Yesterday at about two PM during the intermittent rain showers we were lazing around in out home by the Carmel River when we got word that Monterey County had issued another mandatory evacuation notice for our neighborhood. This starts a whole decision making tree that sends all our neighbors into a process of gathering to discuss, looking for more information, weighing options and calling friends and family for advice.

It’s my understanding that all this consideration stems from the meaning of “Notice”. If the notice said Mandatory Evacuation Order, there would not be any decision making to be made at all. We would leave or someone would come and take us out of the flooded area. But no… it’s a notice. So my neighbors met at the river itself to look and the levels… which were only two feet higher that it had been the day before. Our gage on the river itself said the water was six feet deep. Our neighborhood only really had to worry when the water was 11 feet deep. So lots of discussion under the bridge. Should we go… or not? We live in a little community of about three hundred condos that is surrounded by a berm to prevent flooding. The manager of our community leaves messages on his phone. We call that to help us in our decision making. The recorded message essentially says, “ We are perfectly safe and will remain so as long as the rain doesn’t do anything unforcast or unheard of…. BUT the County wants us to evacuate. The lovely man who came around to put a sign on our door knob that says “OCCUPIED” or “EVACUATED” said, “These signs just help us know who is still here … you know… in case it gets worse.” Then he paused and said, “Just keep and open mind about your choices.”

Now this may sound frustrating but it feels kind of civilized to me. “Go if you want, but we will look out for you if you decide to stay.” We are an over 55 community. There are several octogenarians living here. They are not moving quickly or easily. Jan, my bride does not move easily or quickly. Sometimes and in some circumstances moving hastily can be dangerous in itself. Driving on crowded rainy roads may be more dangerous than the prospect of the river flooding you out. Then there is the possibility that the future is unknowable and things could turn to shit and we’d be auditioning for local news footage over a crawl reading “Tragedy Comes For Seniors.” with film showing Jan carrying five copies of “Between Pacific Tides” through a muddy current while I’m carrying my mandolin over my head as Dot swims ahead of us.

We left. Why? It turns out it was a good excuse to go spend time with our grandson, who lives on high ground away from any river. We had no reason to think we would have been in any actual danger but why not drive about ten minutes through the light rain and watch a one year old frollic around his house with his loving parents? So we did. It really was a delightful situation. Who could turn us away? We are global warming refugees, for Pete’s sake. But in truth we were not dogged by danger. Now don’t get me wrong there were some people just north of us who were in real danger, but I don’t think we were. We were grandparents who wanted to visit their baby boy.

The mood in Finn and Emily’s Codo was lovely. We ate Chinese food last night and ate a lemon meringue pie Jan had put the finishing touches on while I was loading the car. Dot played with Bonnie. Arthur ate raisins and played with both his grandma’s cain and her new “evacuation” walker which is smaller and lighter than her home walker. Finn and Jan played games, I watched an old Bob Hope movie with Arthur and played with his nesting Russian Dolls. As I said, civilized.

I did think about something while we were putting little women inside of big women and I was struck by how calm and loving this sheltering home was: Years ago when I was worried about my capability of being a parent a friend said, “Ah don’t fret, just love them. That’s it.” I’ve thought back on this advice over the years, and it does make sense… but still it begs the questions: is that feeling of love in your heart enough to make a place safe and warm. Does a loving family like ours really protect us from flood waters, or if you are sheltering in place in a home in Ukraine, does a loving little boy offering you a bite of his toasted cheese sandwich really protect your from falling Russian mortor shells?

Of course not, I am by nature a romantic. I come by it honestly my mother was a romantic. She believed in the goodness of love and kindness. But yet she was very fearful. She would have fled her home at the first breath of evacuation. She would have made her evacuation into an epic story. but consider this: when a community is threatened by war or actual floods, is the community’s first instinct to call out the romantic poets to keep us safe. Probably not.

But still I have almost recklessly happy this Martin Luther King weekend.to be with my family, and I am grateful to the actually brave men and women who do their best to keep us safe. I hope that the electrical workers repairing lines and the rescue workers trying to talk grumpy people into evacuating get to go home and tell their own epic stories. I hope all of them have at least some of the happiness that I’m feeling as a lucky refugee.

Arthur double fisting his toasted cheese.

Camilia’s in bloom

during the years biggist floods

while baby eats toast.

Here is a recording of me reading from Blown By The Same Wind.