People wonder where I come up with this stuff. Well, you asked.
It was March 2020. I had lost my job at Ollie’s Bargain Hunt. I had moved back to Nashville under dire circumstances from East Tennessee, which is another story, but I hadn’t had time to get on my feet yet or make any kind of money.
The COVID-19 vaccine was over a year away and I was being required to move out of my current shared household by April 15 because they thought they were going to create a bed-and-breakfast … just before lockdown. My landlady/roommate, suggested that I could just move into income dependent housing. I informed her that there was a four-year waitlist.
Of course they had pity after six weeks of watching me struggle to pack without help, get rid of stuff and find a storage unit for important papers, photos and furniture I knew I couldn’t keep in my truck. Trying to get stuff into my storage unit without help caused a couple of back injuries for me, which still plague me today. I was suffering from a mysterious loss of muscle strength. By the time my landlady/roommate said, “maybe you should just stay,” I had packed and stored everything and I was so peeved that I left anyway. I was 58, just under the wire for “at risk,“ and really felt as if I were part of the new generation. The one that sees 60 years old as the beginning of middle-age. I was pretty strong and super resilient. Or so I thought.
I had a temporary job with a family that wanted to move to Seattle due to a career opportunity. I had about two months to earn some decent money. My landlord/roommates were very nervous. And I really had no choice. So, the family with the career woman that needed a lot of help stepped in to ask me for help. There were three adults and five children in a three bedroom house. It did have a garage that was serving as a makeshift bedroom as well. Needless to say, they were a mess and they really needed me. However, that required that I go through hospital protocol a minimum of three times a day: upon arriving, upon leaving, and upon arriving back at my so-called “home.” My elderly housemates were in constant fear that I would bring “the disease” home because I had to keep working. I couldn’t just “shelter in place.” But as you may remember, my life was still extremely isolated. I made contact with just a few people each month. They were the same people, over and over. I did develop a habit of porch visiting and long walks on empty streets. I saw a lot of wildlife. I saw a bluebird for the first time in my 30 years in Tennessee. One time, out in the woods, a fawn came up and snuffled my arm. I was so startled that I screamed and she ran away. My cat ran the other way. She remained terrified of deer for the rest of her life. I felt so bad. I hadn’t seen her coming. She was so quiet. The deer in Tennessee were suffering from some kind of wasting disease, so her mom had probably died. It was a year of plagues, as we know.
I had been feeling an unexplained constant exhaustion and disorientation ever since January. I had had a mysterious illness that lasted almost four weeks and wouldn’t let go. I blamed the man who came in for NyQuil and coughed all over me on his way out of the checkout line. This did not help my case with my elderly roommates. (At my first vaccination, I was told by the pharmacist that I had probably already had COVID because I reacted so badly to the shot.)
My plan was to “glam camp” with the largest tent I could afford on a friend’s farm. No livable housing there, but plenty of woods. If I thought of it that way it sounded exciting.
I was 6 feet tall, so finding a tent for around $250 that could let me stand up in the main part or contain a vestibule that I could at least stoop in, and plenty of screened windows actually happened. I also needed a bed frame so that my cat could be in there with me and hide under the bed. Should she need to. My “career family” employers had an extra one of those. It was free! Yay. I “move House” into the woods while working for them.
April 15 was the last frost date in Tennessee, so I set out then. Amidst unseasonable heat, followed quickly by unseasonable cold, and then unseasonable hot again, I set up a camp spot, figured out an outdoor kitchen and got ready to hook up the hose as soon as it really was safe. Meanwhile, I turned water on and off (at the city control spot, not the tap, folks) while I filled up water jugs to heat up in the sun so I could keep clean. I did get some help from my employer’s husband, thank the gods. The tent set up proved to be a two person job. My friend suggested that I set up by the pond, since the earth had been tractored into a flat spot at the dam. Although I have a slight fear of water loving snakes (copperheads), I still thought that it was the best spot considering how much meadow was in the other spot (rattlesnakes). Plus, nothing could hide from me in that flat spot that was so shaded that nothing could really grow very tall, and I could use the mower if needed.
Speaking of gods, I had been given a T-shirt by a librarian friend of mine, whose husband had gotten rid of his old shirt that said Thor on it with some gorgeous lightning bolts and things on it.
I was wearing this shirt pretty much constantly to give myself encouragement, and imagining that I was Thor. Much to my surprise, people who were glued to their Internet at this time reported to me that indeed, Thor had become a woman in the series!
So there I am in my tent and my cat is purring and happy. She comes out of the tent when I do, but not when I don’t. She stays in there when I’m gone. Everything is looking pretty good. I can run down to the half finished building about 500 feet below me and plug-in at the single electric pole to recharge my phone. This is a huge deal when one is homeless. Of course, when it’s raining, this isn’t an option.
