windthread

recent posts

about

you are on your own

it's just now over.  Repeat of yesterday but not quite so much intense.    And this time,  i'd covered the Alfalfa.  

i watch the feeds about Texas.  it's ok,  because it's what is Real in Real Time.  and what always has me on my knees is the animals.  There was one pic of a man in chest  deep water,  walking his blow up mattress,  his Raft,  walking it along and on it was a cat carrier and a dog crate.  i guess a back pack.  His world.  Them and him.

today,  just another Storm.  A BIG storm,  but nothing like that,  6 days now,  but it  brings me into that zone of Empathy.  How it feels to be wet and muddy,  no reprieve.  defenseless.  at the Mercy of.

 

DSCN5707f

i put these scraps here.  They are nothing special.  scraps of clothing from Thrift Shop,  the pieces from Deb…thrift shop.  Nothing beauty Full or Grand,  just scraps and i thought about that,  how way back in the beginning of Spirit Cloth,  Jude Hill,  i was so ecstatic that just  "nothing cloth" could Become anything.  So i was driven today to find a way for these scraps of nothing much really.  

and watching the people in Texas,  i remembered the Bug Out Bag.  This was before i found Spirit Cloth and i was adrift and i found Sharon Astyk,   Depletion and Abundance.  Sustainability.  The first  "blog"   i ever

knew.   Now she is i guess The Chatelaine's Keys,  but i went there to look and she's not blogging with regularity.

Her book:  Depletion and Abundance….Life on the New Home Front.  One Woman's  Solutions to Finding Abundance for your Family while Coming to Terms with Peak Oil, Climate Change and Hard Times.

so bug out bag.  Talk of that then,  2008,  talk of that now.  What would you take?????

I couldn't take my baskets of cloth,  or my pyrex collection.  I would need to rely on Tay being able to hold her own.  Tazmeena,  not so much….she's old.  What about the Goats?  They don't swim.

but,  paring it down,  down to me,  what i might take?

 

DSCN5708f

in this moment,  i would take my spool of silk thread….a light camel….color…neutral that works with the invisible baste of Everything.  a needle or two.  a pencil.  graphite.  2B  and i would take Deb's dirty thread.   From there,  i could Go.  

 

 

Posted in

20 responses to “you are on your own”

  1. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    Imagining the unimaginable, like accepting the unacceptable, might require all your decades of understanding, empathy, intelligence, instinct and courage.
    I’ve had at least one gallon of water, a good supply of batteries, a tiny portable radio, two portable flashlights, a five gallon jar of matches, and a drawer full of candles on hand in the apartment since 9/ll. Since I’m one of the few who still have an ‘old’ land line (not attached to computer) and a princess phone that plugs directly into the wall (sans my answer machine which requires electricity), I was able to call out, and to allow others access when the cell phones went down then, and for the two major storms since.
    However, I have no plan for a flood like what we are witnessing, though I do have important ID in a water proof pouch, a fold up rain poncho and a waterproof back pack fairly easy to dump some clothes and maybe a snack or two in at a moments notice. I would need some notice of course and I’ve no idea where I’d go…uphill if I can walk I suppose.
    Thoughts of disaster make me grateful I no longer have animals to save, or children. Those animals in the photos wrench my heart…Oh, everything that suffers does that.
    Peace for now.

    Like

    Reply
  2. cynthia Avatar
    cynthia

    ..for me..for awhile now..it is always the thought of my husband’s medicines that haunt me…laughing ..because really what else is there..when they suggest that you keep a week to a month’s back up supply…wondering if “they” have ever tried to even get a few days extra…
    the unimaginable ..imagined.. as the events of this hurricane play out in front of us..so unbelievably grateful to feel safe here so far away…
    gentle day grace

    Like

    Reply
  3. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    The videos of people helping people .. I just watched a video of for miles and miles nothing but people driving in with their boats wanting to do nothing more then help. After so many months filled with hate and division… I’m seeing nothing but people helping people and yes the animals.
    I love you Grace!

    Like

    Reply
  4. joanne Avatar
    joanne

    The Cajun Navy. They came from Louisiana with their low sided boats. True Heroes.
    The police chief who gave his report of his “lost” policeman (drowned) first in English and then in Spanish. Moved me to tears.
    and I think about those idiots chanting “Build the wall”. Why? to keep out the police chief and the policeman who died trying to get
    to stranded people????
    Did you see the story of the dog who went missing and when they found him he was carrying a bag of dry dog food.
    he had somehow gotten into a store and helped himself to a bag of food. A true survivor.

