Strength in Numbers

On By Tamara BrownIn Home, Nature, Photography, Spirituality8 Comments

Legions are preparing for a new world order as we speak. After a year of focusing on HOME as my word for 2025, I wake up to the low rumble of construction for yet another storage unit a few blocks away. Nearby, the factory pumping out the country’s latest brands of weight-loss injectables hums day and night. Every few hours ambulances from the emergency center in our neighborhood sound their distant war cries, and a new population of the city’s unhoused trudge up and down our sidewalks on the way to local food kitchens and shelters. 

This is where I call home, very aware of what is coming. I don’t need the news to tell me.

My sleepy little bungalow neighborhood was created 100 years ago to house the workers for factories and the limestone quarries that supplied our nation’s capital. The modest homes here have witnessed one world war, numerous conflicts, civil protests, cultural revolutions and the built-in obsolescence by technology. Generations of families often stayed at the same address while other houses succumbed to so many rent cycles that you will often receive mail from multitudes of previous tenants if the mail carrier is new to the route.

Meanwhile the giant sugar maple in our backyard has overseen the last seventy-five or more years of transition as one by one her comrades fall to utility crews, windstorms and even a tornado in the early 2010s. She has lost a few limbs over time but her trunk is too wide for me to reach around. She stands tall on the hill, her foliage shielding our old house from harsh summer heat while providing a ruby-red glow in the fall that can be seen from all over the neighborhood. 

An old aerial photo from a book about our neighborhood shows this mighty tree in her infancy around 1949. But her spirit feels much older and her roots reach great distances because of the limestone shelf underneath. She still communicates with the ghostly remains from long-lost crumbling trunks as well as younger trees who have gained footholds in neglected fence lines. My 80-year-old neighbor tells me that our backyard was once home to the neighborhood’s best-producing persimmon tree with the most delicious fruit. No doubt the maple misses that friend and many others while still remembering the kids and pets that used to play in the yards. Now these spaces are mostly quiet and the few children who live nearby stay inside all day.

I visit my grandmother maple daily and despite the shade she casts that stunts my vegetable garden every summer, I cheer her on with love and admiration. Her towering presence gives me hope when life seems grim so she has become my role model for 2026’s word of the year, STRENGTH. Along with the resilient deer, the hearty winter birds and the hibernating creatures who patiently wait in their underground dens, I look forward to weathering winter’s storms and humanity’s travails to emerge refreshed in the spring. 

After all, I have work to do amid the chaos of change, and simply witnessing the miracle of longevity in my little part of the world can make a difference. 

The Long Way Home

On By Tamara BrownIn Home, Nature, Photography2 Comments

I found the seeds from my volunteer New England asters everywhere this fall — clinging to my pants, nestled in the dark depths of my pockets, burrowed deep into my shoes. They think they’re home but it’s just part of the journey to someplace fertile where they can grow roots. They have temporarily landed but there’s still a long way to go before the final destination. 

Looking back on my own brief landings while traveling life’s multi-layover ride to eternity has been quite the trip inventory, one that I’m not sure I signed up for. I’ve counted twenty homes since I was born. Some I already knew were temporary flings and some crushed me like the infatuations that look so good on the outside until you walk in the front door and find nothing behind them but a stage prop. 

There’s no doubt that I’ve had trouble taking root anywhere for long. Part of the problem was trying to live according to other’s expectations and vicarious demands. Another issue is my inability to find the address to my actual identity. I keep ending up stuck in cul-de-sacs or veering off dead-end streets. Along the way I’ve learned plenty about what works and what doesn’t, who is reliable and who is a detour, and the passions I keep coming back to even after the demolition dust clears.

Now after weeks of decluttering, a year full of lost relationships and a remodeling of my mind, the empty rooms sit waiting for my true self to show up. What I’ll look like is hard to say. I’m just as clueless as most who thought they knew me in so many past iterations. Lately there have been moments of recognition in the long gaze of the backyard doe, a crow’s call to action high overhead, the sweet kisses from summer’s sweat bee on my arm and a few hard knocks in the head by our resident squirrel throwing nut shells at me. 

