Let the Water In...
For pretty much my entire life I wanted to be closer to nature and wild spaces. As a visual artist and a mom of two energetic boys, I felt we needed to finally make a move. My husband and I were living in Houston, Texas with our two young sons and teenage daughter. We made the decision to move to Austin because of its hilly landscape, trails, and nature preserves. The Texas Hill Country had endless wild spaces to explore. We were ready for a change. That change came flooding in on Memorial Day of 2015.
We sold our house in Houston to a remodeler. We closed on our house on a Friday afternoon in May. The following Monday a huge storm came in. The rain was FAT, heavy, and relentless! It beat down all night. I was tossing and turning in bed when at about 2am, a neighbor texted me that water was coming into their house.
Growing up in Houston, I had waded through flood waters numerous times. I thought I was immune to the fear of flooding. But when I saw her text, I jumped up out of bed. I ran to the front window and saw our SUV was almost completely submerged in water. I uttered, “Oh s***.” I looked down and saw water seeping into our house.
The toilets and bathtub gurgled as they filled with dark gray water. We immediately worried about our elderly neighbors. My husband tried to wade through the water to get to their house but there were too many obstacles floating in the dark and pouring rain.
We screamed out our bedroom window toward their bedroom window. They were from Taiwan and we knew they were hard of hearing in their older age. The rain continued to pour down loudly. My step-daughter, gifted with an even louder voice, managed to get their attention. We told them to stay up high and not to walk around in the water as it rose to the electrical outlets.
We elevated our computers and papers as high as we could, not knowing how high the water would get. Then we tried to sleep till morning. Our mattresses became giant sponges. My husband slept on the recliner with our youngest son while my step-daughter slept propped up on dry blankets with our older son. There was no other dry spot for me to sleep. So I stood at the window, my feet sinking into a brown puddle on our mattress.
The rain finally slowed to a gentle drizzle and the dawn began to glow. I watched a water spider, in no hurry, skitter across my window sill. In those hours waiting for reality to set in, waiting for the worry to take over, preparing mentally for the amount of mess soon to be on our plates, there was this satiating silence.
I had this clear and gentle feeling that I wasn’t myself. That I wasn’t my body. That I wasn’t all my stuff that was now gone. Alone in that silence I felt connected to all my neighbors as they too stood in their flooded homes awaiting the sunrise. I didn’t know exactly what awaited us, but I felt a calmness inside.
Later that morning we watched out our window as kayaks and canoes paddled by in the sunlight. We began throwing anything of value into big black trash bags. About midday the water had gone down enough that my dad could rescue us in his van. I heard stories of families losing their loved ones. Those families will forever be on my mind and in my heart. I held my family tight.
Then came the cleaning up. We had two weeks to completely move out. Anything plastic and fabric could be washed and salvaged. But most of the furniture and all our appliances, cars, books, and papers were destroyed. That included photo albums and my many art history books. Fortunately our laptops were up high that contained our photos and videos of our family. But my husband’s old photos from his childhood in Mexico dispersed like watercolors.
With no electricity and plenty of heat and humidity, it doesn’t take long for the smell to set in. Wearing masks, we removed as much of our smelly soggy stuff as we possibly could, leaving it rotting on the curb where it would sit for several weeks.
Later we found out that since we had just sold our home, we no longer had flood insurance. So we took a big loss. But unlike our neighbors who had to deal with the insurance, gutting their homes, and plummeting property values, we had the privilege of just getting the heck out.
At my parents house, we washed clothes, towels, sheets, and blankets for seven days. When we finally locked up our house and left for the last time, it was a mix of emotions. Sadness for leaving behind the place my babies learned to crawl and in such dismal condition. It became clear to me that the home we had, the life we had, was only in our memories and no longer existed. I cried over losing my son’s preschool artwork. The vanilla paper drawings just disintegrated. What remained smelled rotten.
But what emerged in me was a feeling of lightness. Which led to a feeling of possibility. The old house we left rotting behind us was in constant need of repair. Now that we had less stuff, we could get a smaller house. A smaller house meant less time cleaning and less renovations. Less renovations meant more money to do other things we had always wanted to do. Peeking above those central Texas hills, was the dream we had always had but could never afford. That dream to travel with our children.
We first lived in an apartment in Austin. We spend every weekend exploring all the parks, trails, and nature preserves. It was June, and we soon learned our next big purchase would be water sandals. A must have for any central Texas nature enthusiast. Central Texas is extremely hot and dry in summer. If it rains enough in the springtime, we’re blessed with cool flowing creeks and refreshing lakes for swimming.
I always loved swimming. When I was a kid, I would sink to the bottom of the swimming pool and look up at the sunlight shining down through the water. It felt like the light beamed directly into my soul. As an introvert, I loved the silence underneath. I loved feeling my body enveloped by the loving weight of water. I felt caressed but also free.
We would spend the next several years swimming in Central Texas swimming holes. Our sons splashing about and skipping stones. There are few greater joys than ending a hot hike in a cool creek or lake. And in August when the heat bakes everything to a crisp, there are the natural springs full of ice cold water.
When your hot body enters ice cold water it hurts. It’s almost unbearable. But as in life, pain and pleasure are friends. Blood rushes to warm your skin forcing fresh blood into your organs. You emerge numb and completely refreshed for some time. You no longer feel the outside heat. You feel cool and deeply relaxed. And how often in life do you feel deeply relaxed? As a woman and a mother, I can tell you, almost never.
As our kids grew older, we started traveling in the summers. To Mexico a few times where my husband is from. To Colombia with some close friends. Then Covid came and we had to tap back into the splendors of our neighborhood and nearby nature spots. Still in our small house we struggled for space. We debated moving to a bigger house. We debated adding to our house. But something inside us reminded us of the simple life we welcomed when we moved there. A dream that once winked at us, was now shining overhead. Being able to work remotely, we decided to spend the whole hot summer in Italy! The land of my heritage and the home of my heart.
When we look back we ask ourselves, would we have been able to fulfill so many dreams if our house hadn’t flooded? Would we have been able to travel as much as we have? Probably not.
Friends were surprised to hear that after our house flooded in that torrential rain, that I still love rain. I LOVE rain! I love water. Water came flooding into our lives and never stopped. It came and washed all our things away. All the things we thought we needed. That we thought fulfilled us. Then after those gray waters, came sparkling cool creek waters, and ice cold spring waters, the rugged waves of the Mexican gulf, and the emerald green seas of the Italian peninsula.
We now live in our small house at the top of a hill that we’re almost certain will never flood. We know now that we don’t know what will happen to us in this life. But we’re determined to maintain that feeling of lightness that frees us to move and explore. It’s January now. We’re in the midst of our usual new year purging of stuff. We look to the new year ahead and ask ourselves, what do we want more of and what do we want less of? What matters? And what doesn’t? And where will we go from here?
So I say, let the water in. Let it wash away all that you thought you needed. And as the tide spreads across the shore like a hand in flour, let it gently come in and leave you what you truly needed all along.
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