So Many Things to be Thankful For

Today was a bit of a rough day.  But it wasn't a calamity, thanks to many kind people and many privileges I have as a middle-class American.

The Offspring awoke in the middle of the night and threw up, starting a trend that went on until mid-morning, when things started to look a little grim.  I was able to reach a doctor at the NYU urgent care center who recommended bringing him in.

I went to get the car, and found it nice and warm on this 20-something degree day because it was parked in the sun on the east side of the tall buildings, near the river.  I was thankful I didn't have to put The Offspring in a freezing cold car.  For that matter, I was thankful to own a car.

I was thankful to live in a city with great hospitals, and to have good health insurance, so I could go straight to one of the best.

NYU has a parking garage whose entrance is right by the entrance to the ER; I was glad I didn't have to sweat about paying the garage fee.

When we walked in, we were immediately greeted by a friendly volunteer with a big smile, and immediately I relaxed a little.  All the staff, every single one, every orderly and aide and nurse and doctor, went out of their way to be friendly to me and to The Offspring, who has seen more medical care than the average ten-year-old, not all of it compassionate, and gets a little jumpy.

In spite of all that, he was a trooper: cooperative, polite, not a single complaint.  And gleeful when he found out he could watch cartoons from his bed.

I was incredibly grateful that the ER at NYU has rooms, actual rooms, for the sick patients, rather than a huge bustling hall where behind one curtain someone is delirious for one reason or another, behind another someone cries out in pain while passing a gallstone, and behind a third, family drama.

Someone told me, many years ago, "Don't worry until you have to."  I've gotten pretty good at that, and while there was a possibility that The Offspring was in fact seriously ill and would need emergency surgery, I didn't waste much time contemplating it.  I'm thankful for the person who taught me that lesson.

When the Mate got appendicitis not long after we moved to New York.  Friends wanted to know why I wasn't freaking out.  My answer: appendicitis on a remote hiking trail or in a third-world country where I don't speak the language well -- that's a crisis.

Eventually, The Offspring's problem turned out to be "just" a virus, treatable with anti-nausea medication, and we went home.

The poor neglected dog had to be walked and fed, and having wolfed down his long-overdue breakfast, started retching.  I'm thankful he left it at that and didn't hurl all over the already much-abused floors.

The nearby pharmacy was still open, and we have a supermarket a block away, so filling a prescription and stocking up on seltzer and apple juice and white rice was, thankfully, an easy and quick errand.

And then I went into the kitchen, rather a wreck because in the two days before The Offspring got sick, I was down for the count with a bad cold, and The Mate has been out of town.  I turned on the faucet to soak some dirty dishes... and heard the unmistakable drip of leaking pipes.

Boy am I thankful that my building has plumbers on call on Sundays.

I'm thankful that I living in a building that, while without power for several days after Hurricane Sandy, was not structurally damaged, unlike the millions of people left homeless by Haiyan in the Philippines.

And finally, I'm thankful that I have a warm home with a bed to which I'll be retreating shortly, to sleep soundly.

Aftermaths and Catastrophes

Corlears Hook Park, next to our building, used to have whole rows of stately old trees, 80 or 90 years old.  When we first moved to the neighborhood, I kept taking pictures: it seemed the trees demanded it.

Many of those trees are gone now.  Three came down in Hurricane Irene and another nine in Hurricane Sandy, and the park has a completely different feel now: more open, brighter, yet without the majesty of the tall trees.

Corlears Hook park was damaged by the winds of Sandy.  Across the FDR Drive, the East River Park flooded.  A month later, there are still piles of rubble, flotsam and jetsam, tree limbs, and garbage: there just isn't enough people power to get everything cleaned up.  The dog run is in shambles.

These are local reminders that a month later, people in the region are still homeless, still suffering in various ways from the storm's destruction.  And I keep thinking of people and places elsewhere in the world: the tsunami in Japan, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the earthquake in Haiti.  Civilians, many of them children, in places riven by war, drought, famine.

My internal landscape was shaken by the hurricane, and I'm left more aware of the people around the world who suffer from ecological and political catastrophes.  At worst, I'm paralyzed: there's too much suffering, and I can do too little.

Yet I'm fortunate that my institution has given me space to develop two courses on the environment, and in those courses, I can help bring students to awareness of climate change and the resulting problems.  It seems too little, a tiny ripple in an immense pond, yet it's what I can do.

And so I need to push away the feeling that the world's problems are too big, and my capacities too small, and keep doing what I can do, and hope that those around me will also be inspired to action, and the ripple effects will build.

How To Help: NYC and NJ

[Updated 11/15]

At this point, it's all about volunteers and money.

People are still needed to go to the hardest-hit areas and help climb stairs, clean buildings and parks, sort donated goods, and transport food and other needed items to the people in need.

Cash is still needed to pay for help.  Food donations are still needed, but check your location's needs before you shop or donate.  If you can donate blood, please follow the links below to find your nearest location.  Bonus: you can get away with eating a second piece of pie on Thanksgiving.