Whenever I truly make it home and find myself, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Letting Go of the Past

On By Tamara BrownIn Family, Minimalism, Photography4 Comments

As I cart off yet another car load to the donation center I recall the minimalist I was when I began this blog in 2009. There were twenty “Letting Go” posts that year featuring two departed pets, a daughter who left for college and the final analog broadcast on our little black and white television set. I was about to enter my 50s which seems so young to me at present. Now I stand at the threshold of life’s final stage considering what to bring along with me.

A few weeks ago I found a little book called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson, a Scandinavian woman who dealt with the hoarded estates from her parents, in-laws and husband over a short time period leading her to develop a decluttering system by asking a series of questions. Besides the immediate “Will I use this item again?” the most important question is “Will this create a burden for someone later?” Unlike other systems where you keep only what gives you joy (Marie Kondo) I am more concerned about leaving my only child a mountain of misery. Margareta and I are both visual artists and I found her approach no-nonsense and refreshing. Any art that she didn’t feel good about she recycled or destroyed after checking with family who might want a piece.

Unfortunately, I can’t be so nonchalant about my artwork. I grew up with an artist mother who was demanding and critical, at once hating her art and wanting to be surrounded by it in later years. I peeled off art phases like an onion while going years without being creative until my daughter was born. Early on it became clear that she loved art and so I was determined to support her creativity without burdening her with the destructive family patterns surrounding our artwork. For me art pieces can hold an entire history of muscle memory, what I was feeling at the time, a pictorial time capsule. Writing has a similar effect but for me the art is stronger. Saying goodbye to art supplies and good intentions can be scary but also liberating. My current space limits help me keep the art small, contained in sketchbooks, moleskine journals and tiny canvases. The oil and acrylic paints have been replaced by micron pens, colored pencils and watercolor kits.

Clothes and books are fine-tuned to who I am now rather than who I wanted to be. Slowly I see myself without a cloud of shoulds or coulds blocking my vision. Now in my sixties I want to view my possessions as what I’m leaving behind rather than what more I can acquire. This feels freeing. The photos and few family heirlooms will be sorted soon. Together as a family we will go through the many memories, tell the old stories and decide which highlights to keep. The rest can be let go.

I have very few photos from my early years and don’t expect that I’ll have access to any more. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. I can’t imagine how the younger generations will manage the excessive amounts of tapes, DVDs and digital material that document their lives. An old black and white photo may outlast all of modern media and only one is enough to remind me that on my first birthday I was gazing into my future while gripping the present reality. I am doing the same now.

Steady on.

Picking Peppers

On By Tamara BrownIn Family, Food, Gardening, Photography, Work7 Comments

In the early evenings my family stood at the end of a field gripping our five-gallon buckets preparing ourselves for the plunge into jungle. The once perfect rows were barely visible above a sea of weeds that seemed to move in waves on the wind. In 90-degree heat our picking armor consisted of long-sleeved shirts, pants, heavy shoes and gloves that proved no match for the sawgrass and thistles, lingering capsicum stench released from rotting pepper flesh already burning our nostrils.

Even in a clean field the work of picking peppers, filling our buckets and then hauling them to the giant wooden box that took up the entire bed of my father’s full-sized pickup truck was backbreaking. Anyone who’s grown peppers knows how fragile the plants and fruit can be when handling. We became expert at snapping peppers off stems without too much damage but untangling the weeds to find the fruit always ended in branches splitting from the main stalk causing leaves to wilt and any future harvests to wither.

A half hour into the process, my little brother was already sitting on his empty overturned bucket tossing over-ripe specimens in the air hoping that they would land on me. And sure enough one of his attempts eventually hit its target as fermented pepper juice streamed from the top of my head down into my eyes. Meanwhile my parents grimly carried on hauling buckets piled high with green, sometimes red, and (one time only) hot banana peppers to the truck where it was hit or miss whether the peppers actually made the toss over the high bar. Frustrated, Dad finally lifted the box provided by the canning company to the ground with chains and a front-end loader so we had easier access.

