of anything at all, I decided to get bundled up, and go out into that frosty tableau and snap a few pictures. So, here is a new Snow Study I’d like to share with you …