From the bedroom window today, I figure we’ve got about 12 feet of water up to just below the second floor. That’s more than a foot since yesterday. I’m keeping the count in one of my good art books that has vellum paper, and I’m using a waxed pencil for the record. I figure that’s the least I can do.

I’ve told the children, it’s our responsibility to make our own account of this as we can. They are 10, 8, and 6; Lucia, Leo, and Alma, all writing now, even Alma, with the heartbreaking details important to each.

“Today for LUNCH we had to move to the second shelf for a can of soup. Corn chowder. And I have to tell you that corn chowder is NOT my favorite, or my second favorite, or my third favorite. Mom said eat, so I did,” Lucia wrote today.

“There’s a weird, weird, weird smell off the water,” Leo wrote. “Kind of a rot smell mixed with deezel. We have to keep the windows closed.”

“The birds dont no wat is going on. They flap arown and land on brachs and call, wooooohoooo,” Alma wrote. Right now, she is all about birds.

Lionel, my husband, left two days ago on our kayak, promising to return with food and word, but I’ve begun to worry. I can’t even imagine what it’s like beyond our view.

Worry is my own personal climate now. For the children’s sake, I’ve become like the heroine of a movie, always attuned to a moment’s beauty.

“Look,” I say, when something, who knows what, has exploded along the horizon. “Look at that echoing glow!”

I’ve taken down a jigsaw puzzle today, one of the only ones we have yet to open. It’s of a field of flowers in springtime, all dots and dashes of bright colors. Its irony is not lost on me, but at least I know for sure it’s complete.

“Come on, you guys,” I call them to join me at the table. We haven’t had electricity for weeks so we have just a few hours left of the brightest light.

They’re back in their beds for comfort, Alma sucking her thumb again. “Come on!” I call. “Let’s find the straight pieces that form the outline! Then we can work on the flowers. Just look at them all!”

About the Author:

Amanda Yskamp’s work has appeared in such magazines as Threepenny Review, Hayden Review, caketrain, Redivider, and The Georgia Review. She lives on the 10-year flood plain of the Russian River. She teaches writing from her online schoolhouse.

*Featured image by name_ gravity on Unsplash