Nature reminds us who runs the show
Southold's Main Street during Sunday's blizzard Credit: Randee Daddona
It is easy to forget, when things are humming along sweetly, that we have no more power over our environment, no more real control, than we did 100 years ago, or 1,000. We can go anywhere we choose, but only as long as Mother Nature allows the roads, rails and planes to operate. We can keep weather at bay with our sturdy structures, but only as long as the elements permit the roofs to hold.
In terrible weather there are truths that we normally labor to forget.
For many Long Islanders, this storm was well timed, a mere inconvenience for some and a joyful reprieve for others. The child-care scramble was absent because the kids were out of school anyway. The sense that we simply must get to the office was alleviated for many because the week between Christmas and New Year's is legendarily unproductive, a time for "working from home," late arrivals and early departures.
The shutdown of the Long Island Rail Road and the airports was dreadful for thousands of people whose travel needs stretched beyond the local grocer and movie theater, as were the treacherous roads. Millions more, though, settled into a day free of serious obligations, sipping hot chocolate (or something a bit stronger), stirring simmering pots of comfort food and relaxing. After shoveling, of course.
By afternoon the snow ceased and the sun shone. Children played while their elders shoveled and blew. Neighbors greeted one another with "isn't this something" grins.
That was Monday afternoon. Thinking of Tuesday, we hoped travel to jobs and malls would be easier and life would return to normal. But Sunday night, snow flying, wind roaring, offered a more primal truth.
A snowstorm gives us an inkling. A tropical storm offers a window. A devastating tsunami or deadly category 5 storm reminds us of the whole, ignored reality.
Computers, air conditioning and antibiotics aside, we are not running the show. We are subject to forces so powerful that the illusion of human control over our circumstances can be shattered in an instant.
We are wise to try and better our world. We are well served, most of the time, by the advances we have made.
But when the hurricanes come, or the droughts, or the rising oceans or the meteorites or even the snowstorms, we are reminded of the deeper facts.
We are not all-powerful. Next week we may forget, but Sunday night, sitting by the window, listening and watching, we knew. hN
