Punctuated by moments of grace*

I haven't posted here in a few days... I keep trying to write something about the hurricane and then I think, "What a sanctimonious pile of crap." And then I go downstairs to watch summer reruns in my brand new house or I go read a mystery novel in bed in my brand new house or I go water the plants in my brand new front yard or I call my friends to see what they want to do that night in our city that is not flooded.

It just makes me sick.

My husband and I have already discussed our evacuation plan in the oh-so-likely even that a hurricane threatens the Pacific Northwest. The minute an ominous circular cloud shows up on the satellite images we will be on the first plane to Italy where my parents will pick us up and keep me supplied with red wine until it's safe to go back home. We can do that because we have money. My sister has already thought about what she'll do in the event that Mt. Rainier blows up and the lava starts flooding Puyallup. I told her to stick our grandma in the car and drive up to my house. She can do that because she has a car and enough cash for gas and relatives to buy her groceries for the forseeable future. Is that her best plan? I don't know. But it's an option. She has options.

I have never been poor. Ever. Even that one time in college when I had about $30 in my bank account, I still wasn't poor. I knew I would get paid in a few days. I knew my family would help me if I needed it. I have never EVER had "nowhere to go". If I were stuck in New Orleans right now wondering where my next drink of water was going to come from, it would be because I was fantastically foolish and chose not to evacuate- not because I couldn't evacuate. Not because I couldn't afford gas or that I couldn't be able to replace my things if I left them or that I couldn't take my family with me.

Today it seems like things are marginally better. The calvary has arrived and all that. Last I heard my brother was waiting to see if the National Guard was going to call him up and send him to New Orleans. I don't think he went- I hope someone would have called me by now if that was the case- but wondering about it makes me a little jealous. He'd actually be doing something.

Phillip and I will make our donation, but even though everyone says that's the best thing you can do right now, it doesn't seem like enough. I am transfixed by my television every morning when I wake up and every night when I get home. Since I can't really do anything, maybe I can be the most informed observer. Maybe I can absorb as many personal stories as I can. Maybe I can remember faces and somehow that will make up for not being able to help that woman feed her baby. If I feel bad enough for everyone, maybe it will lessen the guilt of not ever having anything horrible happen to me.

(Does anyone else think that way? Maybe it's part of my "anxious personality", this hypervigilant waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things are so fabulous. All the awful stuff happens to other people. Why am I always spared? I think about that a lot. I think about how it can't last.)

Have I descended into the sanctimonious yet?

I just don't know what to do.

*article in the guardian