SOMETHING IN THE AIR -27 August 2011

27th AUGUST 2011

I look out to the pale-green and golden hills above which the sky stretches its blueness with here and there cylinders of white clouds rising up from the horizon reminding me of the shape of a tornado and just like that the afternoon's serenity is broken and I'm on the internet searching for the latest news of Hurricane Irene.

An earthquake and a hurricane in one week in New York. The latest radar maps look slightly better than early this morning, but who really knows? Probably not even Irene. Our house on Cape Cod has been boarded up, outside furniture taken in and window boxes removed. This little house has withstood many a hurricane in its 150 years and we're hoping it will absorb this one too. The garden will probably get burned from the ferocity of salt-laden winds and after a wet summer trees can be easily uprooted. Was it just a week ago that I said to Joel, I hope this sale goes through, to which he replied, "There should be no problem barring a catastrophe."

I've had my moment of gloom and doom and let it go. I don't want to ruin the beauty of being here, and here is where I am. It's a rather extreme example of how little we control, but as long as the children are safe we'll ride out whatever may befall us.

Last night we lay under the night sky watching the stars and tried to wrap our minds around the fact that many of those we were supposedly seeing no longer exist. It's taken this many millions of years for their light to reach us. So how do we measure time? And why? Is there a beginning and an end? And will our light shine in the night, long after we cease to exist?