This move still didn’t help with our herculean task. As the clock ticked for perishable produce it took many trips and countless tedious hours to fill the bottomless box. And only when the giant crate was full to the brim could you drive it to the local processing plant and be paid. While picking I wondered where it had all gone wrong, recalling our bright optimism in late spring over the two or three acres of freshly prepared soil, smooth as silk, lined with rows of little green starts that came bundled together by rubber bands, hundreds of them in varieties determined by our nationally known canning company, the main employer in the area. Our goal was to make extra money from a cash crop that would supplement my dad’s grain farming income. Each family member had their own plans for the pay: my mother’s was saved for the annual New England antiquing trip, my brother’s for his uniform in the local reenactment militia, my father’s toward whatever farm machinery or vehicle was broken down at the moment, and mine already spent on my first pair of contact lenses that finally replaced the thick eyeglasses.

With peppers and many other fruits and vegetables, almost every step of farm to table involves labor by hand. There is no machinery that can do it all. The first planting year my brother and I lay on our bellies on a platform attached to a hydraulic lift on the back of our tractor that barely skimmed the ground. We dropped the starts into a furrow as my dad drove slowly along the field while I tried not to get dizzy from working backwards. The next year Dad borrowed a planter with little pockets like the seats on a ferris wheel to place the plants that would be carried down and landed like riders unloading at the carnival. We’d bust out laughing when occasionally one was planted upside down with roots sticking up out of the soil like some ridiculous underwater sea creature.

My dad cultivated between the rows for as long as he could to remove the weeds, but eventually the day would come when the plants grew too tall to pass under his tractor. Currently there are herbicides and mulch to combat the weeds but for me and my brother that’s when the hoe work was supposed to commence under boiling hot summer sun. Needless to say there was not much incentive and the ancient crochet hammock in the shade called too loud and often to make a dent in the green haze that you literally could watch grow in the humidity. Even by fall when the air cooled off the work was hard and intimidating. We fell behind and left much in the field. After frost my father mowed and plowed under the brown stalks, blackened branches and shriveled fruit until only specks of our unharvested shame littered the field. What we were paid for the amount picked was not enough to cover the time and effort but our purchases from the cash helped ease the embarrassment.

After a few years we walked away from the field to find easier income. I left for college. The rest of the family moved to hillier land with different agriculture. My father quit growing for the canning industry and switched to another form of farming, still fighting a losing battle in the waning days of the small family farm. No one in my family but me could ever eat another pepper again, let alone grow them. The respect I have for those who endure the long hours and physical hardships spent in the fields only grows the older I get. The scope of our monoculture food production has reduced harvest to menial labor when it was never taken for granted in ancient cultures, only celebrated. On this Labor Day I think of how much we owe the ones who bring food to our tables and wish that someday we honor the work instead of demean it.

Make Yourself at Home

On By Tamara BrownIn Gardening, Home, Nature, Photography2 Comments

It all began with a few twigs and dried grass along the low windowsill on the garage right next to our patio. After a week there was suddenly a robin’s nest, beautifully sculpted out of mud, garden leftovers and determination. The nest was level to our waists and close to where we walk on our way to the backyard. We attributed this foolhardy location to a young bird couple who was enthusiastic but inexperienced. And then nothing happened for weeks. So we removed the nest hoping the robins would rebuild in a better spot and considered the problem solved.

Until we saw the sky blue egg just sitting on the bare windowsill.

Luckily the original nest was still intact and dry under our enormous maple tree, so my husband guiltily replaced it, gingerly installing that egg into the center of the bowl. Sure enough, the robin was back to lay another egg until there were four perfect potential orbs. We did our best to avoid flushing the dedicated mom, checking before we walked out our backdoor to skirt around the other side of our garage, but she was always looking around the sill at us ready to fly away.

Meanwhile, a local rabbit decided to start digging a shallow depression for her nest in the flowerbed a foot away from our patio near the robin abode. At this point we were resigned to becoming invested in all the new neighbors moving in even though some would likely devastate the garden cover they used to camouflage their offspring.

The weather this spring was cold and rainy, of course, as we worried like expectant grandparents over births that we had no control over. Still, we can’t help anthropomorphizing nature through our human hearts and rooting for creatures that could really do without us and our destructive ways. But urban wildlife knows how to adapt and as the world spun out of control last spring, I took their attitudes as a lesson to emulate as best I could.

