There are worse things...Hurricane Sandy, Part II.

Rizzo, the sassy, brassy, bad girl from Grease sang, "There are worse things I could do..." and I keep hearing that refrain in my head though I am not quite talking about how badly I have behaved but rather considering how much worse it could all actually be.  I am finding it difficult it to keep the smooth skin over the brewing frustration and discontent.  I rarely go to my community's website because on a good day there is too much chatter about what someone else is doing wrong or in what way someone has been harmed or offended.  While often a great source of information, the site is also filled with folks needing to vent, tear off heads and shit down people's necks about parking, PTA, town fairs, community events, neighbors, and now Hurricane Sandy and its handling by the utilities and municipal government.

To be put out, indignant about our current situation, enough to blow up in the streets, puts me on edge.  Perhaps it is my fear of an angry parent lashing out unexpectedly, randomly at the slightest infraction or the most horrific indignity with the same intensity, or my need to try to look on the bright side even while snidely bitching to myself and my closest peeps, or my naivete in expecting that people who tell me they are trying to help really are, but lengthy diatribes about "heads needing to roll" in the face of a horrific storm that brought death and total destruction to some and yes, a loss of power,heat,  cable television, telephone, and internet to many others, are unfair and really not constructive.  I don't mean to chastise because I know we all have our breaking points and we all need, desire, love our creature comforts.  It is, in fact, quite surprising to discover just what it is we need for comfort until we are not able to have it.  I totally get it.

When we were in Barbados during and after Tropical Storm Tomas and were looking at day five of no power, dwindling water supply, crying children, spoiling food, blazing heat and sweltering humidity, and animals trying to get into the house because they were scared out of their wits that whatever that was might happen again, I threatened to leave my husband and never return.  I asked him why he dared put me and his children in harm's way.  I brooded for days, trembled with panic, sweat my face off, and then came to my senses.  Sure, I cried crocodile tears, hated the people who got power before we did, which in this case meant air conditioning and oscillating fans (oscillating fans!), resented those with cool drinking water and those who lived above sea level in the hills.  I hated that though I longed for privacy, I needed to keep the windows and doors opened to keep from suffocating.  I hated that my husband had to work through the clean up and I was forced to stay home alone with two kiddles.  I heard myself say, "I am an American girl.  I need my ____" whatever it was in that moment.  I was spoiled and childish and tired and frustrated and upset in a country where I certainly had no right or ability to write to my public official days after the event and demand something be done for me now!

I had Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake in my memory and honestly, after surviving the house shaking, torrential rain-producing Tropical Storm Tomas, I felt the space between life and death, so tenuous, so silkworm-thread thin, that I thanked my lucky stars and tried to get on with it.  I'd heard from my friend Kassandra who lived through Katrina what losing almost everything really felt like.  It wasn't just uncomfortable and painful.  It was soul crushing, energy sapping, despair producing.  One could easily become catatonic with fear at the magnitude of the loss.  The stories from Haiti were stunning.  Seeing the images hit me at the core.  What could really be said?  This was life experienced at the fray.  There are no words there.  It is eerily quiet.

After Tomas, I decided to let go of my pride, my fear, my closed shell and open up to the friends who were reaching out to me.  My good friend, Wendy, a lady I will know all my life, took me in, pep-talked me back to some level of sense, and slapped my cheeks with love and support to revive me.  I learned that where I thought there were limits there was more to go and that I could endure it.  I accepted that we each have our breaking points and that I would not condemn my own feelings or the feelings of others in relation to their own suffering, but that I would keep it in perspective.  I empathize, I want to help.  I want to listen. I want to confirm.  I want to support.

Sitting in the middle of a community rendered power-less by downed trees, destroyed power lines, but with power myself, it is hard not to feel guilt, shame, discomfort at our good fortune.  I do not dare complain about our lack of cable television, telephone, or internet when the temps outside are dropping well into the 40s at night and families are hunkered down, sleeping together in front of their fireplaces.  I count the days with them and try to will the power back, but know that my ten cents mean nothing when showers are avoided because it's too cold to get out and bedtime comes when it gets dark.  I remember the glow of the candles, trying to preserve the batteries, trying to find more batteries, becoming possessive of the flashlight, lashing out and crying out and calling out. 

The sense of powerlessness to make it all better is only diminished by the ability to give and help in some way.  Once we'd gotten home to find that not only was our house in tact, but that power had never failed (only the Comcast cable/telephone/internet), we were overwhelmed with the fatigue that comes after being held up by adrenaline.  All I wanted to do was sleep.  What I needed to do was see who needed help.  We drove around with the girls in the car pointing out damaged homes, downed lines, mangled cars, patio furniture, broken trees.  I wanted them to see that whatever suffering they felt at not being able to see Jake and the Neverland Pirates was nothing in comparison.  When Lily saw the first images from the Jersey Shore, Staten Island, and lower Manhattan, she couldn't form the words to express the sheer magnitude of her terror.  I could see it in her little face.  How?   Why?  What will those people do?  I felt worse than she because I had no answer.  And because I'd grown up there.  I knew those places.

Sandy brought out the light and the dark in nature and in each of us.  It pummeled us, shook us, and tossed us about, and put our sense of survival and familial protection on heightened alert.  She made us look at ourselves differently.  Grease's Sandy wanted to change how she looked, in hopes of showing some depth, some strength and Rizzo wanted to put it all out there, pure aggression and strength to hide her vulnerability, her fearful self, her inner child.  I hope that from this, we can all see both.  That we have the strength to take care of ourselves and each other (more than we could ever imagine) and that we can accept being taken care of and being loved (more than we could ever allow).


(c)  Copyright 2012.  Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.