Lost in a Flood of Images

My brain flies from one thought to another which is why I take Tai Chi and Yoga classes. After I left stretch yoga class this morning relaxed and focused:

1) I sat down to write about the flow I felt, and how important it is to stretch, relax, take deep breaths, lower my shoulders and smile as I look out the window and see the finches feeding. 

2) I sat down to write about the rabbit holes I've gone down in the last year and just yesterday. They make me laugh so much, especially the one in 1943 about the lady who flew through a bakery window.  (Wichita Eagle) In the best Hollywood "stunt girl" tradition Mrs. Francis Fayette, 532 East Harvard cycling on Broadway last evening struck a bump with her bicycle and sailed over the handlebars. She crashed through a plate glass window in a bakery shop at 718 East Broadway and emerged from the wreckage with nothing more serious than a tiny cut to her left forehead. (In the beginning before Facebook there was the news of the day.)

3) I sat down to write about the Flood of 1951 in Miami, Ok because it was on my mind from reading the News Archives on Miami in the early 1950's. Miami, Oklahoma History  It seems as though most of the newspapers were not saved, leaving a gap in my blog-- Miami Country Club, History   

Moments after I sat down my sciatic nerve pinched me without let up.  My head bobbed in pain. 

I fumed and kicked around like a child in a temper tantrum. Out loud I mumbled. "Leave me alone. I just want to write, not try out for a marathon. Let me relax..."  I stood and stretched with the right leg in front, bent myself to the knee, stood, repeated with the left and continued down the hallway, like a pigeon nodding and walking down the fence top (or a pigeon in heat, I call it), followed by downward dog, #4 standing stretch, and finally I could stand upright and not hurt." Ah, relief. Almost. My brain where did the thought train go?

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. 

Somedays I feel as lost as Alice in Wonderland.

Hours later, sushi for lunch, a load of laundry, a romp in the backyard with the dog, and I'm once again ready to write or not.

For the last two weeks I have been reading and collecting golf notes on my father's life between 1928--36, 1941--44 in the scrapbooks that he and his sister put together. This is my working station.

As I walked by it this morning while stretching in my pigeon walk, I noticed the framed plate in the background. Everyday for two weeks I have looked at those plates before I sit down. The rose patterned one on the left came from my Grandmother DeBacker's home, the two blue fishes were my mother's, the one on the far right is my plate with an attitude ("Give Into Temptation, It Might Not Come Again"), the framed one stumped me.

Godey Print, early 1930-1970's production by Salem China.

Was it the child bringing flowers to her mother? the child wanting attention? the stiff composure of the women?

I've carried this plate with me since my parents died and only this afternoon did I remember why and only this month did I find a way to display it.

We moved to Miami, Oklahoma in 1954, three years after the massive flood of 1951.  Now, I can remember seeing this plate hang on the green painted walls with faded flood lines wrinkled in the wallboards. In my child's mine of age six, I could imagine the fishes and how they must have slithered between the walls when the flood left this house in ten feet of water. Yet, my parents had hung this plate on the wall directly facing the stair case that I rumbled up and down daily. Did the water drip out of the nail hole? Did the fishes all die? I pondered these thoughts and many many more. 

Our home was 3 blocks north of the railroad tracks on the west side of Main St. We can see from the photo that those homes filled with water. 

I loved that old house on A St. Southwest. It held more stories than anyplace I have ever lived, and that framed stuffy plate is my reminder of the flood, I never saw.  My upstairs closet held a child's painting of "raw and bloody bones"; the beggar man and his children came by to eat trash from our garbage, unless mom saw them first and fed them food from our table; hobos from the train tracks walked by and begged food from our homes; before we moved in 'I was told' that the lady next hanged herself over the basement cellar and died; the sixes (Cantrell's) lived two houses up; the house on the north end burned to the ground one day while I was at school; and everybody had flood stories or river stories to tell except me. I often think I was destined to be a storyteller. A St. Stories Told and Retold is another collection of stories I wrote a few years ago. 

I missed the great flood and for the rest of my school years I heard those stories and never got tired of listening. During my eighth grade year Miami experienced another small flood while we lived on H St. Northeast. Finally, I had a flood story, but it ended with a tetanus shot and I didn't like the outcome one iota. 

Ironically, the flood of images and the floods of time all come back to me now. 

Although our roots may be flooded, washed away, burned to the ground, destroyed by tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis we stoop, stop, look upwards for help and we cry, then carry on. Like in war and the images we are seeing that flood our hearts with pain, we see their broken roots but know that their spirits are strong. We pray for all mankind.