Eventually the eggs began to hatch and bunny fur started to fly when the days warmed up. Every morning my husband and I stepped out to check on the “kids” before breakfast and our day could begin. One afternoon, I sat on the patio and watched the rabbit’s nest begin to move. As I stood over the silky cloud of grass and fur I could see the naked pink outlines, no bigger than my thumb, so defenseless, no mother in sight. I marveled at their vulnerability and trust, something I have struggled with all my life.

Three of the robins’ eggs hatched, the parents hardworking and protective. The robin dad could see us through the window when we entered our garage and would stand there glaring at us on the other side of the glass, legs astride the edge of the nest while hovering above his offspring like a feathered John Wayne or Gary Cooper. He fought off other birds in the backyard and fed his young just as much as his partner. We were quite impressed with their dedication.

One morning the rabbit babies were gone. We don’t know who moved them — or ate them. But for the time they spent in our yard, they were welcome. All three robin kids made it out of the nest despite easy access for neighborhood cats and squirrels. After that we have no idea what became of them, but one young robin hangs around our yard and often lands within a foot of us. I like to think that the birds became so used to our presence that we’re just part of the scenery to them, as they are to so many humans.

I’ve been gone for many months from this blog, focusing my time on creating a sense of sanctuary as part of my word for the year, “Home.” While the outside world becomes scarier, I have retreated inward to what I think I can control. But that’s just a false sense of security and my wild neighbors remind me of this. There is always risk in life, full of danger and disappointment no matter what species you are. But you lose the opportunity to discover new people and places if you don’t venture from the nest and take chances.

And as usual, my limited vision is no match for the universe’s message that what applies to one is true for all.

Busy Hands

On By Tamara BrownIn Gardening, Health, Photography, Work4 Comments

There is a saying “Busy hands keep a calm mind” that I have put into practice this month. As the world becomes crazier, my hands itch to grab a needle and yarn, untangle a stubborn knot, or darn the hole that consistently reappears in my comfiest sock. If all else fails, I rifle through my seed collections looking for the next fix in my quest to produce something green as harsh winter weather persists through February.

The onion seedlings have made their chaotic debut once again, like drunks at a wild reunion in a crowded disco, flailing their little arms with springy determination. Every once in a while I catch one flinging a green-fingered bird at the hate and abuse rampant in the world today. I take strange delight in their rebellion and strive to encourage more of the same in my own errands and chores.

For me, dropping a hopeful seed into the darkness and then covering it with earthy comfort does more than hours of still meditation or guilty doom scrolling. My hands can best be used to hold books about rebel gardening or light the earth’s biggest sage bundle to cleanse all the ills of humankind. Organizing, purging, culling countless files of paper, daily art practice, and when all else fails, some light dusting help ease the anxiety. However, hardcore housecleaning is reserved for national emergencies or visits from annoying relatives.

I can’t wait for spring when the soil is soft enough to bury myself into the ground. Maybe I’ll dig that hole to China that I always wanted to finish as a kid. Or perhaps I’ll arrange stones into my own personal Stonehenge and build a teepee out of sticks in my backyard. The tasks of childhood start to make more sense from a mental health standpoint now. How can people stay mad at each other when they’re trying to keep their fort from falling out of the tree.

And when old age finally does a number on my temporal lobe cells, I hope to find solace in the little puzzles and brain teasers my grandpa used to love, or discover a savant-like recall of my Rubik’s cube days. As long as my hands are busy exploring the physics of volume and capacity (i.e. playing in the bathtub) I’ll be happy.

Home Stories

On By Tamara BrownIn Family, Home, Photography4 Comments

We celebrated Christmas at my daughter’s new home as is our custom whether she lives in an apartment or a house. Last December’s holiday was special because she actually owns her place now, and though furnishings were sparse and the walls a little bare, we had a wonderful time watching favorite holiday movies, listening to Christmas carols and baking our traditional (gluten-free) cutout cookies. On Christmas morning we always gather around her tree and watch her cat play with his new toys while we unwrap our gifts.

