Category: Nature (Page 7 of 20)

January #InkRipples continued: Still in Tahiti, Still Pregnant, and the Tsunami Was on Its Way

January 13, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Yup, another repost, but I had to make sure you got the rest of the story from last week. And next week, look for some new content here on the Observation Desk. So here’s the rest of the Tahiti tsunami story (telling this story always makes me want to give it a really cheesy, reality TV subtitle like “When Vacations Go Bad”).

Okay, so sorry to leave you in suspense for so long…where did I leave off? Right, right…French Polynesia, island of Moorea, tsunami sirens blaring in the wee hours of the morning. The hubby and I throw on some clothes (I remember to put on a bra, but totally forget about undies!) and grab the essentials: passports, a large bottle of water, medication, and some peanut-butter crackers (a pregnant lady needs her snacks).

On the way to the lobby we hear some people talking about taking a car up to Belvedere Point. Given the high-stress situation, I managed to refrain from laughing at them, but going to Belvedere Point would have been some serious overkill. Even if we had gotten a tsunami anywhere close to as big as the one that hit Japan, we wouldn’t have needed to go to one of the highest points on the island.

(This is the view from Belvedere Point. Way higher and farther from the water than necessary. When we had talked to the manager the night before, he had said worse-case-scenario, we would have to go up the resort driveway to the road.)

In the lobby, the manager makes an announcement that a tsunami is expected to hit about 6:00 a.m. and that all guests must go to the restaurant area. They don’t specifically say it, but we get the impression that it’s more precautionary than anything else, although some guests are starting to look very nervous. (Apparently, they didn’t have the luxury of a prealarm freakout like I had!)

We are actually allowed to go back to the room where we stow our luggage as far up in the closet as possible (just in case). We pack all our valuable electronics and some books and stuff in our backpacks (I still haven’t realized I’m not wearing any underwear) and head to the restaurant.

The next several hours are…well…pretty boring. I stare at the water, trying to detect any kind of measurable change, for so long that my eyes start to hurt. The resort staff gets the breakfast buffet ready as quickly as they can given that it’s still early enough that breakfast wouldn’t have normally started yet.

The only indication we ever get that an actual tsunami hit us (I think we technically got two tsunami “waves”) was when the water level in the lagoon went down just enough for some coral too poke out of the surface. A group of self-proclaimed geologists were sitting near us and they got all excited when this happened and starting documenting it all on their camcorders.

(That stuff sticking out of the water to the right of the palm tree is the coral that normally is under water. That was our only visual cue that we were in the middle of a tsunami.)

By about 9:30 a.m. the warning was over and we all got to go about our day in tropical paradise (and I finally get to put on some underwear!). So, like I said in the last post, it was a lot of build-up with little payoff thankfully. I’m okay with having experienced a tsunami measured in inches instead of feet.

January #InkRipples Bonus Post: That Time I Went to Tahiti and There Was a Tsunami

January 8, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Since #InkRipples is all about travel this month (and I wrote about books – shocker, me writing about books – in my official #InkRipples post “Traveling the World and Beyond”), I decided to offer you up some bonus travel reposts. This is part 1 of the Tahiti tsumani story that originally posted in March 2011, plus some pictures from the more relaxing part of the trip. Look for part 2 next Friday. Enjoy!

002 The wee hours of Friday morning. Sirens blare. Heart quickens. Body from dead asleep to pinpoint alert in seconds. I knew this could happen, but it doesn’t make my pulse pound any slower. I feel the hubby—it’s too dark to see—rise next to me. “Here we go,” I say, not exactly sure what we’re in for. I’ve never been in a tsunami before.

Now I’m not going to pretend like this is some harrowing tale of survival. It’s more a tale of apprehension and anxiety with not much dramatic payoff. I wouldn’t even call it a near miss. The hubby and I are alive and safe. Not like so many people in Japan. Still, I think our tale is one worth telling…if only to keep my mind from churning over the events and the television images over and over again. Writing this down is my therapy.

But let me go back to the beginning, where many—certainly not all—stories start. French Polynesia, island of Moorea, Thursday night. Some combination of jetlag, sun exposure, pregnancy—and yes, even the hubby has been extra tired from me being pregnant—and extreme island relaxation has lulled us into slumber at an early hour.

I wake around 10:00 pm to find the movie we were watching has ended, the television screen a blank blue screen. I flip to CNN, one of three English-speaking channels we have. 8.9 earthquake, Japan. My first thought Damn, that’s strong. At the time, I didn’t know that it was the strongest recorded quake in Japanese history. My second thought This is not good. Not good at all. Even a country so prepared for quakes must surely suffer from one so massive.

