Storm Surge

These details are always the same: the water is growing in the distance, swelling and turbulent and pregnant with potential disaster; the sky above dark and starless. She stands above the earth; sometimes on a bridge or mountain, but usually it's the rooftop of a building. She always knows, without a doubt, that the water is coming.

The scenery changes, as do the people. In one of the dreams she remembers best, out in the distance on the swells she could see a fleet of floaties- large blow-up water toys ebbing and flowing on the chaotic horizon. There was a massive rubber ducky, a unicorn, and a dragon.

Sometimes, she's alone. More often, someone is with her. There have been complete strangers; people whom she's certain she only knows from somewhere else in time or circumstance. In the most memorable versions, she's standing next to someone she loves or has loved- the ache of the past a distant echo in the promise of the wave that's heading their way.

She looks out at the swell, the rising wall of water that's heading straight for her, and she knows without any kind of doubt that she's going to be perfectly okay right where she is. She's always the voice of reason in these dreams- Don't worry... we're up high enough. We're gonna be fine. Sometimes her dream companions are the worried ones; they urge her to come with them and face the unknown certainty of running, and then they disappear. But she refuses. She looks out at the water that's destined to wash over her, and she believes.

She believes in the solid foundation beneath her feet; the building or the bedrock or the bridge they're grounded on when she looks down. She believes the magnitude of the ocean won't be denied and she is here in this exact moment and time to face it. She believes, in the midst of the storm, she is somehow capable of completely rising above it. She watches with anticipation as it comes for her. And she refuses to run.

The first time she had the storm surge dream, her family had just taken a road trip from New Mexico to Florida. It was early June, 2005. She and her husband had just dropped their kids off for the summer with her parents in Jacksonville, Florida, and on the return trip to New Mexico they opted for a mini-honeymoon at the pirate-ship casino and hotel they'd seen on the drive out. Back then the coast was dotted with the sparkling lights of booming beach businesses. The sky was clear. The waves were calm and promised peace. She dreamt about the water rising that night, and saw the pirate ship float into the high ground of her subconsciousness.

One year later, she made the same road trip. This time, with her parents. Her dad had been stationed at Biloxi when he'd enlisted in the military decades earlier. He could remember where things were and what it looked like back then, and as they walked around the desolate oceanfront he would point and say things like this used to be a bar. By that summer, the pirate ship was long gone, as were many of the businesses they had patronized mere months before Katrina would decimate the coastline. They stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott. They got a great discount, because Gulfport was rebuilding. It was drying out, coming back from The Flood. The hotel room smelled like it was still at sea, despite new paint and carpet and drapes. The staff pointed to the ceiling in the lobby and told them that's how high the water was. They have a line painted there now, a weird eulogy to what water can cost, an everlasting threat from the ocean that it will always go where it wants to. Its promise of peace will only last for so long.

The dream about the storm surge comes and goes now, and she's never sure if it's a warning or a reassurance. It's often associated with her own storms, appearing in her subconscious when she's denying tears or pretending that life is fine. She's learned to pay attention to the people; the ones who leave and the ones who stay. The ones whom she doesn't recognize? She thinks she'll meet them one day, somewhere, sooner or later.