I was early for an appointment recently. I know. I know. What, me early? But I was, and I wandered around the garden soaking in the springtime changes.

Not to let the moss gather while I wait for the appointed hour.

And if you can identify the content of this next photo, you win the brass ring fersure.

All images captured on an iPhone with the Hipstamatic app. Settings: Lens, Helga Viking / Film, BlacKeys B+W / Flash, off

What a day! Oh my.

It began last night actually. I went to the Naked Girls Reading show, and was quite enjoying myself–listening to the girls reading aloud from their books. By midway through the second hour I felt that nodding-off feeling creeping up, and that is when I realized: I miss being read to sleep.

My husband used to read me to sleep, and I miss that. So of course I got to mulling on that, and started feeling sad. And then I pondered the recent past, and tried to remember when it was he stopped reading me to sleep. It was a long time ago.

So many “signs” that go unseen, until we look behind us.

So anyway, last night got me off to a little shakier than usual start this morning, and added to that were the torrents of rain that I woke to. Rain, which is not conducive to my moving project, the moving project that I really had to get on, because my husband was coming home from his trip out of town–a little earlier than he had planned even–and I so very much wanted to be done with all of it before he returned to Seattle. So, the rain twanked me some more.

It was going to be okay, though, because I had intentionally set myself up to be able to work a goodly amount under cover–whatever the Seattle weather might decide to do–so I could keep busy sorting through things either in the garage or in the basement of his house.

So I set to it, beginning in the house, because it was pouring soooo hard and in the garage the weather is much harder to avoid. I was in the basement busy trying on clothes, sorting through piles and aiming to keep only those I truly adore and wear. I was working hard, and the pile for giving away was growing bigger and bigger (good for me!).

At some point I took a break and went to stand by the window, looking out at the garden and pond–just staring into the rain mostly, all the nature that was out there.

And then I lost it.

Just a few sobs at first, as my love for the place rose up in my heart, and then crashed with the remembering that the place was not my home any more. And then the sobs grew, and grew some more, and in a few moments there was no more thinking–I was moving into full-on, racking grief.

I found myself a horizontal position there on the carpet, and I curled up to cry. Well, “cry” is an understatement.

I wailed, and sobbed, and generally made a spectacle of myself, alone there in the house that is no longer my home. And the sorrow and pain took over my being, and I let it swallow me whole–for probably twenty minutes.

Not pretty.

In time, I “came to,” gathered myself up, and started to get back to work. But now I was chilled and feeling beat-up, and decided I would indulge in some time in the hot tub. I wrapped myself in a robe, and headed out the basement door toward the tub.

Well, I tried to head out the door, but as soon as I slid the bolt and started pulling the door open, I saw that all those hours of rain had puddled up outside the door, and were seeping into the house. A flood.

Now, this particular basement is susceptible to flooding–from several mechanisms. I won’t go into all of them, I’ll just say that we had been seriously flooded at least twice before, and among other preventative measures, we had installed an ingenious tile floor to protect the basement contents from any other floods.

This flooring consists of interlocking foot-square tiles of slatted bamboo sitting on plastic grids with knobby “feet”–these feet hold the bamboo a good half-inch above the sub-floor. It’s a very swell solution to dealing with a cement floor that might get damp or wet sometimes.

The down-side is, if there is a flood, the water seeps quietly beneath the floor, unseen and sometimes undetected. As was happening today.

Don’t ask me to count how many times I said, “We’ve got to install one of those flood alarms.” We never did.

So there I am, coming down off my little (albeit intense) melt-down, and headed to a relaxing warm-up in the hot tub, and I find myself slogging through a puddle, and hit with the fact that the house is flooding.

And it is not even my house.

And then I get down to the business of dealing with the flood. This includes hooking up the pump (the one we’d used for the last flood); arranging the out-flow to run off into the sewer system (no point in running it into the already saturated ground around the house); and then beginning to tear up the tile floor so I could get on with eliminating the water that had crept in–a good half-inch in some places.

By the time it was all dealt with I had dragged in fans and heaters and brooms and the shop-vac, and a few of hours had passed. Hours that I had intended to use packing up my things and getting them out of my husband’s life.

The floor was still damp when I left this afternoon, and my unfinished packing lingers there as well. I feel unsatisfied about that, but there was nothing to be done about it.

When I got home and finally headed for a warm bath, I saw in the mirror what a wreck I was. I had gone straight from my melt-down and into flood abatement, never realizing that I was wearing my mascara everywhere but on my lashes. Oh well, it’s not like I am busy these days chasing cute boys or anything.

Although I will admit that if I am going to lose my make-up, I would rather it was doing something randy with a swell boy.

It’s still raining in Seattle. No surprise. I dressed a little more warmly today (juice not zap) and find that I am not cranky about the cold. Yes!

In sorting through the nature of my relationships, I’ve found myself contemplating the demise of my marriage (of course) and pondering what it is about me that brought things to this point–without wallowing in some notion that it’s all-about-me, of course.

And I made my list of attributes and qualities of how I relate to others, and saw several things about myself with which I am familiar (ugh).

But it was Ina’s post with the Lunaea Weatherstone tarot card that really made something click for me. It’s these words:

No one blames the queen for being queen, nor does she feel guilty about it. She just IS.

I have such a horrid habit of reducing myself to the least common denominator. Of dumbing down. It’s a residue of childhood, when being smart and being “teacher’s pet” was a bad thing and playing dumb was the way to find acceptance.

And I think that where this leads me is to compromising myself and my possibilities–so that no one will view me as the “teacher’s pet”.

Clearly, this is limiting.

It is true that I adore water, it replenishes my body and my soul. I even love the dance of rain upon puddles and ponds and the magic of watching rain in the distance, rain that hasn’t quite arrived to where I am.

But the chill of the rain unnerves me. It zaps my energy and truly rents my spirit.

Sunshine and warmth “juice” my soul. I am almost inexplicably happy when there is warm sunlight on my skin, and the sky is brilliant blue. It is as if I am directly connected to the energy of fire and it is feeding each cell of my being.

A few years back when I realized there were many bonds holding me to Seattle, I made agreements with myself that I would “repay” myself for the toll the rain takes from me, by driving a convertible (with the top down whenever it is not raining) and to take a winter break each year, someplace in the sun (and probably by the sea).

I have my lovely yellow convertible, but I have failed in the winter break department–with no plans this year to take sustenance in the sun. I can feel my soul’s dismay.

Will I be brave enough and true enough to keep my promise to myself?