Water. Water. Water. Last night I got out of my car and stepped onto the soggy street and waded upon the soggy curb over the river that is Castro Street in the rain, and I thought, SOMEday we’re going to wash away and the beavers are going to have to start a nonprofit to take care of US.
Castro street is a well known tributary for flood waters. Often times people misunderstand that the creek spills over its bank as far upstream as shell or the adult school and, having once broken the bonds of custom and habit, decides on a whim to use Castro as a more direct route to the sea. The beavers came and built their dam at the location where the water is trying to get back into the creek after having second thoughts. They have nothing to do with flooding in Martinez.
It is not Castor but Castro that brings the great flood, and even then it is just a vehicle for transgressions caused much higher up. I will say that every year someone comes to pump out our street drains, unsuccessfully. And every year the hapless contender gives up in disgust saying, “Huh, that thing’s collapsed” and drives away. Perhaps he makes a note of it somewhere in a large bureaucratic pile of papers, or perhaps he just keeps his counsel (so we keep our council) but no one ever fixes it, because its an infrastructure problem larger than Martinez is willing to roll up its pants legs and deal with.
All this to say that Castro Street this morning was the recipient of the loveliest heavenly concession, a huge iridescent rainbow ending in the hills where the Osprey sleeps in the summer. Maybe its a sign, like God gave to Noah, that there will be no more flooding. Or maybe its just a real nice thank you card.
(The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet Eleven)
Then Ishtar arrived. She lifted up the necklace of great jewels that her father, Anu, had created to please her and said, “Heavenly gods, as surely as this jewelled necklace hangs upon my neck, I will never forget these days of the great flood.
