This is a photo from one of last week’s sunsets, when things were a little more peaceful around here.

I raked up some of the tide line left from yesterday’s storm. I followed its thick track under our front deck, right up to the basement windows and then where it broke around the side of the house to the east and down the driveway to the west. One half of the driveway now looks like a dry stream bed, with sandy rivulets tracked around round cobbly stones where the ocean rushed out onto the street.

Under the rosemary and lavender bushes I found up to six inches of needles, sand, bits of wood and other debris. I haven’t even begun to rake up the fat rocks and  stones that were flung up like tiny marbles in those big watery mitts. But those rocks are an entirely different category of cleanup.

It is interesting to listen to people’s reactions about this. Some, like Kevin & I, are thrilled to be witnesses to such raw power.  But some view it as a huge burden and inconvenience and a subject not to be lightly trifled with. I could understand that if there was real damage…perhaps a flooded house, a drowned cat, a backstroking fish, or even a twisted foot. But no one died or came remotely close to being injured. It was just a storm. Just sand, rocks, flotsam and plenty of salty water.  

Just a storm people. And now we clean up.