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JAN 2023 - Hailstorm

1/14/2023

3 Comments

 
Picture
The skies were clear. The sun was shining. A friend and I started down the mountain. Minutes later, black clouds blotted out the sun. The temperature fell. It began to hail—large hard balls of ice that pummeled our heads and hands and faces. Soon, along with the hail came drenching rain that quickly filled the arroyos and trail with gushing, rushing, water, making it impossible to make our way down the trail. We were shocked that weather could change so dramatically.
We put on our rain gear and stared at the once familiar landscape now barely recognizable. All we knew for sure was that we had to bushwhack our way down on the highest ground we could find. She pointed out what looked like a way—it was—for a minute or two before a wall of rocks blocked our way.

I saw an opening in the trees and suggested we head that way. That also worked for a while but we soon came to an arroyo with water moving so fast and deep we were afraid to cross it.

With the rain and hail unrelenting, we continued exploring ways to get down. I’d been in a similar situation a few weeks earlier and the person I was with kept yelling at me, as if the weather were my fault and that I should know a clear way down, even though the trail and arroyos were rampaging waters, and she was the one who’d suggested the hike. I was grateful that this time the person I was with remained calm. Like me, she recognized the only way to get back to the car was for both of us to try to figure out a possible path. 

It was increasingly difficult to find our way as every little indentation in the earth was filled with branches and rocks pushed on by torrential water. What helped is that we were willing to try each other’s suggestions with no judgment when they didn’t work.

We began to commiserate with each other. The hail hurt. The rain made it difficult to see. We were cold. Water was seeping down our necks and socks even though our boots were waterproof. What normally would have taken us about an hour to get down, now seemed like an endless trek.

Cold and wet, we kept working our way through brush, over rocks, under barbed wire fences. We were hiking in unknown terrain. One thing we knew, we had to go down, not up. Eventually we came to a big arroyo normally easy to walk in. Now there was no way we could cross what looked like a wide roiling river filled with debris.

Fortunately, there was a bridge that crossed the arroyo, but it led to a private house. We trespassed until we came to the road that led to the parking lot. We walked to the car, drenched, freezing, exhausted, and grateful that the two of us, together, managed to find our way. Two heads were definitely better than one.


Have you been part of a group that experienced an unexpected event, requiring a resourceful solution? What was that like for you?
3 Comments
Judie
1/5/2023 07:07:25 am

You always manage to turn hard situations around.

Reply
Claudia link
1/5/2023 07:23:45 pm

Such a story-- you always find a way out of the forests you get lost in. You have the confidence to find your way to safety from wherever you are.

Reply
Marlene Simon
1/7/2023 11:56:16 am

I had just moved to Northern New Mexico to a little village in the beautiful Espanola Valley. I had driven a 17 foot truck all by myself from Los Angeles and knew only two people here. I had so much stuff that I had to rent a storage space but I had no one to help me unpack the truck. Before I knew it, my friend Glenn had called several of his friends and 10 strangers showed up. They were all wonderful and kind and I think very impressed that I had driven all by myself! It was the beginning of a very magical 6 years before having to return to L.A. I returned 15 years later and continue to meeting wonderful, kind, loving folks. There is magic still.

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Nancy King is a widely published author and a professor emerita at the University of Delaware, where she has taught theater, drama, playwriting, creative writing, and multidisciplinary studies with an emphasis on world literature. She has published seven previous works of nonfiction and five novels. Her new memoir, Breaking the Silence, explores the power of stories in healing from trauma and abuse. Her career has emphasized the use of her own experience in being silenced to encourage students to find their voices and to express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with authenticity, as a way to add meaning to their lives.

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