most of the things i meant to tell you about after tropical storm irene were things that in the end i did not tell you. i took pictures of some of the lighter parts of the work, but mostly i was too worn out and i had seen some things.
it was kind of a long time ago.
i get a shiver when i go by a building i helped put back together, or one i helped tear apart, but we all did what we could.
everybody who lived in the hills bought facemasks and crowbars and trashbags and we went down into the valleys and we just started helping.
sometimes the best help we could give was to stand there and listen to people cry.
watching the hurricane tracks has been hard for me, especially the one over florida.
because i know how thin work crews get stretched, how there's more work to go around than there are people to do the work, even if you can afford to pay workers.
my dad lives in florida.
and i'm the only child who would have been free to go help him if his house had been flattened. when i realized this, i started to remember the feeling of going through mounds of debris in someone else's house, looking for a few bits that can be saved before we put everything else in the dumpster.
people would rather you weren't there, but also they'd be lost without you. it's an odd unfamiliar etiquette. the smell is horrific. you have no idea what diseases you might get. the worst part is not the heat or the backbreaking work, but the waves of other people's pain.
so anyway, it's been some sleepless nights as i thought about the possibility of going to help pick up my father's house if he lost it in the storm.
it took some damage, but it's all right.
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