Remembering Sandy

I say this as if I experienced some sort of hardship, some great loss or personal struggle because of the impacts of Hurricane Sandy. Which, of course, I didn't. True, I was here. In NYC. Not yet a New Yorker myself, I was on a trip with my then-boyfriend for his birthday. And while we had to deal with inconveniences like all our events being cancelled, no way to get anywhere, and nothing to eat other than the small bag of groceries we had the sense to purchase, really the only reminder of our predicament (other than being forced to survive on Macaroni & Cheese from a box) was the damn crane a few minutes from us that they kept showing on the news.

But I do remember being scared about the unknownness of the storm. Going to bed that night amid the howl of strong wind and having no idea what the state of things would be in the morning. It's a sensation I had never experienced until living in the east. (Yes, I consider Cleveland to be east. And NYC is even *easter*.) The power of forces like hurricanes and tornadoes, the relentlessness of lightening during a lightening storm, the sheer volume of snow and depth of cold. You don't get any of that out west. It just rains.

Maybe it's the fact that you just don't have a prayer when up against a natural disaster, maybe it's that I now live in such a large city, but I find I'm much less tolerant these days (read: not at all tolerant) of movies that depict the fictional destruction of entire cities. In this day and age, doesn't that just hit a little too close to home? In any case, it's been 2 years. That's incredible. So is the rebuilding we've seen. So are the progress, expansion, and triumphs still to come. Almost nothing amazes me more than the resilience and strength of the human spirit. That is what I'm toasting to tonight.