I Could Have Use a Marathon Today

An update follows this post from this morning.

The New York City Marathon would have gone a long way to making me feel better today. I’m fine really, all I lost was the food in my refrigerator, and I was cold for a few nights, and while my friends and family have varying degrees of loss, no one died. (My father went into the hospital though! He’s out and stable, but poor him!) We’ll see how many people leave Echo because we were down for a day, but I’m guessing not many.

I’m wondering how many of the people who thought the Marathon should be cancelled have actually ever attended a marathon. It’s not that I’m insensitive to the fact that people died and lost their homes. It’s in part because all the stories are destroying me. I wish I could explain it. It’s the sight of people who have been training all year, and for years, war veterans running on prosthetic limbs, people racing in wheelchairs, people with cancer, or who have children with cancer, and all the people running for charity—one of which I supported and of course the money goes to the charity anyway.

There’s nothing like it. Maybe it’s because I always position myself somewhere along the last mile, as close to the end that I can get. The runners are almost at the finish line and they know it. It brings something out of each of them. Many look like they can’t take another step, except they all just keep on going even if the best they can do is limp. Through sweat, tears, and blood (lots of blood) they summon something, something absolutely determined and miraculous, and I get to see that happen over and over, thousands of times. I can never watch without crying and walking away believing anything is possible, one can always strive and try again, and even people who have been totally screwed over by life in some way, shape or form, can win.

UPDATE: Well, the marathon runners made me cry even without running. This picture comes via @911BUFF. It’s a crowd of runners boarding the Staten Island Ferry to volunteer instead of running. Thank you wonderful runners!

Con Ed employees by the generator they set up so people could recharge their phones and computers. My grandfather worked for Con Ed his entire life so I have a soft spot for Con Ed employees. He never missed a day of work and one day, when he didn’t come in, one of his fellow employees joked, “Oh! Walter didn’t come in today, he must be dead.” And he was!

Wishful thinking on the part of one of my neighbors. I thought it was a great idea when I saw it, and we did get our power back yesterday morning. But I’d spent the day cleaning up and I was just too exhausted to leave the house last night. I’m guessing most of us were feeling the same.

All the trees we lost. It breaks my heart. God knows how old many of these trees were. It’s one of the greatest things about the neighborhood, all the great big beautiful trees.

Sob. I’m not showing the half of it, because, as I said, I seemed to have broken my camera AGAIN. But there were downed trees everywhere. Oh, and thank you Department of Sanitation! Talk about being exhausted after all the clean-up.