My family prides themselves on surprising me most years, and this one was no exception. I never have a clue and they get great delight over the look on my face. This year I was given a long, flat box that was very heavy. The inside revealed two large volumes with a familiar name — Suburban Satsangs! I was astonished to learn that there are companies that can take your posts, pictures and all, and gather them in a hardbound book with an index and chapters for each month. All without me knowing what they were up to. Needless to say I had tears in my eyes.

I confess that 2024 flew by without me noticing that I had reached the 15-year milestone with this blog begun way back in 2009. The first volume holds my entries through 2016 and is considerably thicker than the second volume from 2017 to 2024 when the golden era of blogging began to give way to the instant gratification on social media sites. Even the longer essays and literature have moved on to newcomers like Substack who specialize in “social blogging” and newsletters.

I’ve considered focusing on other platforms and closing shop here on WordPress, but the volumes my family so sweetly gifted me brought back the reason why I began blogging in the first place. This blog is the home where I can write what I want without pressure. It’s the sanctuary where I can find my voice again, lost after early years of brutal academic critiques and a host of failed writing projects. When an essay of mine was published in a local New Age newspaper and then a blog post was Freshly Pressed a year later on this platform, I began to feel like I had something to say that might help people or give someone a different perspective. Often I just need to tell a story about my life.

And every year on this blog, I announce my word for the year. Last year the word was “focus” which helped me finish a few projects, but also stopped me from starting a bunch of them and scattering my energy. Instead, I focused on taking one step at a time, giving myself a break, forgiving my weaknesses, gazing on that total eclipse last April from my own backyard, and then noticing how the world shifted after that celestial moment when the universe became dark and still. I focused on staying fully present for a couple of vacations without being sucked into troubles that I had no control over.

In 2025 I’m bringing the practice of staying present back to my daily life, not just on vacations. I’m carrying the word HOME to my little bungalow that turns 100 years old this year, the gardens that take on a life of their own and give me surprise offerings every day, my neighborhood that teeters (sometimes clumsily) between old and new, and to the changing world my little family faces as we navigate the challenges. I’m also coming home to this blog for another year.

As always I appreciate the readers who’ve followed along over the years and thank the people who helped me set up Suburban Satsangs and supported me in my baby steps including those who are no longer here to comment. But I can look back and hear their voices once again as I hold in my hands the stories of my life. Let’s just hope I don’t find too many typos.

Stollen Holiday

On By Tamara BrownIn Family, Holidays, Photography

I come from a long line of people who make holiday goodies the reason for the season. Sometime before they came over on the boat, I suspect that my immigrant family must have endured a few lean years because their terror of going hungry became an obsession that grew into a yeasty blob that knew no bounds. Evidently somewhere in the mists of ancestral lore, my paternal grandmother created a legendary Christmas stollen that was more precious to us than frankincense and gold.

Sadly she passed long before I came along and her exact recipe was lost to Christmases past. The re-creation was left to rough translations by competitive relatives who could read German while omitting key ingredients that tested my father’s taste buds with a memory of their own. The resulting stollen was unlike anything I’ve ever seen at the international food markets in size and appearance. Coming in at over twenty pounds full of eggs, butter and candied fruit, this miraculous concoction filled an entire cookie sheet and rose to heights well above the treeline of sweet expectations, its peaks dusted with white powdered sugar and forested by slivered almonds that were hand-shelled by the young kitchen serfs (yours truly and my brother).

The family stollen may have looked like a porcupine who had indulged in a few too many spiked eggnogs at the holiday party but it sure smelled and tasted good, especially on Christmas morning fresh out of the oven. Unfortunately the preparation was a herculean culinary challenge that involved hours of precise mixing and exact timing for kneading, rising, punching down, rising up again, and then final loading into the oven at the right temperature to be baked for what seemed like forever, but no longer. Any missteps in the vigorous yeast requirements (not enough proofing or too much time under the tea-towel covers) could spell violations that were later recounted for years like disappointing Super Bowl losses.

