Water Has Memory

One year ago on this day, I walked two miles down Route 14 South from where I was staying in Central Vermont to survey the section of flooding road I had driven across the day before. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened the day before. If not for the evidence of water being and moving where it shouldn't be - across roads and flooding downtowns - it was like any other day in July I had once experienced when I used to live there.

This trip back to my beloved green mountains for the first in over eight years had not at all gone as I had imagined. Showing my partner all my favorite sections of the Appalachian Trail and hiking the Presidentials had been the plan. I managed to get him to Happy Hill Shelter and Mt. Moosilauke.

I had picked up some boxes and bags a friend had kept in storage for me, and found a few newspapers I had saved from August 2011 when Tropical Storm Irene had come through with a similarly devastating effect. I had done a significant amount of flood relief work following that storm, utilizing several of the email list servs for a couple of months. This time I didn't get involved, I was a victim of circumstances. Luckily, he and I had rented a car, and were able to extend the rental for the duration of our stay. The Amtrak rail tracks had been compromised in several spots along the route back to New York City and we would not be able to use it to get there to atch our flight. Nontheless, I felt twinges of guilt and unease at not being in a position to help.

There were only two moments on this trip when I wished I had not left the country. That was one of them. The other was trying to get myself up to St. Johnsbury to visit a dear friend dying in hospice care. So many roads were closed from being flooded out or trees fallen, and my time was limited. But I made it there. The first thing we did upon seeing each other was cling and hug and cry salty bittersweet joy-filled tears. We both knew this would be the last time we would see each other and so we made the most of the relatively brief time we had together.

Thoughts in Time of Moments in Space

Currently Vermont is under a Flash Flood Warning. Once again central Vermont has been struck, this time by the remnants of Tripocal Storm Beryl. The city of Barre is under water, roads have been closed and there are evacuations happening.

Today...

“I hate to say it, but at this point we’re just at the mercy of mother nature,” Barre Mayor Thom Lauzon said Wednesday night.

While I am here in Madrid experiencing the exact opposite, relentlessly dry and sunny, and desperately just trying to keep myself hydrated, my thoughts are with all my friends and their loved ones back home going through this. And I wonder, is this going to be the new normal for Vermont in July. Can we predict the future based on a two-years in a row event that eerily happened on exactly the same days?

If you are interested in helping, here is the link to a page that was set up last year on Vermont.gov, and a good starting point. I'm not sure what links and services are still active on it so please be sure to double-check, but some of them may still be viable.

The title of this diary entry is in honor of a dear friend whose music and my works seem to exist in parallel universes that are connected by our time here in Spain together. They and we simply align. The piece you see a detail of here has been "done" for a while now but I did not feel it was finished. It somehow seemed incomplete.

Heartwork

A friend asked me once when I know my work is done and ready to share with the world. I told him that it's a feeling. I just know. A couple of things had to happen before I would have that feeling and knowledge for this one.

One was singer-songwriter Feroza Cayetano would need to write and release her collection chronicles 'Spring Awakening'. She released it in September of 2022. A six song album, which included a hauntingly beautiful track titled 'Water Has Memory'.

The second was witnessing an oceanic phenomenon called 'cross seas', which is the title of this sculpture. Cross seas, also known as 'grid waves' and 'square waves' are caused by two oceans meeting each other, high winds, water rebounding off a landmass or a combination of the aforementioned. The geometric symphony is best witnessed from high places - drones, a lighthouse. They are incredibly dangerous and will drown swimmers, overturn boats, disrupt sealife. I was walking along the cliff edge of a peninsula and was able to view the pattern on the water, and it was then that I  knew. I knew this sculpture was finally complete and ready to be shared with others.

This is a trailer for the short film I'll release sometime this year, which combines still images of the works, the song 'Water Has Memory', and the cross seas I witnessed last year while exploring Ireland.

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A friend has been telling me for ages to write a book, a memoir, of all my wild past-life experiences. Maybe I'll write a book about my life when I'm older, maybe around 80 (if I am blessed to live that long). I've decided to keep this diary instead.

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