Years ago, my family lived in a house nestled beside a river called Fighting Town Creek. The house was surrounded by forest that did nothing if not fill my head with the most daring adventures that a little kid could dream up. I fought dragons in those woods. What else was a young princess to do? I had to protect my castle, after all. No need for knights – I had everything under control. I carved my own sword from wood and spent long days traipsing between the trees and rocks. I knew every hill and dip in the earth. I could feel the pulse of the land with every step I took.
Every space between trees became a fort and I could swing on kudzu vines like Tarzan. I caught fish with my bare hands and feared nothing. I knew which plants were edible and could easily live in the woods if the need arose. I was a truly wild child. Not an out of control kind of wild, but a child of the land. I was never more at home than when I was not at home. The river was a source of fun and food. Drinking from mountain springs seemed to feed my connection with the land and river and forest. This little corner of the world was my whole life.
Being so in touch sometimes brought pain, too. Pine beetles invaded and men came with chainsaws and trucks. As a wild child, I was more hurt by what the reckless men with machines did to my forest than by the worst damage the beetles could ever do. Those men carved up my world and left it in broken branches and sawdust. Little did I understand that there were things that were so much worse than either one.
It was a rainy January. It seemed to rain more days than not, but that was okay. As long as there was no lightning, I could still be out in my beloved forest. Dragons don’t care if it’s raining, you know. This princess braved the wind and rain and carried on defending the realm. The rain only made it feel more real.
After weeks of rain, though, even I had to admit it was getting old. The river was red with mud and swollen, but that was normal after a rain. I’d just have to be careful where I stepped when wading in case it had washed rocks down in the current. It was a rare day that the rain was still holding in the clouds and I could go for a walk without getting drenched. I never made it past the end of the gravel driveway.
I walked over the sleeping dragon’s stomach.
Our driveway was packed down with gravel and dirt so hard that it made a smooth surface that I could walk over barefoot. This time, though, the ground moved under my feet. It wasn’t that gravel shifted or mud slid… no, the ground actually moved. The gravel and dirt layer stayed together and formed a thick skin over… something? It felt like walking over scales that covered the hide of a dragon. There was something soft beneath that tough skin. So I did what any wild child would do. I got a sharp stick and poked it. The rocky skin held. I drilled the point down between the rocks. After a short way in, the membrane broke and the stick plunged downward, pitching me forward. The stick broke off in the hole, leaving a jagged end splintered towards the sky. I righted myself and pulled the stick out. It left a perfect hole the diameter of the stick; no mud or rock shifted to fill it in. I knelt down with my hands on either side of the hole and squinted down into it. As I leaned forward, water bubbled up from it as if from a wound. When I leaned back to release the pressure from around the hole, the bubbling stopped. I repeated this several times because I had never seen anything like it before in all my wanderings. It was raining again by the time I got back home to tell my parents about the wound in the sleeping dragon’s stomach.
It rained some more. Lots more. It rained sixteen more inches that night. In. One. Night. My father woke us up at four o’clock that morning in a rush. Get up and come quietly, he said. The river had escaped its banks and was lapping the steps to the back porch. It had never escaped before. The dragon was waking up. There was nowhere for all that rain to go. The ground was already super-saturated, so all the rain just pooled and ran and raged. We had to get out. If there was a surge, we might not have time. We grabbed a few things and piled in the car, which was already parked at the top of the driveway because of the ruts the previous weeks of rain had carved into the driveway. As we drove away into the darkness, our two dogs chased the car as far as they could run. My father assured us they would find high ground. I never understood why we couldn’t have taken them with us, but I was in no position to argue at the time. I was terrified.
Thankfully, we had somewhere safe to go, but we had to drive through horror to get there. Muddy water gurgled up through sewer covers. Flash rivers were where roads used to be. Bridges were washed out. The water authorities were trying to release water from the lake so that the dam didn’t break, but it was too much. The dam gave way and covered two nearby towns completely. Only rooftops were visible over the red clay waters. As day dawned, the water only deepened. As the water rose, we sunk deeper into despair.
The water crested early that afternoon. It was February 16th. The Hundred-year Flood, they were calling it. We went back home to see if there was a home to go back to. It was still standing, but in bad shape. The water had breached the house. It had ripped the shed from its foundation, held in place only by a basketball pole. The rushing torrent topped the rabbit hutch. My poor little bunny Daffodil never stood a chance. We couldn’t even see if her hutch still stood. The dogs, Daisy and Tidbit, were happy to see us but still shaking with shock and fright, underfoot for fear of being left again. My cat, Skipper, was on the roof. We laid down a board and he shakily crossed it to where I snatched him up. I refused to put him down as solidly as he refused to be put down.
There are no words adequate to describe the myriad of emotions that come raging harder and faster than the river. It was my friend and source of life. It was my solace and the music that sang me to sleep every night. Watching as it swept away our worldly possessions, I felt betrayed by it. How could it do this? My love for the river never completely recovered. It was still there, but tinged with fear. There was no princess strong enough to stand before that sleeping dragon when it woke.
The falling rain
Still pattering on my face,
My unbelieving eyes still seeing
The rampaging river run,
In all its glorious fury,
Through my living room.
From the roof,
We’d rescued the cat,
Who clung to my pajama fur
As I clung to his,
And the scent of mud and rain
Clung to us both.
I watched as my world
Taught me the word:
Disintegration.
My mother’s voice
Harmonizing with the torrent:
We will rebuild, we will rebuild.
And he stood there on a hill
Just behind the house—our home,
The trespassing water stealing our possessions…
I watched my father cry.
We did rebuild. We had to destroy and burn and let go of so many things, but we built it back better than it had been. Things were never the same, though. I had always been all in. I lived in those woods and they were mine right up until then. After the flood, I knew fear. I knew loss. I knew betrayal. I knew a piece of myself washed down the river that day and I would never get it back. The dragon had a new form now and I didn’t trust it.
We moved some time later. It wasn’t a bad thing. The flood was a catalyst for many things that happened in the years following. In all of this, it is important for the princess to understand that sometimes it is best to leave the dragon where it sleeps and find a new realm to roam.