I watched in vicarious horror, sympathizing with the poor person who's possessions lay spilled all over the highway just outside the city limits. The winds were awful. Chinooks were always that way. One hundred miles per hour out the west, sweeping across the foothills and into the prairies overturning one trailer after another on the most notorious section of the highway south to the border.

I've been there often enough. Trying to control a vehicle of any size in a Chinook flow can be impossible. Even if you're just driving a mini van. I shook my head and then said thank you for being inside. Safe and cozy watching this on one of the news streams was the only way to experience this weather phenomena.

Then I looked a little closer. No way! Misfortune struck someone with the same Queen Anne highboy as mine. I hit the pause button. Zoomed in, and I swear my heart stopped.

Uh, no way. Couldn't be my mover. Not a chance. I gave them a whole two-day head start. Moving to Montana. Taking a job with the Blackfoot Nation helping to run their Casino and a couple of other tech projects they needed sorted out.

Mom was one of their citizens, Dad was from T'suutina just on the southwest edge of Calgary. In any case, I was a dual citizen... twice over. Once for Canada and the US of A and once for each of my ancestral indigenous nations.

That was the only piece of furniture I had that was worth a damn thing, and the graceful carved curves were split into toothpicks. Paperwork tumbled away from the site faster than the scrambling clean up crew could chase them down. Tumbleweeds followed. It was a dry winter and dust devils swirled off the wrecked corners of the moving company's trailer.

I sat frozen, staring at the scene unfolding in the thirty-second clip, then ran it again. I don't know what I was hoping for. Maybe proof this wasn't my stuff? Everything kaput. Totaled. There wasn't a shred of a chance anything could be salvaged.

Yah, I knew it was insured. But the proof of the purchase price? Racing across the prairie where I hoped it wouldn't catch a spark from some unattended burning barrel. My brain morphed my errant belongings into a legendary grassfire without even trying.

I wanted a fresh start.

What was it Grandmother always said?

"Careful what you wish for, you might be surprised what you get."

The fates or the Creator, which ever you believe in, took me literally. Nothing but cash and my suitcase with my laptop left. I watched my grandmother's portrait whip into the air, soaring like an eagle on a thermal.

I remembered her wish to fly like a bird, but this wasn't what she wanted. She would have giggled though.

Kaput all of it. In this case, I got what I wanted. A completely new beginning.

Could I do it? No choice, I guess. The only way out was forward.