    Like

    Reply
  5. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    It is hard to say right now with so many people losing everything in Texas, but we are looking at a wildfire that could take our mountain house. It is so close. It is a second house for us and we have everything we need here, but it is home to my son. We have all worked on it for two years. We took rugs I made and ones we bought at the Navaho auction, family furniture and quilts. What do you take? Doesn’t depend on survival here but does mean something.

    Like

    Reply
  6. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    my passport

    Like

    Reply
  7. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    I always keep my passport up to date and in a safe place, everything else is replaceable… Wendy who owned Ariel P Cat’s sire Oberon said last year that she packed her copy of “An illuminated Book of Cats” along with her cats when they had to evacuate for a bushfire

    Like

    Reply
  8. Victoria Davis Avatar
    Victoria Davis

    Here in the pacific northwest, ‘they’ tell us to be prepared for a really big event. Earthquake. Volcano. Tsunami. The plates under us are gonna give.
    How do you prep for that? We are told it’s best if we have 2 weeks worth of provisions. I think we need a self inflating boat too….
    One picture of a kiddy pool being pulled along. In the pool, 6 or 7 small dogs and a pen in the middle with what looks like a monkey inside it.

    Like

    Reply
  9. grace Avatar
    grace

    yes. back in the Astyk days, i didn’t have Goats. Dogs and
    Tazmeena. We could somehow do it. I thought more about all
    that today…about storing essentials, etc. and it didn’t
    touch me then and it still doesn’t now. I am comfortable with
    just going. Forward. from any moment. is that true?, am I
    really?….yes. i am pretty sure that’s True.

    Like

    Reply
  10. grace Avatar
    grace

    yes…wet, innundated with mud and moisture….eeeeee…i would not want that…i watch and watch how they slog through. today was back to Sunny as the days ahead are forecasted to be…so
    just two days of drenched was way enough…i watch them, knowing the long haul ahead for them….how humans WILL BE resilient… and they will. The stories that will come from it all.
    even in those Astyk days, as i said above to Michelle, i can’t
    find it in me to stock up. But rather meet each day as best i could.

    Like

    Reply
  11. grace Avatar
    grace

    i love you back, Tina. We see with the same eyes.

    Like

    Reply
  12. grace Avatar
    grace

    tonight i read that a few food places have reopened….”mexican
    food” they said. and i smile slightly and nod. Yes. Who feeds us. Who has the wherewithall and the wisdom to know how to feed us.
    i did. i saw that video of the dog carrying…but as it goes,
    there was no continuation or explanation….the video just
    freezes at a point so i love that you tell me the rest of the story….he helped himself. YES!

    Like

    Reply
  13. grace Avatar
    grace

    not hard to say….the Fires. Those things….such Great and
    Deep meaning. I know how you love that place and loss of it is no less because you have other shelter…it’s loss of Heart.
    I didn’t realize you are in that band of fire…you are in the Prayer Basket that Patricia made. It is full of prayers of their kind. Let me know when the all clear comes. please.
    Love and Love

    Like

    Reply
  14. grace Avatar
    grace

    i haven’t had one for Years

    Like

    Reply
  15. grace Avatar
    grace

    if, as it is referred…if the shit hits the fan, any shit, any fan,
    my feeling is that it will be resourcefulness of the Heart that will pull any of us “through”. self inflating boat…funny….today i thought that
    if i lived in any coastal flood zone, i would have a life jacket. I would have animal life jackets if there are such things, but then i think, oh, eeeeewhatabouttheGoats and i know that we would just do anything that was Next.
    didn’t see the kiddie pool one. People love their animals. This touches me.

    Like

    Reply
  16. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    comes with being an immigrant & especially in this strange 21st C world with border crossing getting more difficult

    Like

    Reply
  17. annalisa sorensen Avatar
    annalisa sorensen

    The Cajun Navy, the Mosques and furniture stores that took people in… there is so MUCH in it. That book sounds interesting (another for the reading list)

    Like

    Reply
  18. grace Avatar
    grace

    such an opportunity to witness Humanity.
    Sharon Astyk is an extremely brilliant woman….i’ll have to go see if
    her original blog is still available….

    Like

    Reply
  19. Dakotah Avatar
    Dakotah

    The needles stuck in the top of that cone made me laugh. I do that, too, of course. Maybe all us stitchers do?

    Like

    Reply
  20. grace Avatar
    grace

    you go back….funny….i’m here, on october 26..almost falling asleep at this keyboard and i see you here…
    yes, i do that. Probably not a good idea, probably weakens
    the threads?, but i do it

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment