I feel a bit strange publishing these beautiful photos. They were all taken on Saturday, before Hurricane Sandy blasted all the leaves from the trees. You can see the storm already in the dull, overcast sky. Charles pointed out this morning that the cliffs of the Palisades—covered in red and gold just a few days ago—are now bare and brown.
The mood is souring here. Perhaps now that people are venturing out of their homes and to work, the weight of the problem is clear. Charles said he saw horrible lines snaking for blocks—people waiting for a bus to take them back to Brooklyn, as the car and subway tunnels are all flooded. Charles' commute now involves four miles of walking, but we're lucky that the A train even runs. A neighbor, a generally cheerful father of two girls, was sullen in the elevator this afternoon. He said he'd gone down to his office on Wall Street for the first time since the flood. "It's depressing," he said, "Really depressing. It's all gone, water everywhere, everything dirty and ruined."
I will leave it at that and add a favorite Emily Dickinson poem:
You cannot put a Fire out—
A Thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a Fan—
Upon the slowest Night—
You cannot fold a Flood—
And put it in a Drawer—
Because the Winds would find it out—
And tell your Cedar Floor.
