Coffee break

This year, the assigned hurricanes are familiar.  I mean literally.  Lot of them have names that are in my family.  It's a bit disconcerting, seeing the trouble they're causing.

The images of the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Fiona this weekend were sobering, but an antidote, of a sort, came in viewing the local coverage in Atlantic Canada.

Mind you, Halifax had a relatively mild time of it, as Fiona (wince) made landfall near Cape Breton.  Still the footage showing the conditions of the streets in Halifax reminded me strongly of Hurricane Earl, when I was there in 2010.

In between reports of devastation, the CBC reporters out of the Halifax office were chatting like neighbours at a barbecue.  They kept mentioning coffee.  No electricity, so difficult to make coffee.  The weatherman had been up for over 24 hours; he'd been getting by on five cups of coffee.  A man on the street was stopped for an interview - was he out to look at the downed trees?  No, he was looking for a cup of coffee.  (Chuckle, chuckle)

Even this morning, a journalist writing an essay for the National Post, wrote wistfully and a bit uneasily of the changes he'd seen in hurricanes over the years, while living in the Halifax area.  He described brewing a cup of coffee for someone sheltering at his home.

Clearly, what Halifax needs is coffee.  Cape Breton, Charlottetown, and Port aux Basques need electricity. And infrastructure.  And new houses.

A hard rain's gonna fall

It's 10:30 here in Halifax, Nova Scotia and the leading edge of Hurricane Earl has been whirling through for the past hour or so. I see trees and bushes tossing wildly and sheets of rain slicing down the deserted streets, with waves of water sloshing over from the gutters. Good thing Earl was downgraded; he's now a "weak Category One". I wouldn't care to encounter anything stronger. Reports already coming in of fallen trees and power outages. I better get this done...

Half an hour ago, I waved goodbye to elder daughter as she descended to the parking levels of this hotel to drive the short distance to the University of King's College, "Canada's oldest chartered university" (founded 1789, which is ancient by Canadian standards). I slipped into the tiny computer room here and had a quick weep, because once people see someone in here, they decide to come in too.

Being eighteen, elder daughter is eager to get started, and being eighteen, she's still veering between being a child and an adult. This song has been relentlessly playing in my head for the past twenty-four hours:
Oh very young, what will you leave us this time?
You're only dancing on this earth for a short while . . . .
There'll never be a better time to change your mind
And if you want this world to see a better day
Will you carry the words of love with you?

And the goodbye makes the journey harder still.

The computer room has people in it now. If I need a place for another quiet weep, I'll have to find someplace else.

Finding perspective on a Monday morning

I would have preferred to watch the BAFTA awards this year, but no Canadian broadcaster seems to be carrying them, so I started on the Grammys instead.

Oh dear. The Grammys have always a bit of a mystery to me. The "stunt" duos and jams are always fun; this year they paired up Justin Timberlake and Al Green, for example, but they had Miley Cyrus making a big fuss over singing with Taylor Swift (gee, how can you tell that girl is under twenty?) "for the very first time!" Sorry, is this important? Add to this my mystification over the popularity of Coldplay...

After an hour of listening to people who seemed very assured of their importance in the scheme of things, I switched over to TVO which was showing the second half of When the Levees Broke, the epic Spike Lee documentary about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the surrounding area. The third and fourth "acts" of the film cover the rage and grief of the displaced survivors, many relocated to 44 other states, and months later, unable to return.

The reasons for rage and grief are almost too numerous to mention: the painful inadequacy of the levees in the first place, the sluggish and in some cases, non-existent responses of the national government to the emergency and its agonizing aftermath, the refusal of the insurance companies to pay, drawing up ludicrous definitions and delineations between "hurricane damage" and "flood damage". ("There's a special circle in Hell for insurance companies," says one fellow, with a grim smile, "Dante would see to it.")

To me, though, the most interesting "rage button" is when the displaced survivors are referred to as "refugees" by the media. Al Sharpton, among others, is outraged: "They are not refugees! They are American citizens!" The objection seemed to be that refugees are from another country; they are homeless (and, dare I say, faceless?) "We weren't refugees; we weren't homeless people," says a survivor (I am paraphrasing, so I might not have the exact words), "We were taxpayers." Well, I guess that puts the refugees in their place. Definitely way below Grammy Awards attendees...