Then my landlady texted me to say that straight line wind was coming in. Straight line wind is basically a land hurricane. There was going to be 70 mile an hour winds with gusts of up to 120 mph. “That’s OK,” I thought. “I am under these nice safe trees! I am near a pond. It will be more temperate here and I’m in a little hollow so the wind will pass over us and not through us.” Denial is often the best course when there are no other options.
Suddenly, I thought I could hear Thor laughing. He showed up in my daydream. I am not sure I was actually daydreaming. I think I actually was sleeping on my feet. One thing about being homeless is that after a few weeks, one begins to feel weary. Sleepy. Talking to oneself out loud seems normal. Especially if you are trying to hold down a job or two, which I was. Every two weeks, I would go and see a client (or two if they happened to be a couple).
That was to ensure that I didn’t have COVID and they didn’t either. Of course, physical work with a mask on feels quite suffocating. But I did it.
Anyway, I thought I saw a gorgeous glimmering strawberry blonde Nordic man across the pond from me who said “Come dance with me!“
“Ooh, that sounds like fun!“ I said. “But I’m really tired so how about later?”
I crawled into my tent with my cat, and she was a little nervous. But she finally settled down and we took a nap. It turned out to be a really long nap because about six hours later I was awakened by the sound of a howling wind. I thought about going down to the half built basement structure down below, but I thought man it’s gonna be cold! I would have to unpack my whole bed just to get bedding drug down there and set up. And what about Titi? Getting her into her cage would mean a whole lot of getting clawed up at this point. And then the wind might not really stay off of me. So I fell back asleep.
I was suddenly awakened by the sound of a booming Thor like laughter.
My tent suddenly collapsed onto my face. I was suffocating, so I lifted my left arm and struggled to get the tent pole snapped back into place. The tent pole was bending and twisting wildly. The tent fabric was twisting. My cat was definitely under the bed. My arm was feeling pretty strained, and I was worried and thought, “Again? Oh boy this will be a fun way to die.”
“Thor, this is NOT funny!”
I could see the shadowy, laughing, gyrating man outside my tent. I could see in fact, many flashing swirling images outside my tent that looked as if they were bending to the ground and leaping back up. I strained with all my might to get the tent pole off of my right arm. I succeeded, but the tent pole felt like a writhing mamba snake. In other words, five times as strong as me. But somehow it managed to stay off of my face.
With my right hand, I unzipped a portion of my tent and looked out. The trees were their usual 200 feet tall, but they were spinning in gigantic circles that almost touched the ground.
“OK, that’s enough!” I yelled and willed the wind to blow the other way. Miraculously, it did! My tent snapped back into place. The wind didn’t particularly die down, but the trees quit bending to the ground. A few minutes later, Nashville was hit hard by the straight line winds and a whole bunch of people lost electricity.
I really felt in solidarity with them. We were all living without electricity together. Of course, me being apparently, “bride of Thor,” I had been gifted with a down comforter, so I was feeling pretty comfy. I did hear a lot of complaining from Nashville later though.
Neil Gaiman maintains that the gods gain strength when you name them and worship them. I suddenly have no doubt.
Also, my wrenched arm reminded me daily for about a month that no, I had not been imagining things. Well, hallucinating from lack of proper oxygen due to the after effects of COVID?
Would you have passed me on the street, thinking that I was mentally ill and completely lost and not worth saving?
She struck out into the woods alone
and set up camp by a big fat stone
A wee fair pond held minnows and moss
her matted blonde hair hung down to her arse.
The skies were fair and cold and still.
all the day long, she called on Thor,
God of strength and power for the will
to carry on..
So she set up camp and to sleep she went
to calm her weary soul.
Sadly, that was the moment he chose to appear.
“I’m tired” she said,
“come back
later.”
Being a god, he took her at her word
woke her in the dead of night
to a howling wind, thunder, and flashes of blinding light.
Through the flashing, she saw trees aswirl as if they were grass-
and a golden man standing – staring at her – waist.
“Ho ho!“ He boomed. “Let’s dance!”
And her wee small tent collapsed on her face.
Struggling and straining, she grabbed the tent pole,
a writhing Jörmungandr that did strike her eye.
Blood tickled her nose.
Snake was Stronger than her, but not her Will.
“Enough!“ She yelled
and threw the wind back from whence it had come.
Thor laughed and Roared and said with great smarm, “Come out! Come out! I ask you to dance!”
She said “you know, I’m just flesh and blood you big oaf!
Be gentle oh Thor I beg of you.”
So with a great sigh,
he ran off to havoc and fun with some little bitty in the city
And all she had for proof was a mighty. wrenched. arm.