Mini Evac 2 - Day One - The Gifts

I’m not sure why I’m calling this a mini-evac, rather than just an evac. I think it’s because it makes me feel better, which is a decent enough reason. We are yellow, not red, I mean, our house is in the yellow zone rather than the red zone on the official mud flow map. That means that I’m packing to be out of the house for a couple of days, maybe through the weekend, not packing as if I might not have a house, or anything in it, after tonight’s anticipated storm hits. I’m leaving rose quartz Ganesh, the art, Ax’s baby blankie, the piles of admin, at home.

So we’re lucky. I’m lucky. And even the red zone folks, the ones who get it, feel lucky. We’ve all got plenty of time to make arrangements to be elsewhere. And this time no one I know is letting evac fatigue override the official notice to get out whether you’re yellow or red. Get out. We’re all safe. Let’s keep it that way.

It’s weird though. The hotels downtown don’t seem to be offering evac rates this time, not yet anyway. People downtown can’t understand what it’s like to move out, again, for realistically, realistically, an unknown length of time.

And realistically, realistically, no one really knows what’s going to happen. We don’t.

But none of us ever do, really. And that’s the gift of this terrible, awful, unfathomable situation.

The gift, for me, one of the gifts, is the opportunity to think about how do I keep going given that I don’t know how my world may radically change at any moment, that I could lose everything, suddenly, and I have no control over that at all? Now what?

They’re talking about closing the freeway preemptively, I guess to keep it clear for clean up trucks, or keep it safe for folks who might get smushed by flying boulders while driving.

The schools are all doing different things. Our school has an evac campus on the other side of town, another school is sending the kids home to be “home schooled,” another school has moved campus for the next month until rainy season is over.

We’re all figuring it out. At our regular morning school assembly yesterday our principal announced to the kids that the campus we would be going to today has a really big playground and they all cheered. Ax’s classmates jumped up and down and clapped while squealing. The cooler third graders hooted and made “raise the roof” motions with their hands.

So today Ax gets to go to big playground school, Cleo gets to go to the kitty spa, and I get to be grateful for this life. It’s all a gift. I’m gonna keep going.

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