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Resignation

Resignation

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The first day of winter is still weeks away, but this feels like the real thing: Cold and light earlier than usual, the low temps not part of the night but part of the day. Just so there can be no mistaking.

I notice the silence. The robins and jays have left us; the juncos have not yet arrived.

The shutters are closed, but I spy through cracks the flicker of branch stir outside, as a brisk breeze sets treed leaves a trembling.

Here in this quiet hour, clocks ticking again on standard time, I think, resignation is much like this — to crave long days and fireflies, yet know even in my longing that this is what must be.

Under Water

Under Water

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When constructing my fantasy life I often get hung up on location. The suburbs are out, and a pied-a-terre is a given (after all, I still have to earn a living); the confusion comes with the country retreat. A cabin in the mountains? A cottage on the shore?

After Sandy, the answer is clearer. After Sandy, the mountains are starting to look pretty good. After Sandy, I wonder: What happens when the places I love are under water?

There’s Venice. But of course with Venice it has always been part of that city’s doomed charm.

And there’s Chincoteague. As the wind and rain pounded us Monday I thought of my time there this summer, the stillness of the refuge, the beach that goes on forever. Does it still? 

And now there’s New York City, too. Sea water coursing through subway tunnels, lapping at the steps of the Stock Exchange. Apocalyptic visions.

People perish; place endures. Or at least it used to. I’m not so sure anymore.

(Lower Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge.)

Post Sandy

Post Sandy

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Sandy walloped us yesterday, but far fewer trees came down than expected and with new siding and windows we spent the day in relative silence. The battering and banging we used to hear during storms giving way to a muted roar as 50- to 60-mile-an-hour winds gusted outside.

Inside: a pot of chili, a stack of books and, more to the point, electricity.

Today, as the storm continues to send rain, snow and high winds our way, my thoughts head north, to New York, New Jersey and other Sandy-ravaged areas.



(It’s hard to imagine Times Square empty, but last night it was.)

Waiting for Sandy

Waiting for Sandy

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I grew up in the middle of the country, not right in tornado alley but close enough. So hurricanes are not part of my birthright. They are, however, something I’ve gotten used to living on the East Coast. What sets them apart for me is not the strong winds (those were worse with the derecho we had in June) or the copious rain, but the fact that you know they’re coming.

Tornadoes catch you unaware. A sultry spring afternoon, a strange light in the sky, and before you know it you’re huddling in a stairwell while your roof is blown off.

Hurricanes are charted and observed. We woke up today to this photograph in the Washington Post. As I write I think of what we still need to do: fill up the cars; charge the phones, laptop and iPod (heck, even the toothbrush); secure the deck furniture.

Time to prepare — and also time to worry.  I remind myself that — all talk of hybrid cyclones aside, headlines that call this the storm of the century — at the end of the day there’s often more hype than hurricane.



What will these waves look like a few hours from now?

Rainscape

Rainscape

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The summer stroller finds much to appreciate in an occasional rainy day. Along moisture-blackened creek bridges and past the errant sprig of sagging bamboo, today’s amble left me with wet hair and soggy shoes but other than that none the worse for the wear.

Today’s rain is slight, slender, sparse enough to walk through. When the
trail is canopied, as mine was, you can slip through the drips and
drops as if sidestepping them.

I passed people weeding, walking and running in the rain. The wet day didn’t bother them either.

Downed Trees

Downed Trees

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As I walk on familiar trails once again the extent of last month’s storm is evermore clear. Limbs down in almost every yard, the sound of chain saws and chippers and, what I noticed especially today, the tall trees in the forest that have been completely uprooted, whose roots lie exposed and bare.

With what deep tentacles do these oaks cling to their soil. Ferocious dedication to their plot of land. They didn’t give up without a fight, but 80 mile-an-hour winds make it difficult for even the hardiest to hang on.

In the long run, it was largely a matter of angle and placement. The downed trees are laid out in one direction. The wind came sweeping in from the west and the trees most directly in its path toppled down to the ground. But they still cling to the earth, even with their roots exposed and their trunks strewn across the forest floor.

Moderation in Motion

Moderation in Motion

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I begin the morning on foot. Down the suburban street, across a tiny wooden bridge over a culvert and through a parting in the trees. It’s where we walked last night, a short and winding path that leads to the wider rail-to-trail that runs between Baltimore and Annapolis. The spiders have been busy overnight and I brush the sticky webs off my arms.

