No Flash Flood Warning

I rolled out of bed. I was acutely aware of the pain. My neck, my back, my body had been aching for months. At this point, the discomfort was a blemish that I covered best I could most days. I took care of my posture and gait, camouflaging the agony. A smile was generally enough to sell the act. When people see you smiling, they can either assume you're doing great, or they can happily attend to their own blemishes without the bother of acknowledging yours, even if they know it is an act. I often took snapshots of the emotional disquiet that my physical discomfort caused to those who loved me. "Stop carrying that load. Put that pain down. I can't handle seeing you this way. See a doctor." Many of us agonize over how to take their pain away but if we're honest, we'd be just as happy if they could just find a way to cover it up. If we can't see it, if we can obscure the memory of it, then we can pretend it never existed. But if the pretending doesn't work, then maybe just maybe it must be a season for the pain. Trouble don't last always, right? Seasons eventually have to change.

It was fall. The temperature was changing. I crawled from under a calico quilt of blues, greens, and creams with prints of flowers and leaves very different from the ones that grow in my southwest garden. It was a beautiful morning. My day was full of busyness. I had plenty of administrative work to do for my nonprofit, a veggie garden to tend, household chores to tackle. The temperature was cool, and the air was delicious. We'd had some rains the week before and they had washed away the dust of summer and the aroma of changing colors hung on the wind --- blaring, bold, and audacious dissonant chords for the song of the season. No rains were forecast for today and so my expectations were blue skies and lazy schooner sail clouds; makeup was skillfully applied to the pain in my body. I sailed through the day on the clouds in the sky.

Flash Flood Warning. There was none. Devastation rarely signals its own coming. In the spring, these wispy blades of green appear. At first glance, I thought they were some unknown wild grasses. But no, not grass. And then, I thought, maybe onions. Are they wild onions? But no, not onions, either. And so, I asked the ones who would know, the seasoned gardeners, and they told me that the wild rain lilies appear before the monsoon rains and their flowers would open with the rains. And they did. That spring I was warned by the flowers that the rains were coming. But just a few months ago, no flowers signaled to me before the storms washed away the life I had known, the family I adored, the future I had expected and the person that I had worked my entire life to become. In an instant, a bit of news had washed me back into that bed, adding my tears to the flood waters. I was no longer floating on clouds. I found myself adrift in my agony and that bed would be my boat for several months to come.

During this time, my people would beg me to plant flowers. They would beg me to roll out of bed and use that same makeup that I had been applying to my physical pain to cover the emotional pain that saturated my every thought and movement. They couldn't bear to see it. It didn't seem to matter that I could barely bear to bare it. But some of the same loving people who pushed me to see a doctor for my physical pain, couldn't understand when I sought out a professional for the emotional pain. As a result, I saw less of them while I bore the therapy work of confronting and diminishing the hurt. And just as the physical therapy did not completely rid me of the physical pain, this therapy will not completely rid me of the emotional pain. I may walk differently after this. I may talk differently after this. And that is ok. I don't hide my pain to protect other people. I carry my pain with dignity because I do not owe it to the eyes of a prying world. I may choose to share it with my people, those who love me. And that choice is not to garner sympathy but to lean into the love, care, and concern of their support.

This is not the first time that the floods have come without warning. I've tried to find a balance of being authentic with the world about my struggles in hopes of encouraging others. Faith is not pretending that nothing has happened. Faith is an unwavering understanding that through it all, God is there providing, healing, comforting. This is not the season for pain, but every season has its pain. What's the difference? The flowers fade, the leaves fall, the seeds die, the fires burn, and the waters flood. Pain comes and pain goes and although there may remain some residuals, the seasons continue to turn. Will I cover the residues as I continue to heal? Who knows? Some days I may. But others I may sway slowly under the weight of the naked raw memories, crying into an unexpected changing wind and praying to God that the rain lilies signal to me. And yet, I'm not even sure that a flood warning could ever make impending destruction any easier to bear.