Off the Grid

For the first time my camera has failed me.

As photographers, we are observers. We stand aside and document. I think of the process more as translation. I try through my lens, to show you what it feels like to be here. The sights of the last two weeks my camera could not translate. In fact, I hardly reached for it.

I live in New Jersey - about an hour from the shore and the same from New York. Now let me be very clear - while my county is said to be the third worst hit (after the shore and Staten Island), we are not even close to experiencing the devastation they are living through. We have not lost our houses. We have no fires. We are safe and alive. Most people here have resources. We are simply inconvenienced. And that's a big difference.

Oh I took a few Instagram pictures of the trees that have fallen around us - trees that are older than our country, and three stories high. Their root balls are twice as tall as I. But on IG they look inconsequential. It just looks like we need to get our chainsaws out. Why don't they translate? My conclusion is that it's not about the trees or the damage. It's about the feelings.

On Monday night I heard a ROAR! I opened my kitchen door and heard locomotives circling my house. I heard large trees CLACKING together, and loud CRASHES as they fell. I now understand the phrase "HOWLING WINDS." My window that's missing a latch kept flying open. Like Dorothy, I had to run out into the pelting rain and kick it, finally nail it shut. My single friends and I had considered getting together, but we had all been through blizzards before - and we all preferred to tuck into our houses and hibernate for a few days. We decided not to. None of us expected trains and falling trees! It was terrifying! So when we made it to morning with our houses still standing, we felt like survivors. It wasn't the damage - it was the FEAR we'd survived. You can't take a picture of that.

Then came the isolation. I had live electrical wires down at each end of my road. I had no communication with the outside world for days. There was no commute, no work, no mail. No newspapers, no internet, no phone. There were no lights, no heat, no flushing toilets. (There still aren't.) My large and varied world was reduced to the 8 houses on my street.

A knock on my door - a neighbor I had never met saying they had a generator providing hot water. "We love animals. Come up, bring your dog, shower, sleep in our extra room. Do you need anything?" Door to door they went with the same offer to all of us. And although I declined, when I returned from a walk later there were 4 gallon jugs of water and a bag of dog food on my porch. No note. I mentioned I had no gas. ( I had been away all weekend and was ill-prepared). Two days later they drove under some wires and got out. They returned with gas - for me.

My other neighbor gave me daily showers, and knitted me a scarf by the light of her fire. She had cooked before the storm and brought me cranberry bread and chicken pot pie which I heated on the grill. In a 2 hour gas line a few days later, a woman knocked on my window. She and her son had trays of coffee, tea and hot chocolate - no charge. Ding! A cell phone text - "I have coffee - come on up." My sisters texting daily from out of state about what was going on to help us -  bringing information, news. I didn't see any pictures until yesterday. My local friends and I texted daily sharing resources -"do you need help?"  You can't take a picture of that.

And then there were my FOL life-sisters. Claudia was the last phone call to get through to me as the storm moved in. She said everyone here at FOL was worried for Judy and I. "We love you. Let us know somehow that you are alright." At the warming station at the library yesterday I finally got a very slow internet connection and was able to go to our FOL team page, where we communicate. As I scrolled down, catching up with the comments from the past week, they were all about me! Judy had been able to get through, but I hadn't. "Have you heard from Carol," Is Carol OK?" "Can you pass on any information you hear?"
By the time I had read the last one, tears were streaming down my cheeks right there at the library. It felt like I had travelled from isolation to love and community.  In the last few years you have all gone from being "screen friends" to being real people. Now you are all family. You may never understand how grateful I feel to know you all. You can't take a picture of that.

Thank you with all my heart.

LONG LIVE THE JERSEY SHORE!