Once on the main trail I hit my stride. I haven’t walked to work since I lived in New York more than two decades ago. And I’m not really walking to work now. Only making my way to the commuter bus. But there is no car involved, and that means I start the day in a calm and ancient way. With movement and foot fall and time for thinking as I stroll.

The downed trees I see make me think of our recent storm, our erratic weather, of global warming and what we’re losing with it, which is moderation. I ponder moderation for a minute, the peace it brings and the difficulty of achieving it these days. Walking is itself a moderating activity, isn’t it? It’s not the stop and go of vehicular locomotion but something that — because it’s limited by blood and bone and muscle — keeps us true to ourselves. Walking, then, is moderation in motion. It’s the temperate response to these extreme times.

What I used to see when I started the day on foot: the East Side glimpsed from the reservoir path.

The Brown Grass

The Brown Grass

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Lawns are parched here in Kentucky, the grass crunches underfoot. I get thirsty just looking at the scorched fields, as if in hydrating myself I can somehow freshen the air. “We’re not the Bluegrass anymore,” Dad jokes. “We’re the Brown Grass.”

While the Independence Day fireworks display wasn’t canceled, the Lexington mayor banned everything else.  No firecrackers, sparklers or Roman candles. It’s a hot, mean summer here, 99 degrees in the shade.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but the storm that’s been teasing us for hours seems more likely now.  The sky has darkened, and, at their higher elevations, the oaks and maples bend with the wind. Will we soon be drenched in sheets of rain, will rivulets run down the driveway and into the streets?

Or is it like those tarmac puddles that shimmer on the summer highway and disappear as soon as you draw close to them?

PIcking Up Sticks

PIcking Up Sticks

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Here in the leafy suburbs, when a storm whips through it leaves a trail of sticks behind. This is in addition to crushed roofs, smashed cars and downed trees. Compared with these, of course, twigs and leaf clumps mean little to nothing. Think of them as the comic relief of cleanup. What you do after you’ve drug the large limbs out of the garden.

And yet, once I started picking up sticks, I found I could do little else. There is the Zen-like rhythm of bending and grabbing and stuffing them in a bag. There is the way that spotting them trains one’s eye on what’s just ahead, nothing more, nothing less.

But there is also, yes, the obsessiveness of the hunt. I no sooner rid the yard of sticks of one diameter than I notice the next largest sort. Before long I realize that I’m grabbing what usually lies undisturbed in our yard, that I have long since rid our lawn of anything that could clog a mower. That I have, in short, become a bit compulsive about the task.

That’s when I stop dutifully bundling and tying the sticks with twine, or stashing them in recycling bags — and instead dump them in the trash with the rest of the garbage. It’s my own little clean-up rebellion.

It’s Called a Derecho…

It’s Called a Derecho…

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But I didn’t know that late last night when I heard the wind roar and the boughs and acorns clatter against the side of our (newly resided) house and one very large thud which I realize now was a tree hitting our neighbor’s roof. It didn’t take long for the lights to flicker and go off, and it also didn’t take long to realize that this was no ordinary storm.

It wasn’t until recently, after 16 hours without power, that I was able to fire up the computer, check the Washington Post website and learn what hit us. A derecho (de REY cho) is a long-lived, widespread wind storm that rides along a line of thunderstorms. It’s capable of tornado-like destruction, and one of its claims to fame is that it can hold itself together over hundreds of miles.

The derecho that hit us last night formed in Chicago and raced eastward, fed on the record-breaking heat (it was 104 on Friday). The wind was clocked at 80 miles an hour here last night, and the storm left three million people without power.

Like any blizzard, tornado or major weather event,  this one made me  realize how slender are the threads that connect us to the routine, modern life we live. We were lucky. We lost one tree and a large hunk of another, but neither hit our house or cars. Our gas stove meant I could make a cup of tea this morning, too. But with no power, little communication (phone service was disrupted),  downed power lines making driving difficult, and 100 degree heat barreling down on us once again, the day took on a survivalist tone.

I sit now in the stillness after the derecho, thrilling to the sound of the refrigerator’s hum.