It was a quiet, hot, late-ish summer's day here in Los Angeles - too hot for much outdoors action, so what did I do (whilst masquerading as someone doing admin)? - sat and watched coverage of the hurricane in the north-east, and hanging on to all mentions of New Jersey. I'm not sure that this is an easy one to think through - it was a state that I was very happy to leave, and to which I nonetheless I feel curiously bonded. I think I put a great deal of an effort into welding myself to it, and it's hard to shed that. Not much could bring home this sense of cross-country distance more effectively than a hurricane. And yet, at the same time I keep worrying that the basement of our old house might have flooded, or some of the precarious branches - or even trees - overhanging the front and back yards might come down, or the new tower somehow damaged by a stray branch or two. I feel less sanguine still about what might have happened to the roof of 36 Union Street, or the basement of Murray Hall, or Angela's office ceiling ... One would think that in sunny Los Angeles I'd be able to shut off my anxious imagination, but evidently not ...
No comments:
Post a Comment