Chasing Down The Muse: Wild weather exhilarates

“Tag, you’re it!” declares column co-writer Cherril Doty, and it is game-on.

Suddenly, I am 8 running around the grassy lawn in the backyard of my parents’ home, chasing my brother and sister in and out of the stately eucalyptus trees. My blue school dress and hair ribbons are flying behind me as I race down the slope, crying, “Catch me if you can.”

I’ve pasted that phrase, “Catch me if you can,” on my bathroom wall. It’s a beckoning of my child self to my adult self, a reminder that my free spirit is always well ahead of my pondering analyzer.

The tag game Cherril and I are up against is a combination of dreaming, plotting and manifestation. It’s part of our annual emotional and intellectual housecleaning. What do we want to toss out, and what do we want to bring inside?

The game is not without side effects.

When I announced my intention to give up negative self-talk, never did I foresee the wave of self-criticism that would wash me into a grand breakdown and send me back to bed for a day, hiding under the covers from my very own life. Gee whiz. Unanswerable questions raced through my head. What is my purpose? Why am I here? How and what do I contribute?

The flip side? The adventure, joy and stability that I’ve beckoned into my realm. I expect that they’ll shake loose the firmament, and inevitably turn me upside down.

As I write this, we are in the midst of a deluge. Winter storms have washed into Laguna back to back, creating havoc in the way of waterspouts, windstorms, landslides and flooding. Photographs of Costa Mesa with cars underwater made me grateful for the slopes of Laguna Beach, but also reminded me of our canyon and how past mudslides and floods claimed lives and residences.

I’d tied down my own porch umbrellas, but heard a tale last night of a trampoline, planted in a backyard for eight years, that yesterday became airborne. While it rose and flew about 50 feet in the air, its owners stood by helplessly, and watched as it crashed into their neighbor’s yard, smashing tile — but luckily, not one person.

Mudslides on Panorama Drive took out a gate and impacted the homes of those below. At the Montage park next to the highway, winds grabbed a eucalyptus, wrenched it from the ground and tossed it onto South Coast Highway. Flooding on El Toro Road stranded my mother, who had been at lunch at Olive Garden. When she told me her intentions to walk through the mud to get to her house, I suggested she wait for just a little while. Luckily, the back roads opened, and she found a route home.

Outside City Hall, folks were seen rolling up their pant legs to get through high water to their cars. Sandbags lined street after street to push water and mud away from buildings. I feel grateful that I no longer live in La Cañada. My old street is one of those surrounded by burnt hills and now covered in brown slop.

Ah, yes — adventure!

A tornado in Orange County? More likely a powerful waterspout, but the twister picked up a catamaran, carried it high in the air and dumped it down on top of another boat. It also relocated and rolled an SUV, and blew out several windows.

When I was a student at El Morro Elementary School, a waterspout bounced up north Laguna streets and crashed down in the same yard where I played chase. The twister ripped out phone lines, downed a pole, took out two eucalyptus trees, opened the French doors of the house and scattered dining room china on the floor. I didn’t get to go home until the power company had cleaned up the wires.

Who says Southern California doesn’t get weather?

This morning, I walked the parks at Main Beach and Heisler. Winds laid trees low and whipped the sea into a frothy brew. From Rockpile to Brooks Street the waves joined into one continuous closeout. White foam covered the sand, and water crested the boardwalk. A few brave souls wandered with me, mostly dog folks, whose canine friends, like Buster, needed both to stretch their legs and to respond to other dog messages.

The air was chilled, the raindrops stinging, the sea an amazing display of power and tumult. Adventure and joy. A wild racing in my heart as the pulse of the elements coursed through my system.

Ah yes, 2010. You have already made yourself known.

CATHARINE COOPER loves wild places. She can be reached at ccooper@cooperdesign.net