Every now and then, I'd flip back to the Grammys, but little had changed. Lots of people wearing sunglasses indoors. I went to sleep with the images of water-devastated Louisiana and fire-scorched southern Australia in my mind. One hundred and seventy-one people burned to death near Melbourne, last I checked. No more words.

A kind of September

Try to remember a kind of September/ When life was slow and oh so mellow

Listen, does this describe any one's September? Even if you're out on the farm, aren't you madly harvesting? Furthermore, I think most of us, with or without children, in school or long since graduated, are still bound inextricably to the rhythm of the school year. September means a re-shouldering of burdens, and, at our house, a few false starts at getting the hang of the new schedule.

Younger daughter and I have resumed the daily pilgrimage up the hill to school. We join the parade of parents-determined-to-not-drive-children-to-school (at least until the first big rain or snow, not an option for us, not having a car in the first place); parents-determined-to-bike-with-their-tykes-to-school (usually with parent on road and tyke on sidewalk; parent reminding tyke to ring his bell to signal you to leap out of his way); and dogs accompanying both aforementioned categories, much to younger daughter's delight.

After leaving younger daughter to the tender mercies of the staff and her schoolmates (please, dear God, some kindness this year), I make my way down the suddenly much emptier streets, encountering later rising dog walkers and large, sidewalk-encompassing strollers containing blond children pushed by Caribbean or Philippina ladies. It's that kind of neighbourhood. Occasionally a line of black SUV's with tinted windows slips by me. It's not a funeral cortege; it's the Prime Minister, off to work after dropping his vote-winning children off at school. (Gosh, I hope he loses this election, but I'm not holding my breath.)

When you were a tender and callow fellow...

Mid-afternoon, and I climb the hill again. Occasionally, I encounter the principal for some cheerful words about the weather or a spot of micro-managing: "It's looking pretty good for (younger daughter)," he informs me. "Has she told you that (Dutch Girl) has moved? No? Well, (Guardian Angel) is still here, so that's good..." I don't tell him that Dutch Girl actively snubbed younger daughter and Guardian Angel for the second half of the last school year when she took up with Unkind Russian Prodigy who besides instigating the snubbing, thought filling younger daughter's boots with snow was a huge joke and is the prime suspect for the Case of the Disappearing Indoor Shoes of last winter. What would be the point?

...When no one wept except the willow

And each afternoon, younger daughter and I descend the hill, being narrowly missed by sidewalk cyclists (fully helmeted of course, although we're not). Sometimes we're witness to after-school mini-dramas: 1) Two young boys sprint past us, slowing now and then to scan the horizon behind them with wide eyes. Not long after this, another young boy, clad in a camouflage tee-shirt with a huge red back-pack, trots by us, not exactly like Pepé Le Pew, but with a relaxed sort of speed. He catches up with the fleeing duo about half-a-block ahead of us; cuffs one and yanks the ear of the other, before almost serenely resuming his trot down the hill. Anxious duo (one rubbing his cheek, the other gingerly fingering his ear) balances on the curb of the street which is busier than usual with after-school pickups and school buses, before crossing to hurry down the other side. They vanish around the next corner. Seconds later, Pepé Le Pew emerges from around the other corner where he has evidently been lying in wait, and trots after them...

Without a hurt, the heart is hollow...

Or: 2) As the sky turns a greenish sort of grey, various clusters of homeward bound kids and families hurry past us. I glance down the hill and see the storm moving toward us, heralded by leafs whirling like protons and neutrons. Beyond, I can see the horizontal rain, a gift from the tail end of Hurricane Ivan which is now exhausting itself over Eastern Canada. I push younger daughter into a driveway to search out and hoist our umbrellas, out of the way of rushing pedestrians, and a large dog indignantly barks at us while a lady restrains him and calls an unheard reassurance over the howling wind. Younger daughter shrieks in delight as our umbrellas twist in our hands. Some of the family groups who had passed us earlier are taking shelter against fences and under trees. The wind changes directions and ambushes us from behind. My blouse is clinging icily to my back when we make the haven of the front porch. Even our underwear needs changing. Our heads, however, are dry....

Although you know the snow will follow...

Nice song, that. From the musical The Fantasticks. However, I have to wonder what Messrs Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones were on about. The September they describe is like no September I've ever remembered...