An Update from Brooklyn, Post-Sandy

I’ll start my post-Hurricane Sandy blog post by assuring my readers that we weathered the storm safely at home. Our neighborhood in Brooklyn is in “Zone C,” which the city designates as an area that would only be evacuated if a category 3 or 4 storm rolled through. Our apartment is located near the geographic center of Brooklyn, nearly equidistant from all the borough’s waterfronts. So, we’re well away from the areas that were hit by flooding and the storm surge.

During the worst of the storm, our power flickered a bit, and it actually went totally black for a few seconds, only to come back on again. We also lost our Internet connection briefly, but it also came back up within a few minutes. That was rather amazing, since we’ve had longer power and Internet outages caused by much milder thunderstorms. We were extremely lucky, and we know it.

Now that the storm has passed, our biggest obstacle is our location in Brooklyn’s geographic center. Many of the subway lines near us haven’t been restored yet or are only running piecemeal. So, if we wanted to get into Manhattan (where Jen’s employer is located), we’d either need to take the subway to a bus transfer point and catch the shuttle into Manhattan or take the subway to a bridge and walk into Manhattan. Plenty of people are doing exactly that, and I admire them for it. Fortunately, Jen can work from home and is spared that process. (The New York Times has a great blog rolling here with stories about the lines for buses, the impromptu carpooling, and the gas shortages.)

 As that blog shows, this storm has brought out the best in many New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. Some examples include folks randomly starting carpools to cross the bridges, a house in Hoboken that ran extension cords and surge protectors outside so neighbors without power could recharge cell phones, and the residents of the East Side who helped carry patients out of NYU’s Langone Medical Center during the storm when its power and backup power sources failed. Truly, disasters can bring out the best in people.

Sadly, though, storms can also bring out the worst. We’ve learned that the death toll from the city continues to rise, with 38 people killed in NYC’s five boroughs (as of 5:00 pm on 11/01/12). Most of those deaths were on Staten Island, where children and the elderly make up a large number of those killed. Many of the storm’s victims were in the areas that should have been evacuated. We haven’t heard why the elderly victims weren’t evacuated, but I surmise they may not have had assistance to leave.

When I hear about the youngest victims of the storm, I’m filled with both rage and sorrow. In one case, a 13-year-old girl was found only a short distance from her home. Her parents ignored the evacuation order because their home didn’t suffer any effects from Irene in August 2011. In addition, one of their neighbors said the family came home from the Irene evacuation to find that the house had been burglarized. So, the girl’s parents decided to ride out the storm at home. Her mother is in the hospital, while her father is still missing.

Another woman lost her two sons, both under the age of four, when their SUV stalled in the floodwaters. She tried carrying them to safety, but they were pulled away from her in the storm. They had tried to stay home until water started coming in, and then attempted to flee during the brunt of the storm.

While I know it’s probably not fair to second-guess the decisions of these parents now, I find it hard to resist doing exactly that. I just can’t fathom placing a child in jeopardy. It’s one thing if an adult wants to make a foolish decision and suffers the consequences of that choice. But children shouldn’t be placed in harm’s way because an adult is too stubborn or foolish to evacuate when a storm is approaching.

Back to the good from the storm, since that’s where I want to keep my focus. The storm also brought out some neighborly feeling, even among those of us who were minimally affected by the storm. The area where Jen and I live has a very large Hasidic Jewish population, along with a lot of Pakistani and Russian immigrants. Usually, our Jewish neighbors won’t talk to us since we’re clearly Gentiles. The other groups also don’t talk to us much for similar reasons. But following the storm, we were walking around the neighborhood to see how bad the damage in the area might be. During our walk, the neighbors we encountered asked how we were. I’m sure we’ll all go back to our usual distance when life returns to normal, but the storm briefly broke down the barriers between us. I’m grateful for that.  

I’m sure the coming days and weeks will bring out more stories of both heroism and heartache from the storm. I don’t want this blog to become nothing but a recounting of Sandy’s affects on the city; however, I’m sure I’ll discuss it again when a particularly compelling story catches my eye.

To all those who weathered the storm and are now in the rebuilding process, my thoughts and prayers are with you.

