Things stink. So I might as well write about it. Although Topanga is not in Darkest Peru, it is still very like the Amazon. It's one of the wildest areas around L.A. and it took some getting used to when I moved here, even though I'd waited almost thirty years to do so.
When the fierce southern California storm was predicted by our modern erudite weatherpersons, I knew it boded ill for some unfortunate people. I’ve seen what California storms are like,
and that people are never prepared for them, never expect them to be as deadly as they sometimes are. The storm has now passed but in its wake – grief and destruction.
Topanga Creek runs by the front of my house. Every rainy season it becomes an engorged monster. Since it runs between my house and the road, when it overflows from the downpour of water from the mountains and is so strong that it will easily wash away a car, it means that for a few days I am cut off from the rest of the world. The creek was the first thing I thought of when the erudite weatherpersons forecasted bad, bad weather for southern California.
Tragically, a young Topanga man did lose his life in the surging brown torrent. Reports online say he was dared to try and cross it. My 16-year-old friend next door, who was a friend of his, tells me there wasn’t a dare; rather, he just walked in. She said he floated down the current on his back with his arms out crucifixion-style and a smile on his face. They found him wedged in a tree Monday but had to wait until Tuesday to retrieve his body because of the heavy rain and dangerous waters. People have different reactions to a thing like this. It tears me up quite a lot.
We had other tragic deaths in southern California and I am deeply saddened by them. This on top of the tsunami disaster.
Topanga roads were closed so that it was hard or impossible to get in or out of here. A hella lot of non-Topangans travel to and from Malibu, Santa Monica, and the Valley via Topanga. But for a few days, they couldn't; a mile or more down the road an awesome boulder fell victim to the heavy rains and tumbled down onto the road. The solution was to dynamite it smithereens.
Our beautiful boulder was Yahoo's most e-mailed image yesterday.
i grew up reading my mother's favorite poets, so they hang on, like her blackberry pie and early morning solitudes. as a six-year-old child, i favored tennyson & co., as a teen i preferred american poets, and i still like t.s. eliot.
My deepest sympathy goes out to my brothers and sisters around the globe--and here in southern California--for the loss of life and painful suffering that you're enduring.
