Hurricane Update

Maybe this is why no one can find a cab

What a week.

Flood damage, fire damage, debris, pitch darkness, gas shortages, no subways, 3-person carpool rules... New York City has never felt so vast and untamed.  Just getting to and from work has been a daily adventure of Cloverfield fashion.  Not to mention the added complication that I have been on jury duty, so I had the unique opportunity of trying to travel to Manhattan AND downtown Brooklyn in the same day.  That's some bullshit.

On Wednesday, after realizing I would never find a car to drive me home, I ran home from Manhattan to Brooklyn.   The Queensboro was a clusterfuck of walkers and bikers, many of whom likely have never traveled by such means. After almost getting run over by three bikers who refused to slow down despite the crowds, I found myself screaming at them in an endorphin-fueled rage.  I think that makes me an official New Yorker.

But then the next night a cab driver who already had a passenger stopped to allow me and two other strangers into the cab because as he put it "we all gotta help each other out right now."  I sent karma and big tips their their way to make it to the airport in time.

And that's New York for you.  Just when you think you're out, it pulls you back in.  Disaster brings out the best and worst in all of us- and New York just has a shit ton of "us."  It's times like these that remind me that the millions of faceless auras and collective heartbeats that inhabit this city are all human beings with families and struggles and emotion and a surprising capacity for kindness. This, after serving two weeks of grand jury duty where I've heard hundreds of indictment cases of crimes- many of them violent and despicable.  Maybe I needed this storm to re-instill my faith and good humor in good and diverse neighbors.  Even when I'm calling them assholes on the Queensboro Bridge.

Over the next few weeks most of us will fall back into the well-worn grooves of our daily lives.  With time we may forget that some will never be the same and some have suffered immeasurable loss.  But we'll never forget this week and though I'm not grateful for the storm, I'm grateful for the people of New York who share with me this little water-logged sliver of landfill as home.