Coming Storms (Both Literal and Figurative)

This autumn has turned out to be full of surprises. I mentioned in a post earlier this month that several people close to me were facing some challenges in personal and work relationships. This past week brought new updates on two of the three situations.

Our friends here in New York are coming ever closer to needing new employment, which could mean they need to leave the U.S. permanently. That really bothers me, since the couple has been in the U.S. for over a decade. They’re the kind of hard working, well-educated people we want to stay in this country. My friend is an accomplished scholar with a Ph.D. in English, and her husband is a gifted graphic designer, yet the expense of sponsoring someone for a green card means neither can find an employer willing to support their efforts to stay in the U.S. permanently.

A relative who is facing some relationship challenges has let me know that some additional factors are involved in that situation. Some of the things I’ve learned about that situation don’t surprise me, although it makes me wish I were in a position to travel and visit that relative right now. I think being there could help, but it’s just not an option. In that earlier post, I mentioned how frustrated I feel when I can’t fix things, and this is definitely a situation where life is telling me to “sit and stay!” I just don’t happen to appreciate the message.

As if those personal storms weren’t enough, the weather forecast for the next few days suggests that the Northeast may be hit with an actual storm, in the form of Hurricane Sandy. Current predictions (as of Friday a.m.) suggest the storm could hit New York City early Tuesday morning. The forecast suggests the winds and rain from that storm will collide with a winter storm from the west and cold air from Canada, which could lead to heavier rains and/or snowfall. Plus, Monday will be a full moon, meaning higher tides and increased likelihood of flooding. Oh, and all of this could occur right after Jen’s birthday, which is Sunday.

With luck, none of those things will happen, but Jen and I are stocking up on supplies just in case. It’s a bit ironic. We left Arizona (where the worst weather-related issues were heat stroke, lightning-sparked wildfires, and flooding from monsoon rains) to move to Seattle, with its earthquakes, snow-capped volcanoes, and occasional winter snow or ice storms. Then, we moved from Seattle to Brooklyn.

In our six years in Brooklyn, we’ve had an earthquake, a tropical storm/hurricane, blizzards, flooding, tornadoes, and heat waves. For people who like to plan ahead and have control over situations, we sure picked an odd place to live. There’s not much we can do about the weather, other than prepare and hope for the best. Come to think of it, that’s all we can do about any of these situations. And, letting things take their course isn't really our strong suit.

A Bit of This, A Bit of That

I don’t have a grand topic in mind for this week’s post, so I’ll just prattle on about a few recent events.

I didn’t get last week’s post written because Jen and I took a few days off. We intended to spend them at the New York Comic Con, and we attended it on Thursday. We saw a lot of great costumes and picked up a few exclusives from some of the vendors. It was our first time attending a comic convention, and I’m not sure if we’ll make it an annual event or not. We certainly had a good time, which makes me think we’ll go again.

However, the things that kept us from attending all four days will probably come up again next time. We wore ourselves out with all the walking and standing we did the first day, and we found ourselves getting a bit tired of the crowds. Also, we’re both homebodies, and having that much time to be together but spending it surrounded by others isn’t really a high priority for us. We’d rather spend that time together, away from people.

With the time that we didn’t attend the convention, we caught up on some reading, watched some movies, streamed some TV shows, and just generally relaxed. I think we both needed a little down time, which was the point of attending the convention. Getting that break without the crowds was an added bonus.

During our long weekend, we found two new favorite TV shows, although we’re about 15 years behind the times. Just before Comic Con, we started watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and we added “Angel” to the mix over the weekend. Streaming the two has been fun, although I’m actually surprised that we enjoy them as much as we do. Neither of us is into horror, whether it’s a novel, movie, or comic. Given that, watching these shows seems a bit out of character.

I wouldn’t normally admit to watching a show like “Buffy,” especially this long after it was in its heyday. But, I’m pretty sure very few people are reading my blog, so I think my admission is safe.

A Week of Lessons

This past week has been full of learning opportunities, and I’m not sure I appreciate the lessons I’m learning.

