We walked down the beach after the great mudslide that took away so many homes and lives. The sea was as dark as coffee, the sand a field of broken dreams.
You’re used to seeing lumber in the yards when you build your house into a home. It sits, full of potential, straight and clean, smelling of pine and fir freshly cut from the deep green forest far to the north.
Looking at a finely milled door shattered and ripped, a door knob of fine bronze at rest in the shifting sand. All that remains now is wood, plastic, and flotsam. Large beams, scattered like Pick-Up Sticks, once created the open spaces for the dinners and dances at parties that celebrated loved ones on occasions and places for mourning loved ones lost.