Sandy Continues, So Does Life

*!*!* Alert *!*!* For a more lighthearted Culebra Halloween post, go here! Otherwise, carry on, forewarned.

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Stunned and sorrowful come to mind to describe the feeling in the pit of my stomach with the daylight revelation of Sandy's path. The amount of devastation is, in a word, overwhelming. About every adjective that can be used has been used and each one is inadequate to really understand what each and every person, family, neighborhood, city, county and state is going through in the face of Nature and infrastructures colliding.

We watch the vignettes shown on television, the still photos taken and sent in a world that transmits information via images so quickly, and yet there are many people who are experiencing the reality who haven't seen much except what they are surrounded by, or not surrounded by. A neighbor helps a neighbor, the ones prepared helping the ones who were not. A man on a roof, cutting away a tree that has shattered his family's shelter. The Red Cross, FEMA, and many other organizations working together to start recovery back to normal. Reality.

And, I'm angry. Angry at people who are shown in photos standing on the edge of walls and streets and boardwalks while 20+ foot waves bash into them. I don't mean media, I mean men and women, often with small children, who thought somehow that this was a wonderful photo opportunity. How many of them were endangering the lives of rescue personnel with idiotic behaviour? The ones who stayed home when they should have evacuated? Why do we see and hear this over and over again? This ain't no Disney ride and I can't understand the stupidity of people who would put themselves and thereby others in life threatening situations because they are sure they can handle something they don't even have a remote clue of understanding?

Caleb Lavoie, 17, of Dayton, Maine, front, and Curtis Huard, 16, of Arundel, Maine, leap out of the way as a large wave crashes over a seawall on the Atlantic Ocean during the early stages of Hurricane Sandy in Kennebunk, Maine, on October 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) #

And, I'm here. Where a walk from the door to the water takes me by this first time blooming orchid, unlike any blossom of any others I have around the yard. This one was dying a few years ago, so I tied it up to a sea almond tree, hoping maybe it would be happy there. For ages, it has looked like it just might succumb and then, after we had that sweet 4 hour rain last week, it gave me this.

And I can't stay angry and sadness and sorrow are lifted in the pretty in my face awareness that life, fragile as it might seem, does come back, does bloom, does give beauty after appearing to be almost beyond that possibility.

Life is good, ultimately. That's all I know.

Have a safe walk on the wild side Wednesday. Do something willfully wholeheartedly.

Boo.