My Facebook experiment has been a challenge. I find myself mindlessly navigating to the Facebook home page a few times a day or checking the Facebook app on my smartphone, which underscores that deactivating my account was a good idea. I hadn’t realized how often I would take “just a quick peek” at it, which usually turned into several minutes of reading posts and commenting. I haven’t seen indications that my productivity has increased yet, but I hope I will soon.

This week has also reminded me of some less-than-desirable personality traits. I’m the kind of person that likes to be in control of a situation, and I also usually plan for contingencies. The events of this past week have reminded me that I can’t always fix everything and my attempts at planning don’t always work.

One example of this affects one of my relatives. Last week, I learned that this person is going through a tough time with a personal relationship. As much as I want to swoop in and fix the situation, this week has reminded me that I simply can’t do that. The feeling of powerlessness that accompanied that realization really bothered me, because it reminds me that I need to stop trying to control everything.

In case I hadn’t learned my lesson the first time, I also learned that a close friend is struggling with a relationship issue too. Again, I can’t really do anything to help the situation, other than give these people my love and support. That’s not easy to do since we live in different states. But even if I were nearer to them, I couldn’t fix either situation. And, it’s not my place to try. But, my impulse to take charge and fix the issues keeps nudging me toward intervening.

And, in case I hadn’t gotten the message the first two times, I received a reinforced version of that message again yesterday. Another close friend, who is in the U.S. on a work visa, works for a company that is going through a restructuring. Several people have been laid off, and this friend is worried because losing the job would mean leaving the U.S. after over a decade of being here and attempting to get green card status. If that happens, my friend has only ten days to leave the country. Again, there’s nothing I can do, but I sure want to try.

The autumn change usually prompts me to some introspection, and I certainly have a lot to think about.

My Social Disconnect

Last week, I posted a Facebook status to say that I’m deactivating my account. I have a lot of reasons for making that decision, and I’d like to touch on a couple of them here.

The first reason is to devote more time to my freelance business, as well as my creative writing. That may seem an odd choice, since so many “experts” tell writers they need a robust online presence to succeed in today’s writing industry. However, a writer needs something to promote, and I find that too much of my creative writing time is spent surfing the web or liking posts on Facebook. I start researching for my novel, and then get sucked down a rabbit hole. As a result, my novel sits waiting for attention. Until it’s completed, building an online presence is the cart before the horse.

In addition, I haven’t given enough attention to marketing and growing my freelance business in recent months. True, I have some steady clients; however, I’m the kind of person who needs new challenges and opportunities to learn new skills. I haven’t done enough with that recently, and it’s time to shake off the rust and learn something new.

Perhaps the biggest reason for the change is that I want a more authentic connection with the people in my life. Yes, Facebook makes it easy to bridge the miles, but how “real” are the interactions through it?

When I was a kid, I lived 13 miles from the town where I went to school. Most of that distance was over unpaved roads, and we were too far from the township limits to be on its water or phone networks. Since this was in Arizona’s Sonoran desert, we didn’t have a water well on the property, so my family hauled water to store in tanks for household use. That practice always made me a little “odd” in the eyes of my classmates.

The bigger oddity, however, was our lack of a telephone. This was the 1980s, when kids were glued to the phone during the summer, and really fortunate kids had their own phone lines in their rooms. Since we didn’t have a phone at all, I was often cut off from the ever-changing social circle during the summer months. While that made the start of each school year difficult (since I had to “remake” my friends each year), I learned to treasure those friends who would write me letters during the summer. I came to appreciate the importance of a personal connection as represented by an envelope in the mail.

Those experiences have prompted me to log off of Facebook so I can connect more personally with the people I care about. I know it takes two to tango, so this experiment will only work if my friends and extended family reply to my emails, phone calls and letters. Since I recognize that keeping in touch without Facebook may be challenging, I expect I’ll reactivate my account at some point. I’m hoping to stick with this experiment at least until the new year. We’ll see if that works or not.

During my Facebook experiment, I’ll still be regularly posting to both this personal blog and my business blog. Hopefully, the quality of my writing will improve if I have more time to think and write about the issues that matter to me.

