Strangely Quiet

All is quiet and strange here in South Brooklyn after the storm.  I woke today to find our street untouched but for a few broken tree limbs.  Then I walked our neighborhood to find enormous trees overturned, Red Hook boarded and broken, trapped under water, and the toxic Gowanus canal overflowing.

Today I feel very fortunate.  We live on the waterfront, tucked in between the New York harbor and that canal.  It is a wonder that the ground slopes just right, to leave us elevated enough to reside in "Zone B", to escape what so much of this city has not.

Our offices are uncharacteristically silent and unreachable. Water has filled the subway tunnels. So the underground veins of New York City, it's lifeline, are empty.  There is no coming or going.  There is no timeframe for repair because there is no precedent.

My window looks out towards the harbor. In the distance I can see downtown Manhattan. Tonight, it is  completely dark.  

I am thinking of those who have lost so much.

Where Do You Go?

On this Road Trip Wednesday, YA Highway asks: When you need creative inspiration, where do you go?

I like the question because place is the largest driving force behind most of my writing. I have never taken a journey to find creative inspiration. I simply walk and live and, in doing that, I am inspired.

When I stepped back to think where that inspiration most often happens, I discovered that it is both near my home and near water.  I think I am still trying to understand why water sets my imagination free.  Maybe because it is vast and uncontrollable, difficult to keep, always moving, bending, emptying, swelling.  Maybe there is something within it I can not capture and so I try.

Below are some photos of the waters that inspire me. I am lucky to live just steps away from them.

So, where do you go?

New York Harbor (I live on the the Brooklyn waterfront)

Atlantic Ocean (from Coney Island)

The Gowanus Canal

Reflection

I have a strange fascination with the Gowanus Canal which runs just east of here.  I think it is beautiful.  Sadly, it's also toxic.

The community has rallied on the canal's behalf and it is now on a long and slow journey to be restored.

I wandered there today to think.  About a lot of things.  There is a lot weighing heavily on my mind right now. 

I left feeling hopeful.  That what is broken, might be fixed.

The Mighty Gowanus

Tyler and I roamed around an empty city this weekend. We biked and ate and lay on the grass. We saw Super 8 (I don't recommend it), sang karaoke with friends (it seems that The Carpenters should be my karaoke artist of choice) and cooked delicious treats from the farmer's market and our CSA (skirt steak with chimichurri sauce, roasted beats, & braised kale with beet greens.)

But exploring the Gowanus Canal was the highlight of the weekend. We took a canoe out there and paddled around. It was, perhaps, one of the strangest activities we've participated in around these parts. In the past, I've held my nose and biked or walked over the canal but never before been in it, really in it, until Saturday.

It should be noted that canoeing the Gowanus Canal is not like taking a boat out onto the beautiful blue bayou.

The canal is, and this is the best way I can put it, if not the most eloquent, a disgusting mess. Years of commercial shipping and an extremely flawed design that did not allow for proper water flow have left its murky waters polluted and environmentally unsound. After much controversy between the city and the EPA, it was named a Superfund site in 2010, for better or for worse. We can only hope for better.

So, we went canoeing in it. Because, sometimes, the ugliest or most neglected of places are the places that need to be seen.

Thank you to the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club for standing outside in the heat, for keeping the boat sturdy when we stepped into waters we could not touch, for telling me about the flowers native to the Gowanus, and, most importantly, for teaching environmental awareness in such a unique way.

How did you spend the weekend?