CNN already has footage of not only the earthquake, but also of a devastating tsunami that hit northeastern Japan. A 10 meter wall of water. Tsunami warnings up for countries all across the Pacific. Then I think, Uh, oh. We’re in the middle of the southern Pacific on a tiny island. What does that mean for us?

003 The last tsunami to hit French Polynesia after the earthquake in Chili in February 2010 was measured in inches. I had looked it up because after I had heard tsunamis had been in the area, I had wanted to make sure my favorite tropical location was still intact. The remote location and the surrounding coral reefs had kept French Polynesia safe, but that didn’t mean we would get through this one unscathed.

I watched the coverage for about 30 minutes, my anxiety level rising with each development. Footage from the CNN newsroom in Tokyo.Deep breaths. Stay calm. Footage of the wave pouring into northeastern Japan. Keep breathing. Calm, cleansing breaths.Tsunami warnings for Russia, Indonesia, Australia, Hawaii, among other countries and islands. French Polynesia isn’t specifically mentioned, but my attempts to stay calm are failing. I’m in a foreign land. On an exposed island. A tsunami may or may not be approaching.

Time to get another opinion on whether or not I’m overreacting. Time to wake the hubby. He doesn’t seem to share my apprehension. Maybe he’s still half asleep; maybe I am overreacting. This annoys me. He’s supposed to be the one to freak out, not calm, collected, take-everything-in-stride me!

“Should we call the front desk?” I ask. “Or go down there and see what’s going on?”

I’m trying to hide my growing fear, to play this as if I’m curious and just want to be prepared, but a million things are running through my head that I don’t say. Do they even know what is going on down at the front desk? Does Moorea have modern tracking equipment for tsunamis? Do they have adequate warning procedures? The water is so close to our room. Will we have to evacuate? What will happen to all our stuff? Will we even know it’s coming, the water rushing in unannounced and we’ll all drown? Was it a huge mistake to come here while pregnant, putting my unborn child at risk?

008 The hubby seems mildly concerned. His calm demeanor only proves to grate on my already agitated one. He hasn’t been watching the coverage as long as I have. He didn’t see the list of countries under tsunami warnings. He hasn’t let his mind wander to dark places and worse-case-scenarios.

There’s no way I’m sleeping until we find out more information from the resort. I tell the hubby this. He says, “Okay. Let’s walk down to the front desk.”

I’m not sure if he’s humoring me or if he’s also concerned. Either way, I’m relieved to be on my way learning more. The manager at the desk is well informed of the situation. He explains how there are buoys off the coast of the islands that will give us adequate warnings, if we will even need them. He is the picture of calm. He doesn’t think there’s much to worry about. I feel better.

We go back to the room to sleep. We have a solid five hours before the alarms will sound…

A Year of Short Stories with Lightning Quick Reads

December 11, 2015 / Katie L. Carroll

My final short story for Lightning Quick Reads go up today! It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since the blog started…and that I’ve produced 12 short stories for it. There were definitely months where I was sweating to get a story done by the 11th (my posting date), but I feel like I ended up with a body of work to be proud of.

Many of them were in the Tales From the Field series about a women’s high school soccer team. These were really fun to write and I pulled so much from my own high school soccer experiences. It was a world that I felt like I really knew inside and out, and it was really easy to immerse myself in it as I wrote. I was worried that that stories wouldn’t interest a wide audience, but they seemed to receive a positive reception from readers. This series isn’t complete, so I suppose, I’ll have to get the rest of the players’ stories written and figure out what I want to do with them going forward.

I was most surprised to find that several stories from my writing archives (meaning they had been hanging out in a folder on my computer for several years untouched) got such a great response. These stories required far fewer edits than I expected when I pulled them out and dusted them off (figuratively!).

April’s tale, “Odeletta, Princess of Spring,” was a myth story from the ELIXIR BOUND (which I believe is still only 99 cents right now! Hint, hint!) world. And I’m ending the run on Lightning Quick Reads with an ELIXIR related story as well. Here’s a sneak peek:

Winter Solstice Offerings by Katie L. Carroll

This short story takes place before the events of ELIXIR BOUND. Siblings Katora, Kylene, and Bhar Kase are performing their annual celebration of the Winter Solstice.

“Do you have the acorns and your offering for the sacrifice?” Bhar asked with an impish grin and a glint in his blue eyes.

