collapse

just when you think you are getting to the heart of it, the deep place of discontent in a situation that feels so murky and dank- whoooosh! - the world provides you with a perfect example of why you need to shut-the-hell-up.

i needed this.

for weeks, i have had a inner moping going on.  this little irk' of a troll hunched under my breast plate, t'sking and sighing about every little thing.

-those cleans clothes have been on the couch for three days.

-the morning glory are back.  curse them.

-the truck needs the oil changed.  again.

even as i am totally irritated with the troll, let's call her Prissy, i still manage to give her a voice.  a voice that i listen to.  a voice that i totally despise and completely distrust - and yet, i listen to her.  i talk back to her.  i conspire with Prissy, the hunching troll under my breast plate.

which only proves to me that i am even more of a troll than her.

i mean, who gives a troll that kind of power?  if i met a troll, besides being completely terrified and wanting to believe jim henson was somehow in charge of it, i'm fairly certain i would doubt everything that came out of her drooling mouth.  but, in the wicked way of my brain when she says, "no one really knows you, so they can't really appreciate you."  i nod in agreement and <sigh> go on trudging along, dragging my wounded Achilles heal, all decorated up for bonus points (stay tuned for that story).

back to the whoosh.

i am mid-sentence, allowing Prissy to run my mouth to a human ear - a mistake, even when it's called "venting"- when the human is distracted by her husband reporting something ridiculous, like "the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River has just collapsed."

um, no.  not that bridge.  i drive over that bridge all the time.  it's perfectly safe.  it's made out of steel and concrete and cars are always on it.  so, no.  that didn't happen.

but just in case, let's google that.

there it is.  this chunk of bridge in water.  see the people?  they are on top of their cars.  waiting in a jungle of bent metal for someone to get them. to be honest, i have imagined my car winding up in the Skagit.  i drive over the Skagit, on a much older bridge, several times a day.  we live in the flood plain, less than 1/2 mile from a curve of the river.  almost every errand i run involves going over a bridge that spans the Skagit.  i have  i actually thought "remember to roll down the windows" and like a checklist of Things To Do When Your Car Goes Into The River.

like anyone would ever need that.

even as i clearly don't want to wind up in the river, i imagine it.  i don't want to feel the seemingly solid ground sink underneath me in a chorus of screeching steel and snapping cables.  i don't want to feel murky river water rush into my windows and make the feather around my rear view mirror float, my clothes billow, my heart race.  i don't want to meet the troll under the bridge.  or become her.

and there sit those stranded people. there are hunched there, wet from scrambling out of the cold water, atop of the honda, looking up at the helicopters, seeing the crowd thicken along the banks, feeling their skin slowly warm under a persnickety sunbeam - but still their brain is blank except for one pervasive thought:

thank you.