Month: September 2021

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Laboring in Vrain

On the first day of the Big Flood, a photographer and I covered southern Longmont like a blanket. We watched Missouri Street turn into the “Missouri river”. We saw washed-out train tracks and rising streams and people dangerously trying to wade a flooded-over Hover Street.

And when it came time to return to the Times-Call newsroom, we saw one other thing. Namely, that getting back home was going to be a lot harder than we thought.

If you were there in 2013, you probably remember. The rising St. Vrain Creek had cut Longmont in two. Within town, there was exactly one north-south connection left – from Ken Pratt to Third – and that was being reserved for emergency vehicles.

And so began the Journey of Exploration.

The photographer knew the area well. He had to. As he drove east, we picked our way between small county roads  like a child’s pencil through a maze, trying to find just one clear route that would let us outflank the St. Vrain.

It took about an hour. It might have been the first time that anyone had gone from Hover Street to the downtown by way of Mead. Wings would have been great to have, or maybe sails.

But we made it.

True, it had required much more work, persistence and time than anyone had expected. Much too much.

But at journey’s end, we were just glad to be home.

**

Eight years later, it sometimes feels like we’re back in the flood.

Once again, we have a people divided by disaster. Some are trying to help. Some are already hit hard. Some are desperate enough to try anything that offers a way out. Most are simply trying to survive until it’s all over … whenever that might be.

And just like that drive home on those rain-swept roads, the journey back is turning out to be a lot longer than we thought.

Maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised. Pandemics don’t end as quickly and neatly as a Hollywood movie. Or if they do take their cue from Hollywood, it’s from all those interminable sequels where the old threat keeps getting recycled with new abilities and special effects.

We wouldn’t survive as a species if we couldn’t hope. And so we keep crossing our fingers that this time we’ve turned the corner, that this wave will be the last, that things can finally start to subside and normalize again.

And when we turn the corner and find another corner, it’s draining. Frustrating. Even crushing.

But we have to keep driving.

We need to remember the things that got us through the flood – helping neighbors, staying alert, doing what’s needed to stay safe.

It hasn’t been easy. It won’t be easy. Like outmaneuvering a river, it’s taking more time and effort than anyone thought.

But with persistence, with awareness, with careful attention to the road … we can move forward. And we will make it home.

True, home might look different than we expect. Like rivers, “normal” doesn’t stand still. Sometimes it transforms, like the St. Vrain changing its course. Sometimes it needs to transform, like the efforts to widen and deepen the river channel to make a second flood less likely.

But we still have a destination to reach. The way may be long and the vision ahead may be unclear, but we know where we want to be and it isn’t here.

So we keep on. Together. Eyes on the road.

The sign for Mead is out there. And when it comes, we’ll be ready to take the turn.

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Beyond Memory

A whole generation has grown up with no direct memory of Sept. 11.

It’s odd that that sounds odd. After all, that’s what happens.  Time moves on. If I pointed out the huge mass of Americans with no memory of the moon landing, or the Kennedy assassination, or World War II, no one would be shocked.

But when it comes to that early fall day of clear skies and screaming headlines 20 years ago, we stumble.

Never forget, we ritually cry. Remember, remember, like some Guy Fawkes rhyme re-cast for a new time and place.

But we can’t hold on to “never.” Brains don’t work that way. And a growing number of us have nothing to remember except the lessons and examples that the rest of us choose to pass on.

What will those be?

This isn’t the first time I’ve found myself in this place. Seven years ago, on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, I observed how the day was becoming more ordinary. How some of us actually had to be reminded instead of having the date leap to mind automatically. And how we weren’t horrible human beings because of that.

From that past column:

No one’s passing is ever truly “gotten over” or should be, all the less so when the passing is the violent end of a few thousand people.

But it’s OK for the pain to dull, too.

It’s OK to not feel every anniversary as though it were the first one.

It’s OK to be able to look at those memories from a distance and maybe, in a way, see them for the first time with clear eyes.

Most of us have experienced the passing of someone close to us. Some of us have had the ill fortune to have it come out of nowhere, a total surprise that rocks the world. Too sudden or too young or too … well, too many “too’s” to count.