Seeking New Challenges

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I’m a little stumped for a topic for this week’s post. Usually, something has occurred that I feel compelled to share and/or boast about. Even when nothing interesting happens, I can usually count on the political arena to give me fodder for a post. But this week, nothing has sparked my interest or outrage enough to base a blog post on it.

That’s a bit odd for me, since I’m one of those people with opinions on nearly every topic. And, I’m also so fond of the sound of my own voice (whether spoken or written) that I feel EVERYONE should hear my opinions. Yes, my ego is alive and well, thanks for asking.

On a serious note, I often discover what I truly think about a topic only by writing about it (either here on my blog or in my journal). That is, the act of writing about a topic helps me crystalize my thoughts and put new ideas into context with the rest of my beliefs and values. Since writing and thinking deeply are intrinsically linked for me, I’m a bit surprised that I don’t have something to discuss this week.

I’m also one of those people who crave learning and new challenges as often as possible. Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that I feel a bit stuck in a rut with my editing work. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I work nearly full-time as an editing contractor for an educational website company. I’ve had a senior editing position with them for almost a year now, and I noticed recently that the work is longer challenging. Instead, it simply feels routine, and I find myself getting bored.

When that happens, I know it’s time to take on a new challenge. That’s one of the reasons I’m enrolled in a poetry writing class. While that helps assuage my craving for a challenge, it doesn’t feel like it’s pushing me as hard as I need right now. So, I’m looking for something else to add to the mix.

Thinking about it, I get into this “I need a new challenge” situation fairly often throughout the year. While this feeling can strike at any time, I realize it’s most common in May and September. For reasons I don’t fully understand, those two months are when my need for a new challenge most likely compels me to make a major change in my life. May tends to prompt me to look for a new job, while September makes me introspective, looking for ways to improve myself (perhaps by growing spiritually). Perhaps it’s a holdover from childhood and the school calendar, but I have a feeling there’s a deeper cause behind why those two months are so significant. I just haven’t figured out the reasons behind it yet.

The Rollercoaster of Life

The past two weeks have been hectic ones, full of emotional highs and lows.

One of the emotional highs was a weeklong visit from Jen’s younger brother, Chris. He flew into New York the evening of August 31^st, and returned to Seattle the morning of September 8^th. During his visit, Jen and I took time off from work to show him around the city. We both enjoyed our time as “tour guides,” and exploring the city with Chris reminded us of all the reasons why we enjoy living here. Some of the highlights we hit included the jazz scene, the museums, a baseball game, the food, and a Broadway show. Chris also got a kick out of eavesdropping on the colorful locals during our treks around town.

Chris’s visit also brought one of the emotional lows, since our cat, Geoffrey, took ill during that week. His illness kept me home during one of our planned jazz excursions, and that illness led to a trip to the vet. That led to two days in vet hospitals, visits to a specialist, and a plethora of pills, liquids and injections. A large sum of money later, we have a diagnosis of pancreatitis linked to a chronic gastro-intestinal illness, which caused a flare-up of our cat’s diabetes. These conditions can all be managed to give Geoffrey a longer, happier life, and that’s a relief. We had to put our other cat, Maya, down last November because she had cancer. We’re not ready to be a household without pets.

I’m not sure if this is a high or low on life’s rollercoaster, but I’m a few weeks into my poetry writing class. So far, I’m enjoying the class, although the weekly lectures have underscored just how little I know about writing poetry. I’m enjoying the exercises, although I’m not at all pleased with the work I’ve produced. I’m trying to remind myself that I’m a beginner as a poet, and this class is helping me lay the groundwork for future efforts. It’s hard to keep that perspective on things, though, when I’m such a perfectionist.

The weather and temperatures are hinting that autumn is coming. While I love autumn, it’s also the time of year when things get hectic in the legal world, which means Jen spends more hours either in the office or working from home. I suppose I should be used to the rhythms of the legal calendar by now, but it still catches me by surprise each fall. I think one of the biggest frustrations about her longer hours is that autumn marks the start of the new theatre season. That means a lot of shows start up, but it’s harder for us to see them since we’re never sure what her schedule might be.

All in all, though, life in the Nichols-Simon household is going well. Life is a journey, and we’re both trying to remember to embrace the trip, not the destination.