New York City

Occupy Sandy was the first volunteer presence in much of the city and continues to coordinate aid to several areas.  Right now, they need blankets, flashlights, aaa batteries, gallon ziplock bags, cleaning hardware, especially brooms, flat shovels, mops, masks and gloves, hydrogen peroxide, white vinegar, baby/toddler food and formula, duct and scotch tape, toiletries (deodorants, tampons, soap, etc), can openers. To view the updated list or sign up to volunteer:
http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/map/
Occupy Sandy has set up a wedding registry on Amazon, where you can purchase needed items:
http://www.amazon.com/registry/wedding/32TAA123PJR42

The City of New York has a list of ways to help:
http://www.nycservice.org/pages/pages/8

Blood supplies were affected after the cancellation of many blood drives and the closing of blood collection centers in the area, and donations are needed:
http://www.americasblood.org/
http://www.nybc.org/index.jsp

New Jersey

The Community Food Bank of New Jersey is taking donations of cash, non-perishable foods, and diapers.  Check the website for the list of specific items:
http://www.cfbnj.org/blog/news/5367/hurricane-sandy-relief

The United Way of New Jersey is taking cash donations:
http://www.unitedwaynnj.org/gethelp/disasterrelief.php

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Please help me crowd-source this page.  Add confirmed information in the comments, email me at imagine1community@gmail.com, or post to my Facebook page, and I'll add items in the next update.  Thanks.

Still in the Dark

Walking around the city the day after the hurricane, I looked at the carnage and the chaos -- no, those words are not too strong -- and had no desire to document it, to seek artistic or journalistic frames and juxtapositions.  The emotion was direct and raw, washed over me like the saturated air still seething in the aftermath of the storm.

But a couple days later, I grabbed this with my cell phone: the Williamsburg Bridge, the Brooklyn side lit up, the Manhattan side dark.

Being surrounded by places with power was a good thing.  One day we visited a friend and showered; she cooked us a meal using a stove! a refrigerator! running water! Another day I sat for hours in Barnes & Noble recharging phone and iPad.  One night we went out to dinner, and I briefly noted the atmospheric candle on our table.

If we hadn't lost power, hadn't been without heat and light and running water for those days, I suspect I'd feel a lot less empathy for those still without power; as it is, it's heart-wrenching.

And the region is still like that half-dark bridge: most of us are back to more or less normal lives, others are still suffering.  We need to remember them, and keep doing whatever we can to help.

Aftermaths

Living on the third floor, having no elevator access was little more than inconvenience, though pitch-dark stairwells were a danger.  I live in a 20-story building, and some of my neighbors, unable to navigate the stairs, were trapped for the duration of the outage.  Residents of the building checked on each other, helping where we could.

One night, I heard someone fall in the stairwell.  Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump, a cry, a couple of moans.  I listened for a call for help, and when none came, burrowed back under the covers, knowing I should have gone to help.

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Before the blackout, I was in the midst of my worst asthma attack in three years.  I was using a nebulizer four times a day -- a machine that plugs into the wall to help deliver medication mixed with saline solution into the lungs in mist form.  With the power out, I switched to a metered dose inhaler to get the medication.

The next day, the attack finally broke.

I could climb those two flights of stairs.  I could walk the neighborhood and look at the damage.  I could bike to Union Square, where they were supposed to be giving out dry ice for the refrigerator.  I could go to the fire hydrant at the corner, fill buckets, carry them half a block and then up the stairs.

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Official help?  Hard to find.  Yesterday, after power had been returned to most of the area, I saw national guard members distributing bottled water on Grand Street.  A few days ago, I passed a truck on East 10th Street with oatmeal and bread.  There were rumors of food in other places, but no system to inform people what was available, and where.

The New York Times posted updates with information about infrastructure, noting "tap water is safe to drink."  Since we had no tap water in our building, that seemed a bit of an insult, along with the Empire State Building, lit up like fireworks beyond the dark buildings of the neighborhood.

Facebook was sometimes the only source of information.  It's how we found out about the dry ice, though the official notice failed to mention times for distribution, so I made my first trip to Union Square before the truck arrived, and my second after it had run out.

Flotsam and Jetsam

The morning after the power went out, I went for a long walk with the dog.  The wind was still blowing, but not dangerously; it wasn't really raining, but water seemed sort of to be sifting out of the sky.  I walked south along the East River, still bloated with flooding, stinking of marine fuel, and marveled at the things that had drifted in with the tide.  When I got home, I wrote the start of a blog post about them:

a pigeon, feet sticking out straight in front, one leg banded
part of an outboard motor
half a porta-potty
several pieces of PVC pipe joing
a gas mask
a small stuffed toy
bee hives in brightly painted boxes
a life vest, inside out
cars left in clumps, like bath toys

Early this morning I thought I heard surf breaking in the East River as the tide came in again.  I thought it must be my imagination twisting the gusts of wind, but when I saw the high water mark in the park, I reconsidered.

People, too, were washed up in the streets, stunned.  People who hadn't taken in the seriousness of the upcoming storm, hadn't had the information or the resources to gather supplies, to make a plan.  Dark stairwells, no flashlights, no water, cell phones drained of power.  A woman stood, anguish on her face, unable to step into the street.  Two lost young men decided they could bicycle to family, one to an aunt uptown, another to parents in Brooklyn. 

Later that day, another long walk.  In the river, two picnic tables, a length of what looked like metal pipe, at least 30 feet long and a foot in diameter, and an entire staircase.  We were driven out of our dark apartment, compelled to see the damage, yet unable to process the enormity of the destruction