Cool & eerie — especially if you live in Maryland, New Jersey, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Alabama, or North Carolina.
Since California has taken the title of Most Encononically Screwed State in the Nation (and since Ahhhh-nold is probably going to make a gubernatorial run), I’m almost tempted to say I’m not worried about the consequences once we get our own quarter.
On the other hand, I know all too well how things can always get worse. So once the Gov decides which design he likes, maybe we’ll finally get that one, last, big earthquake that’ll snap us off at the Nevada stateline and send us adrift into the Pacific. (Which, I know, would please far too many Americans!)
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Alabama, California, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Republicans
May 5, 2003
I awoke, as I often do, in the dead of night, trying to guess the time before looking at the clock. Usually, I’m pleasantly surprised to find my guess within twenty minutes of the clock; this morning, I was about four hours off.
It was one of those nights — not filled with bad dreams, just odd ones, that began with a handshake from Al Gore, and ended with my mother pulling out a shotgun and blasting the windows out of a car — an old classic car that, in real life, I used to own. No, Mom’s not the violent sort, and I wasn’t upset about her blowing away my old car; from the context and the feeling of the whole thing, I see this dream as having to do with letting go of the past — even if takes somebody else pushing me into it.
Which is why the first two news stories I heard this morning were especially compelling — at least, they were to me. But I think you’ll find something to think about here, too, in terms of loss and acceptance — and priorities.
First, I see that tornadoes have torn through Missouri and Kansas, leaving 22 dead — no, make that 26 now, according to the ABC News scroll — so far.
Other than donate a pint of blood, what can one say, or do, except express one’s sadness and sympathy? As much as we’d like to set the clock back and get all those people out of their homes in time, we can’t. They’re gone.
When I’m in the Midwest, the locals laugh at my fear of tornadoes — it’s a seasonal thing, they tell me, and you get used to it — and then invariably question my sanity for living in earthquake country. Somehow, explaining that there’s no such thing as an “earthquake season” (although I am a firm believer in “earthquake weather“) has no impact — nor does reiterating that temblors are not terribly frequent, and when they do happen, are usually so mild that their effect is about the same as being awakened by the dog on the foot of the bed, scratching a flea. (I’ve experienced no more than three or four shakers at or above magnitude 6.0 in my lifetime.)
When all else fails, I tell my Midwestern friends I think it just sounds cooler to live on the edge of the Ring of Fire than in the path of Tornado Alley. (Yes, folks, that was sarcasm, and no, there’s nothing cool about being crushed under a collapsed freeway overpass. Fact is, we’re all sitting ducks.)
Other than the occasional quake, there’s not much else that bothers us here in the Golden State. We’re spoiled; two inches of rain in a day is a flood, and temperatures below 72°F/22°C in the summer and 60°F/15°C in the winter may as well be ice storms as far as we’re concerned. We like our snow, but we like it to stay in the mountains and go to it rather than have it come to us. And if you’re one of those rich, crazy people who insists on living on top of a mountain in one of those houses on stilts, just so you can gloat over a breathtaking view of Malibu, well, we’ll all feel sorry for you when the next mudslide sends your home sliding across PCH — but we’ll also shake our heads, cluck our tongues, and say, “Well, what did you expect?”
There’s nowhere perfectly “safe” to live in the world; it’s just a matter of deciding what sort of dangers you can live with. Ya place yer bets, ya take yer chances.
Of course, the more one is exposed to the elements, the more common sense one develops — and the more one appreciates, respects, and defers to the pure wildness of nature. Having lived literally out in the middle of nowhere myself at one time, the lesson was forced on me — and I had a much easier time of things once I conceded and learned to live by nature’s rules, instead of trying to bend them to my own will.
It just doesn’t work any other way.
Which brings me to the second story of the morning…
My sincere condolences go out to the state of New Hampshire today: The Old Man of the Mountain — a 40-foot-tall granite outcropping that resembled the profile of an old man — collapsed over the weekend, and now resembles nothing more than a pile of rocks. The formation, the state’s most cherished symbol, was depicted on license plates, road signs, official vehicles, and the like.
Now, you might expect a spate of memorials and tributes to the fallen symbol — and there will be all that — but what ruins and distorts a simple tale of loss, grief, resolution, and acceptance is this: Some folks way up there in the extreme northeast (including the governor) are so griefstricken that they want to — get ready for it — restore (i.e., rebuild) the Old Man.
It was a rock, people — and as much as I appreciate your sadness (more than twenty years later, we’re still in mourning out here for the loss of Natural Bridges), it seems entirely inappropriate and even morbid to try to resurrect (and fabricate) something natural and beautiful, whose time it was to go.
There’s also something awfully American about the whole idea, as well. Perhaps we can all ponder the larger implications of such an unnatural plan to bring the dead back to life. It doesn’t work. It isn’t real. It’s simply… against nature.
To rebuild the World Trade Center, or entertain the thought of raising the Titanic, are different ideas entirely. These are man-made things — and it is not lost on me that while each is a symbol, that symbol is one of opulence, excess, living large. And neither was formed by the hand of nature.
To my New Hampshire readers: I’m not trivializing your loss. But the Old Man was a symbol, nothing more, nothing less. Does its loss also symbolize the loss of your resolve and determination to “Live Free or Die”?
Maybe I’m missing something here. Maybe I don’t understand. But it seems to me that I’d rather tell my children about what used to be, show them pictures of what was, and impress upon them the importance of appreciating what we have while it is here, because nothing — nothing — on this earth is permanent.
And I would explain that their own determination and resolve must be greater than any physical thing in this transitory world of ours.
Wouldn’t you rather your own children understand that? Or would you rather point to a false idol of deceptive permanence — a grotesque, Disneyesque creation — as their symbol of freedom?
The folks in Missouri have no choice this morning; there’s no resurrecting the dead. They will be forced to grieve, to rage, to accept, and finally resume their lives — lives no doubt altered forever, but they will go on.
And you want to rebuild a rock?
Nothing is permanent. Grieve. But let it go.
Let the Old Man rest in peace.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Missouri, New Hampshire, R.I.P.
“Clearly this is a momentous day for New Hampshire — a state that holds individual liberty and fairness as core values.”