Somehow the critical grand finale always seemed to occur in the middle of the night when my mother would miraculously wake up from her brief bread-baking nap on the sofa to wrestle with a removal from the oven akin to birthing the newborn babe. In my family the burning of the bread was a catastrophe far worse than the Bumpus Hounds’ roasted turkey raid in A Christmas Story or the Grinch’s theft of the Who pudding. Of course wasting food amounted to a mortal sin at our house so the burnt crust was cut off and never mentioned again with a silent mental note to make better offerings to the stollen gods the following year.

Since my parents were the only ones who dared attempt this formidable recipe, relatives would come from miles around to partake or receive their own hunks of family history whether they wanted to or not. Years later when I lived far away, a separate mini loaf was mailed to distant lands devoid of the necessary ingredients, according to my parents. Indeed, as fruitcake became the baked butt of regifting jokes and the special mix of candied citrus, non-cancerous maraschino cherries along with pre-slivered almonds grew scarce, my excuse for not carrying on family tradition grew easier.

But the biggest hurdle to preparing The Family Stollen along with many other family recipes like butter cookies (yay) and my mom’s obligatory plum pudding (boo) was my body’s own rejection of essential ingredients like wheat and dairy caused by environmental toxins over the years and ironically, my own family genetics. And while many decent substitutes are available these days to the average consumer, there is still no replacement for legitimate yeast bread that doesn’t require the skills of a chemist.

And I’m okay with that. While I do miss those family favorites my focus in these later years has been on experiences rather than food. I’d much rather indulge in a quiet stroll around the neighborhood to enjoy the holiday lights than spend most of the night babysitting an amorphous bundle of dough no matter how delicious. I’ve discovered new traditions that are easier on the holiday gut (gluten and dairy-free cutout cookies and embellished dairy-free nog anyone?) like visits with family and friends who can still gather together while listening to those old Christmas carols that bring up sweet memories and creating my own special rituals that fill me with joy.

Somehow I have a feeling my ancestors would be doing the same (once they were sure there was plenty left to eat.)

Planting Hope

On By Tamara BrownIn Family, Home, Photography6 Comments

My daughter bought her first house recently. Before 1974 it would have been impossible for her to purchase property and get a loan on her own. And for decades since, that particular American dream was supported if you worked hard enough (by your bootstraps). Fast forward to post-pandemic when skyrocketing interest rates, home values and rent prices along with countless hurdles created by the 2008 housing crisis hobbled younger generations from achieving the same goals that my generation and older enjoyed. Saddled with school debt and low-wage jobs without benefits, their future plans have grown difficult and dim.

Perhaps the American Dream was always an illusion dangled just out of reach by the privileged few of the proper gender and class. Our parents wanted better for us but the dreams were theirs not ours. Some of us suddenly woke up in the middle of our “ascent” and questioned whether the four-bedroom semi-mansion with 2.5 kids, three cars, maxed-out credit cards and a weedless front lawn was the ultimate goal. So then what?

My daughter’s new old house is a little 1950s bungalow in a traditionally blue-collar neighborhood where families raised multiple kids in less than 900 square feet with one or two bedrooms and a closet if you were lucky. Detached garages were a luxury few could afford. Many homes still harbor their original fixtures and hardware, meticulously patched and mended over the years with frugal repairs made when necessary. For the most part, these homes were constructed with materials far superior to anything purchased today.

Their efficient lots are long and narrow, plenty of space in the back for a generous vegetable garden and fruit trees. Most houses still retain the front porches that connected you to your community. Eventually a good many were enclosed to gain more indoor space but those porch supports remain buried inside. Since we live in a college town, the original families who owned the bungalows gave way to student renters and young professionals, but there are still a few holdouts who have aged into their homes. Sometimes homeowners can’t handle the upkeep and let the buildings decline, some are abandoned, a few are beyond saving.

Predatory investors and greedy management companies caused irreparable damage in the past so ten years ago local neighborhoods came together to preserve these old bungalows as part of a historic preservation district. And little by little, there has been a shift from development and speculation to homebuyers returning to live in these early versions of “tiny homes.”

