YEAH, I’m posting this just before I go to the next step in my attempt to bring full power back to my house. I replaced the burnt out shutoff switch, now I’m replacing the guts of the panel. This requires shutting off the main breaker down the driveway, and, once initiated, there’s no power until it’s all back together. SO… deep breath and…

I got this photo from Mike Squintz. He’s been dealing with a heavy work demand; too many hours. I’m pretty sure I told him I do whatever I can to avoid total meltdown. Or freeze-up. STILL, here I am putting off that walk down the driveway to the power pole. Another deep breath.

Here is something from my collection, “Mistaken For Angels:”

                           Close to the Ground

Not everyone knows how the heat gets trapped,                                                                   

Close to the ground; Held by the grasses, caught in the trees,

Boxed-up, stacked hard against the back door. Not everyone knows.

But we do. You do.

We know how the cold stringy reach of the ocean can’t reach us… quite.

We are leaned hard against the cliff, Cold and wet against warm, dry rocks,

Afternoon winds streaming up and over the pocket; God’s pocket.

We know. You and I. We know, and we fling a laugh between us,

Out and up, Smashing against the cliff’s highest outward edge, Pieces falling back down, Just enough to cover both of us.

Not the iconic image from the movie “From Here to Eternity,” but, when I couldn’t find a suitable Googled image under, “Couple making out at the bottom of a cliff by the beach,” I thought of this. Perhaps I placed it after (under) the poem because I want any reader to get their own image, perhaps from some memory. Any romantic-ness is a bit optional.

While I have memories of hanging at the cliff side after surfing from California, feeling the trapped warmth, I have another from the Pacific Northwest. Not romantic at all, though the feelings generated by an attraction to riding waves do get entangled with those of lust, love, passion. There’s some indisputable overlap. Not to be purposefully redundant, but with Trish and me, surfing has always been the other woman.

IF WE”RE past this, then, the story: I was surfing a break that required going across a river that I hadn’t surfed before. It was low tide, early spring, sunny, maybe fifty degrees, and I swore I saw a surfer walking back across the river mouth. I caught quite a few waves and was ready to go back across. The guy riding with me hadn’t caught as many and wanted to stay longer. Fine. I pulled down the top of the wetsuit and enjoyed the heat trapped in the berm. Then I tried to walk across the river.

YOU’RE RIGHT, rivers being rivers, there’s always a deep spot. Fifteen feet from the bank, my wetsuit starting to take in water. I thought about how my keys and cell phone were on the safe side of the river, how stupid I was, and, looking up into the sky, I saw a Coast Guard helicopter passing.

NO, I DIDN”T PANIC. It wouldn’t have helped.

THIS IS NOT MEANT to in any way overlap with my electrical adventure. I did a lot of research and I am actually being pretty cautious. Power off, move a bunch of wires, and… more caution. Then, power on.

I’ll let you know how it works out. WHOA! Yeah, I did just knock on wood. OH, I should add; we don’t know what stressors others have, so, while trying to control our stress levels, we might consider not being a stressor ourselves. Okay, considering.

UPDATE: More serious than I had hoped. It has to be something upstream, flow wise. The PUD will have to get involved. Not fully on panicked. Working on the ending to “Swamis.” If I could sell it… Considering. Check on Wednesday.

“Mistaken for Angels” is copyrighted material, all rights reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.