What is there to say?
With all that is happening due to Katrina, it is impossible to come up with anything remotely amusing or interesting to add to the Tres Hombres blog. That time will come again, but for now, it's hard to make fun of stuff or talk about other things seriously.
My thoughts always turn towards "perspective" during times like this, and about how lucky many of us are. This is not a profound, original, or unique thought. But it is where I am: I've known how lucky I've had it for years, despite my own tendency to fall into woe-is-me territory. Even during those moments, I like to think that I know how great I have it.
A Tsunami with a few hundred thousand lost, a stampede in Iraq with a thousand lost, a hurricane that destroys lives, homes, topography, and life savings. I will not complain today about some debt while I sit comfortably in my Chicago condo typing into my fully functional computer.
I commuted through the World Trade Center the day it was bombed in 1992, and I could see where it fell from my home in New Jersey in 2001. Our good friend Kevlar's wife's family survived Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992 (and that's no small story). Betsy has a story. I'm pretty sure that our own Vinnissimo got through a storm when he lived in Miami.
We've all got a story. Every one of us.
Not doing too badly today, right here, right now.
posted by Teodoro Callate @ 11:15 AM
16 comments
16 Comments:
Right on, T. And you know, I've also been watching so many hard-core movies lately: holocaust, homeless - yesterday I was just like, I have NO problems. Issues? Up the wazoo. But seriously, life is so good. Still, I'm not above a Tom Cruise joke, if he'd just give me a new one to make.
I had a vivid nightmare in high school that I drew on a piece of notebook paper. In the dream I was in a rectangular room in a high rise building during a storm. The one outer wall which had a window in the center of it. A tornado pulled me out of the window and fell. (There was this myth that in nightmares you don’t ever hit the ground b/c if you did you would die). I hit the ground in the dream. My body was mangled and paralyzed. I could see others around me dying. My heart was slowing down. I was dying too. Then I came out of the dream.
When I woke my heart rate was actually way down and it felt like when your leg falls asleep but a whole side of my body was “asleep” including half of my head. I couldn’t stand up or walk for a few minutes.
Years later and long after I had graduated from college, Hurricane Andrew was approaching Miami. I left my house and sought shelter at the University of Miami towers where I had lived years prior. During that night while I was huddled in a closet. My ears were popping and as I looked at the window and I remembered that dream. The window was moving in and out. I didn’t get pulled out of the window. But in the morning I looked out that window and saw a sight I’d never seen. It looked like the end of the world. My life was different too. All of my friends had been out of town during this time which was weird. I was alone. The room was a time warp what with all of old familiar dorm smells. I had no car b/c it had been in the shop.
I know that this is all kind of M. Night Shyamalan cheesy. But I was really scared.
Some people go through this for real.
Yeah, and I'm not walking around morose or despondent or anything...one could do that every day regardless of hurricanes, and it wouldn't do any good. I'm just not feeling the need to add anything other than some good thoughts and perspective to the blogosphere, ya know?
So...good thoughts. From here.
Vin, I remember that story. I remember being with Kev in Syracuse that weekend, but my memory has you in Syracuse with us. Funny that my brain, in retrospect, took you out of that room and put you in sunny Syracuse.
Yikes.
Yeah it's weird that you don't remember me being there. I was even kind of pissed at you guys for not being there! I felt "left behind".
Gosh! How inconsiderate of you!
I hindsight. I'm glad I went through it. Just to have the experience of it.
The crazy thing is that I remember you in both places. I remember the story of you hiding out in the towers, but I also combined another memory of you in Syracuse with that weekend (because I know I was with Kev in Syracuse that weekend).
In my line of work, one might say that I unconsciously saved you from that storm by putting you in Syracuse. And by "saved", I mean that the thought of you in the towers during that storm is too dangerous and frightening for me to consciously acknowledge. So I put you on vacation. With me and Kev. (Think of it as a dream interpretation of an inaccurate memory.)
Long live Hombre Vinnissimo.
Ha! That is cool.
Put me on vacation now :)
Done. Relax.
...meaning, of course, relax, have a beverage, and enjoy the vacation that I am currently psychologically imagining that you are having.
oooooooo
that's nice
ahhhhhhh
corona?
limes. babes. cash.
all yours, my man.
see? i'm all about spreading good vibes. anyone else need me to offer them my own psychological vacation to save them from some sort of trauma I think they might be having?
Very busy today but want to check in.
Here's something that's hard to believe: Hurricane Andrew was 13 years ago. I was out of town for the whole storm - up with Teodoro in my hometown of Syracuse - and Vinnissimo was alone in Miami. As Teo will recall, my lovely wife, who was then only my lovely girlfriend, was there with us in Syracuse. Her family lived then, as they do now, in Miami.
We watched the storm play out on TV. We cried a lot and wondered what happened to her family when we couldn't reach them on the phone. After being more or less stranded in Syracuse for two days more than we'd planned, we caught a flight to Ft. Lauderdale, took a cab from Lauderdale to Miami, and set out to find my (now) wife's family.
Several hours of searching later - all the landmarks were gone, so we couldn't make sense of the streets she'd grown up on and we couldn't even see the streets - we finally found her house. It was all but gone. No roof. Every belonging and keepsake destroyed. And no family.
Quite a while later, we'd all but given up on finding them when they pulled up. We all cried - hard - for a long time. And then I left my sweetheart with her family, at the home that wasn't a home anymore. And I cried.
I still actually find it very hard to talk about Hurricane Andrew and I wasn't even there for the storm. It was all the wreckage that I had to deal with - all of us dealt with it for so long, both in my job at the time and my wife's family's struggle to get back in their house.
And Andrew had nowhere near the death toll that we're likely to see with Katrina. Or on a bridge in Iraq. And so my painful memories are nowhere near what these people will face.
Needing Teo's good vibes and Vinnissimo's good memories. And hoping that my post makes sense - it seems scattered to me right now.
My man, you get every single good vibe I offer. Nothing scattered about your post whatsoever. The emotional toll of just sharing that memory would make anyone feel scattered. But I get it, brother, and my guess is that anyone else reading gets it, too.
Okay, can I just say that I am so loving just being witness to y'all's friendship?
Everyone who reads this is officially put on vacation in my mind.
Especially Mrs Pinata.
You know, I need that vacation.
Really. I'm serious. Totally need it.
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