From our front porches during the pandemic my family made critical connections with our community that have endured, even when everyone returned to work and the sidewalks have become quiet during the weekdays. My daughter was able to fulfill her dream of owning a home with the support of the family who moved away, neighbors who found a subletter when the rental company refused to let her break a lease that they had once promised to honor, and the skills of local businesses and services that continue fighting to exist in a world full of corporate greed. There is no limit to the good that can come from connection with the world in your own backyard.

As a housewarming gift, the previous owner left a box full of daffodil bulbs that she had ordered before knowing about the move. My daughter and I will spend these last few days before winter planting hope into ground that has witnessed wars and civil unrest, prosperity and recession, children’s play and the faltering steps of the elderly. May we continue to honor what has been built before us and be good stewards of what has been given to us to tend whether it is a pet, a plant, a garden or a home of one’s own.

In the spring I look forward to see what blooms from the darkness.

Dark Water

On By Tamara BrownIn Home, Nature4 Comments

As I watch the news coming out of the western Appalachians from last weekend, I picture Lake Lure’s flowering bridge lined with its pretty gardens and sweet memorials that I wandered through a year ago, Biltmore Village’s flooded streets along the Uber route that took us to quaint eateries and micro-breweries, the bustling Asheville downtown now full of mud and people clustered outside the only hotel with WiFi, and most of all, realizing with horror that the churning brown monster on my screen was the same innocent French Broad River my friend and I floated lazily along on a magical summer day in our rented inflatable tubes.

I am heartbroken but at the same time morbidly fascinated with the power of water in its many forms. After viewing so many reels that highlight Hurricane Helene’s destruction I sit wondering if the dreams will come back, the ones where the house I live in is picked up by an invisible hand and swept down the rapids, still afloat but heading toward disaster. Like Dorothy, I look out the window as my home twirls round and round, but instead of the Kansas tornado’s inner rings I see the swirls of a giant whirlpool pulling me into some Jules Verne nightmare.

This recurring dream is not without merit. In 1989 my husband and I foolishly decided to ride out the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in a little rental house with our dog and cat at the edge of a slow-moving river in Maryland, thinking that the worst had bypassed us. Instead, we spent a terror-filled night listening to the winds building to the point of breaking while our quiet river became a roiling ocean at high tide that chewed away the soft bank we perched on and threatened to engulf our living room. By some divine grace, we made it through the night but if the surge had been a little bit higher, we and all we owned would not have survived.

As shocking as the storms can be, the aftermath is life-changing. What the water does is hard enough, but what the water brings is another. After Hugo, our little beach was piled high with silt, swamp grass, branches, stumps, whole trees. But the human toll in fence posts, decks, cinderblocks, boards, windows, roofs, along with household items, clothing and a poignant toy or sliding board brings the tragedy home to roost.

Water’s fluid hand can erase and reshape at its whim. Roads vanish, new valleys dug, banks flattened and mud mountains erected. After many days of rain from Hurricane Agnes in 1972, my beloved meadow became an angry river that etched a different course into the lazy little stream I played in as a girl. I had memorized every nook, shallow and bend until that June. From up on the hill I watched debris sail down a dirty twisted ribbon like an armada ready to attack my peaceful sanctuary, destroying the little bridge that connected our driveway to the outside world while dumping its strange loot from upstream into my beautiful childhood haven.

Life was never the same after that storm. We moved away the next summer and I grew into a desperate teenager who tried to swim in my father’s stagnant irrigation ditches, and then as college student, the same muddy river that I nearly fell into with my husband years later. There have been many storms, microbursts and floods. I’ve lived to see storm drain overflow cascading down suburban streets and I’ve bailed out an overwhelmed basement at midnight in my underwear. I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched the TV weather map when Katrina moved in on New Orleans before the levees broke. I’ve evacuated a house hanging by a thread over an estuary because of indecision and neglect, and also abandoned one surrounded by mosquito-filled midwestern field drainage while its interior reeked of black mold after a derecho and denial.

Even though I’ve always loved water and am frequently drawn to its healing energy, I would be reluctant to live close by again. I’ve settled for a birdbath or two in the backyard and a quick trip to the local lake. Daring to actually live on its shores is to tempt the moody water nymphs and unpredictable sea monsters that reside beneath changing surfaces that only reflect and never reveal their true colors.