Brought to our knees…
Today and tomorrow are the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Great Blizzard of 1978, which covered eastern Massachusetts with a sudden fresh 27″ of snow atop the previous week’s base of 21″, then sculpted it with 90 m.p.h. Nor’easter winds into drifts higher than the rooftops. The Boston metropolitan area shut down, it was illegal to drive on any streets anywhere in the disaster area, and I had a blissful week cross-country skiing around town and testing my prowess at digging snow caves and building igloos, although I did do some duty with the National Guard delivering medicines to shut-ins. This was one of the first experiences during which I marvelled that human hubris could be so readily cut down to size by the majesty of nature at its furious worst (best?), and revelled at that peculiar liminal suspension of social norms that allows the efflorescence of unmediated human kindness and community, however brief and awkward. Although mindful of the loss of life, I still feel that way hearing of most natural ‘disasters’.