For the longest time afterward, it seems like life can never be about anything else. The pain is fresh and the disjointment real. The wound gapes and resists every effort to stitch it.

But something happens.

It never really gets better. But it gets farther.

And with that time and distance come different memories. The ones that comfort. That remind. That lift the day for a moment instead of crushing it down.

The pain is still there. But it’s no longer alone.

Twenty years since a single day in New York and Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, will the memories we pass on still be of fire and chaos? Or will there be something more?

Will there be the memory of those who reached out to help and comfort from across the country, moved by the needs of people they had never met?

Will there be lessons drawn from the actions we took in its aftermath, good, bad and ugly? The choices that brought us together and the ones that had us squinting in suspicion?

Every crisis shapes us. Some remake the world, like the current pandemic. Some are much more local, like the St. Vrain flood that’s now eight years in the past. Each time, we find ourselves making choices.  What do we carry forward? What do we leave behind?

Memory is important. But memory fades and changes. Its grip loosens a bit with each new heir that it’s passed to.

Build something with it, and memory becomes experience. Build something worthy with it, and it won’t matter that future generations weren’t there. They’ll be here, with a foundation to stand on, an example to learn from, maybe even a goal that they can be part of shaping.

Long after memories of the day have passed, that’s where we’ll find our re-generation.

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Pieces of the Picture

As I studied the dumpster’s dimensions, for a moment I felt like Dad.

No, Dad isn’t in sanitation. But whenever me or my sisters moved, we always wanted Dad as crew chief. To him, moving trucks were three-dimensional puzzles, where everything could fit just right if you only found its place in the picture – and he ALWAYS found its place in the picture. It might have been because of his time aboard a submarine, where space is limited and precious. It might have just been a natural talent for order. Either way, it was awe-inspiring.

It’s also a talent that I’ve usually lacked. My awareness of spatial relationships has been approximate, to say the least. As for order … well, Heather and I used to joke that I was a “walking vortex of chaos,” and my notebook-filled newsroom desks usually told the tale well.

But this time, as we prepared for the Great Home and Yard Purge of 2021, everything seemed to click. Branches … go here. That worn-out armchair … goes there. Like Sherlock Holmes assembling a case, every piece had its perfect fit, which then created the space for the next one. It was a living game of Tetris.

And at the end of it all, with everything squared off and filled up, it felt enormously satisfying.

No surprise. Most of us like neatly fitting pictures.  We like symmetry and order and consistency. There’s an appeal to the movie plot that ties everything neatly together, or the room whose layout says “comfort” without a word, or the ideals of justice (so hard to achieve) that say we all have a place and a part to play.

Most of all, we like explanations. And that’s where things get tricky.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. The quest for explanations and answers is what drives philosophy, science, even newspaper editorials. We ask questions, we examine the world and ourselves, and we try to put together an answer that fits what we see.

But the world is messy and our senses are limited. That means there are going to be ragged edges to all of this. If we’re honest and careful, we acknowledge that, letting an old answer die or evolve as our understanding gets better.

Or, as Yoda put it, we take the quicker, easier, more seductive path to the Dark Side. We make the answer fit, no matter what we have to do to get it there.

Forcing a fit is one thing when you’re breaking down dead branches to stack them neatly with your yard waste. But as an approach to understanding the world or other people, it’s outright harmful. It means ignoring what you don’t like, while inflating coincidence into significance. The story becomes more important than the reality, and challenging it becomes a personal offense.

It means never allowing yourself to be wrong. Which in turn means never allowing yourself to learn.

I mentioned Holmes earlier. The Great Detective once warned against twisting facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. Things can fit – but if you start with the answer you want and cling to it no matter what, you won’t actually discover anything. Paradoxically, you have to be willing to back up to move forward.

Easy to say. Hard to do. Essential to learn.

If we keep testing, keep examining, keep questioning , we can get to the answers that satisfy instead of just the ones that feel good. We can share thoughts instead of butting heads.

And those other answers that we discarded along the way?

Well. there’s always a little more room in the dumpster.