Ten Bricks
Thick heavy rains scrubbed the last of the Canadian wildfire haze from the sky, filling the bowl of the meadow to overflowing and our smoke-weary lungs with fresher air. But I didn’t see the flash flood warning notification on my weather app until after I stood as close as I safely could to the edge of the rushing creek waters that had swallowed our bridge whole. My brother Mike was with us, working diligently on the bathroom remodel, and had just put his tools away for the day. We were lingering over dinner and some much-needed comic relief from “Corner Gas” episodes (a Canadian sitcom from the ‘90s, an un-coincidental viewing choice not at all related to the source of the wildfires) when I went upstairs to close the bedroom windows and caught a glimpse of the brown churning water racing past the trees on the ridge. I ran down the steps, calling out, “You’ve gotta come see this!”, Mike and Patrick close on my heels.
The scene—and the rippling edge of the water climbing the grassy slope to the ridge—stopped us in our tracks. We stood, mouths agape, watching the night’s first fireflies flirting with the blades of grass still poking up from the water and as one, turned our heads to look down the curve of the driveway toward where the bridge was, or might be. The creek had become a river, pushing everything out of its way, tumbling once-solid tree trunks and branches and any unfortunate unanchored forward into a surge of nonstop determination, destination unknown. The bridge was underneath it all, perhaps, either stoically standing firm or randomly missing some of its 6x6 pressure treated planks like a five year old’s first day of school grin. We could only wait until morning to know the worst.
I usually walk at first light, wanting to be blissfully lost in the woods as the birds announce the sun’s rising and the dawn threads its golden fingers through the leafy tresses of the tallest black walnuts and cottonwoods. I’d get there eventually but on this particular Monday after the deluge, I was trotting down the driveway at a pretty good clip, wondering if I’d be calling off work because we didn’t know where our bridge was. Rounding the curve that allowed for a full view of our passage to and from the land, I exhaled at the sight of the bridge still holding fast to the creek’s banks and rocky bed, planks firmly in place where the builders had left them after the most recent upgrade, covered in debris and slick with mud left behind as the waters receded. Bare patches dotted the driveway where once, a thick layer of #4 stones had embedded themselves, giving the illusion of permanence. A good-sized pile of them now sat just beyond the driveway’s sideways slope; it would require a shovel and muscles to return them to their original spot. I pictured myself on some hot day in August throwing my shoulders to the task with a cool bath in our new tub as the reward for my labors. More than a few times, Patrick and I have sent our thanks upward and across the seas to find Mike, now back home and remodeling other people’s houses in Hawaii.
Walking through the meadow, the grass and reeds along the creek banks looked combed as if by some colossal cosmetologist dedicated to directional perfection. Twigs and smaller branches collected halfway up the trunks of sturdier trees, making the resulting wattle-and-daub effect look charming instead of like victims of the watery violence that stranded them there. Three years ago, closer to the base of the ridge near the house, Patrick and I had stacked chunks of cut wood with all good intention of moving it up to the sweat lodge that same week. But I’m sure you understand how life happens and you choose other options besides work, and we left it neatly Jenga’d with a sincere promise to close the deal, soon. The water in its rage must have figured as much and took all but a single column of these wood chunks downriver, leaving a cairn-like stack as testimony to its mercy. I think we’ll keep it as is a while longer. We all need reminders of power and grace.
Equally curious as I surveyed the aftermath was a row of ten red clay bricks I’d plucked from the creek bed one day last summer, thinking I’d use them to edge a small plot of Russian sage near the house. They were heavy—I could only carry two at a time—so I lumbered each pair up the steep creek banks and laid them to rest on the bridge and would get them up to the house later. Post-storm, there they were, random rocks and pieces of punky tree bark shoved up against them, but unmoved by the force that I thought might have eaten our bridge in one bite.
I don’t know how the world really works. How nature and its evolving energy decides what to take and what to leave undisturbed. I know only that when I get to bear witness to the outcome after the fury, it unsettles me in a good way, shaking hands with what is holy and wholly mysterious. If I’m smart, I lower my gaze to my boot-clad feet and find my humble place in the midst of it all, leaving the answers to a Mind that has worked it out far better than I ever could.
For now, it’s enough that I made it to work that Monday morning and had the good fortune to return home just as safely to a bathroom with a working tub, sink and toilet nestled into a new aesthetic that lets in more light.
The better to see things by, I reckon.
