ma nature: December 2004 Archives
I don't know why I haven't blogged about the travesty in southeast Asia yet - maybe because it just seems too tragic and unreal and I just don't know how to put words to it.
As I think I have said before, I have a newfound respect for any natural disaster. Ever since my experience in the tornado that tore the roofs off so many buildings in my apartment complex last year, I know what its like to be in a disaster zone - or at least I thought I did. Our tornado was pretty mild as far as these things go. Noone was killed, we were only without power for a few hours, and property damage was limited to a fairly small radius. But it still felt huge. There was still fire trucks and ambulances and helicopters and news crews and debris everywhere. Trying to take that experience and apply it to something of the magnitude of the tsunami is mind-blowing to me. I can't even fathom what its like over there.
This afternoon the boyfriend and I were sitting outside at the coffee shop on a glorious 60 degree New Year's Eve day sipping on iced coffee and snacking on scones when an old friend that I have quite a tumultuous history with came trotting by. He lives elsewhere now and I was totally shocked to see him wandering around downtown. I do still care about him deeply, despite the fact that whats healthiest for both of us is to stay somewhat at arm's lenghth and keep our relationship only as acquantances. When we get together its sometimes wonderful and sometimes horribly awkward. And we avoid talking about the past - our past - at all costs.
After the pleasantries that are generally exchanged with someone you haven't seen in several months passed, he commented on how jet-lagged he was feeling. I gave him a hard time because he now lives only a time zone away and couldn't possibly be feeling the effects of the time difference all that strongly - and then he informed me that he just returned from Thailand.
And suddenly the disaster became very real to me.
He wasn't near the coast when the tsunami hit but had been in Phuket a few days earlier. He was lucky and safe and seems to be emotionally unscathed by the whole experience - mainly because he didn't witness it first-hand, but I shudder to think about how differently things could have turned out. On his trip from Phuket to the other side of the country, he met some people at a hostel who were traveling to the beach, and would have been in the town when disaster struck, and he hasn't been able to get a hold of them since. Its all just too much to comprehend.
This nomadic friend of mine, who studied for a semester in Spain and recently went to Australia and trots all over the damn planet for kicks said Thailand was the most beautiful and amazing place he's ever been. That sort of hit me watching all the footage of the waves crashing onto the beach. It makes it so much more surreal to see this place which looks like paradise being mauled in this way. In a way, it makes it more poignant - to see the sun shining and the palm trees one moment, and ultimate devestation the next.
If you can step away from it for a second, and filter out all the emotions that are involved with our human family suffering in this massive of a way, its, I think, rather humbling to see a force of nature that can bring us to our knees in this way. Its a constant reminder that, while we, especially in the developed world, and especially in chest-thumping America, think we are in charge, that we have control over what happens to us and how we live our lives, that we have so much power, that in reality, in some ways we are really power-less. That there are forces as big or bigger than anything we can create or dream up. That we aren't really in control. I'm not at all trying to sound insensitive, and my heart is absolutely breaking for these people, but in a way, its a good reminder that we're not really the center of the universe. Blame it on god, blame it on physics, blame it on Mother Nature - but remember that we're really not all that in control. This could have happened in New York or L.A. or some other massive modern metropolis where we feel we are so evolved and modern and on top of things, and the destruction would have been much the same.
Having said all that - I really do feel helpless - I wish there was something I could do for these people....