“Sacrifice?” Katora raised her right eyebrow and thumped her younger brother on the shoulder. “You know the Great Mother doesn’t approve of sacrifices. I do have all but one of the offereings, and Kylene should be getting it right now.”

Bhar laughed as he ran deeper into the trees of Faway Forest. Katora shook her head in annoyance and wondered if Bhar would ever be serious about anything. She shifted her backpack and followed his indelicate footsteps.

She stopped in a small clearing. Bhar stood in the center, a series of stacked rocks interspersed at regular intervals around him. She dropped her pack outside the rocks and sat inside the circle, legs crossed.

Katora had been coming to this place on the Winter Solstice for as long as she could remember. Her two older sisters used to participate in the ceremony, but they had recently moved out of the family home. They now held their own traditions. This was the first year they wouldn’t be there, and Katora wasn’t sure she wanted to be there either. Maybe she was getting too old for such traditions…

I’d love for you to check out the rest of the story on the Lightning Quick Reads Blog, and thanks for reading all year long with me!

Finding Connection Through Grounding

October 26, 2015 / Katie L. Carroll

I’m learning a lot about the earth through grounding myself, literally going out pretty much every day and putting my bare feet on the natural ground (for more about how and why I do this, check out my other grounding posts).

I’m getting a feel for the different seasons. The cool, wet soil of early spring, often still hard from the winter freeze. The gradual warming and thaw, the earth more forgiving as spring turns into summer. Then there’s the crunchy, dry heat of late summer grass under my feet, lingering into fall. Eventually autumn ushers in a brief reawakening of the earth. The grass turns green and springy, the warm soil forms to my feet. Then the leaves fall and the earth is crunchy on the surface. Finally winter brings the snow and ice, often I have to dig under the snow to find a small patch of hard, cold earth.

The earth is strangely similar feeling in winter and summer, not in temperature (obviously!), but there’s a hardness to both seasons. The freeze brings the hardness to winter, and the dryness brings it to summer.

I’m also getting a feel for the time of day. I like to go out at different times during the seasons (though you won’t catch me grounding myself at night in the winter…I’m not that crazy!). Mornings are often wet with dew. There’s a quietness to the earth as it wakes. Midday groundings are usually quick, a quiet moment for me to let the tingles in my feet awaken and to take a few deep breaths before I get back to the business of the day. I don’t always have time to stop and think for too long about what I’m feeling.

I think I like twilight groundings the best, though it’s probably the time of day when I least often go out (it tends to be the busiest time of day with the family). I’ve always enjoyed the energy of twilight. The last burst of activity from the day animals, the night creatures starting to peek out of their daytime slumber. The sky is stuck between night and day, a lightness lingering in the east and the stars begin to shimmer. The earth is buzzing with all that has happened during the day but not ready to settle into night.

The quiet moment or two I take to ground myself not only connects me to the earth, it connects me to myself. I don’t need to think, I only need to remember to breathe as my feet touch the ground. I wait until the tingling starts, give it a minute to soak in. The longer it has been since my last grounding, the longer it takes to get that feeling but the greater the impact. Sometimes it’s good to skip a few days to regain the newness of grounding. But I never wait too long to get back out there and connect.

September Ink Ripples: School Butterflies & Fall Leaves

September 14, 2015 / Katie L. Carroll

Second Monday of the months means a new #inkripples post!

IMAG1080 I love the long, lazy days of summer. Wearing as little clothing as possible; going barefoot in the crunchy, dried out grass; running through every sprinkler you pass by. The summer just feels easy to me. The only thing that makes the end of summer okay is that it leads into my second favorite season: fall!

Apple picking (though sometimes this is an end-of-summer thing), limitless blue skies, jumping into piles of leaves, and that certain earthy smell that fall brings. 20150828_121636 Ahhh, fall is nice.

Then there’s that other thing that the end of summer brings: school! It’s been many years since I’ve been in school, but now that The Boy is in his second year of preschool (and the first year that he is starting in September…he was too young to start in September last year), I’m remembering about those beginning of school butterflies and that tiny bit of dread that the freedom of summer is over.

So lots of mixed feelings over here during this time of year. How are you all faring during the change of season from summer to fall?

Inkwell meme green Have you joined the #inkripples movement yet? Ripples in the Inkwell is a monthly meme created by Kai Strand, Mary Waibel, and Katie L. Carroll(me!). On the second Monday of each month, we post on a particular topic. The idea is that we toss a word, idea, or image into the inkwell and each post is a new ripple. There’s no wrong way to do it and we’d love for you to participate (full details here). September is all about school and fall. Be sure to provide a link to your own #inkripple in the comments!