The more I thought about the circumstances of current events would be rather hard to swallow if they had been presented in fiction. Imagine a movie whose plot points involved something touted as a “Frankenstorm”–a hurricane, blizzard, and nor’easter all rolled into one–smacking New York City and New Jersey a week before a Presidential election and crippling the city and stranding beach communities. “Never happen” you might say to yourself. “What a load of tripe.” Furthermore to hear the Mayor of New York City and the Governor of New York State publicly announce that they felt this storm was the first in a series of annual hurricane hits perpetuated by climate change and global warming? You would say this movie was preachy and heavy handed. Unfortunately, it was the truth of the situation.
I unpacked our house into my grandfather’s house via the cars and helped Michael set up the generator (which I later had to turn off because it was setting off the carbon monoxide detectors) and watched as the inky night crept overheard and took notice of the lack of constellations. The clouds had made their move and the term “inky” sudden had a new meaning for this city mouse. Somehow the darkness seemed darker even than in the blackout of 2002, because this was no mere blackout. We were living through a bonafide emergency…the kind that always happened to others but not to us. Of course, I noticed Orion in the sky and knew that I was safe, as I always lived under this constellation, but even the hunter was little consolation.
My grandfather pointed out, of course, that things could always be worse. This was the same type of traditional Jewish wisdom that I had grown up expecting. It is the same sort of advice that comes from the tradition of the hand of fate, the evil eye, and “no kanuhorras” (no tempts of bad fortune in yiddish) . Things could always be worse. We could be in one of those over 100 homes on the other side of the peninsula at Breezy Point, burned to a cinder and wrapping the cover of the Daily News. The pictures I had been seeing of the Beach 90s and 100s on Facebook were also amazing–the Boardwalk was gone. I still held on to the hope that from destruction comes rebuilding but at the moment it was hard to see the forest from the trees…and the trees were cracked, splintered, and fallen, blocking the roads and laying on houses. My son had been pointing them out for days “Tree fall over!” as we pass them by. I suppose he might have though this was something that happens occasionally…the trees were taking naps.