A sobering video, made by the brother of the assistant camp director I worked with this past summer:


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3669658201853703248&hl=en


I went back up to the New York area for a visit this past weekend, and realized that no one I talked with can truly wrap their head around the scale of the neglect and the blight of once-full homes and local businesses. Telling a New Yorker to imagine Manhattan laid to waste, except for the lower tip of the island, just doesn't cut it.

A good friend of mine who relocated to Astoria after a long hard road following the evacuation of her home on Magazine Street here heard me talking about all the paradoxes involved in living down here now and asked me about the extent of my depression. I told her it was also tied up in discovering an identity for myself outside of raising my son full-time now that he is attending school for most of the day (it's week three and he seems to be enjoying himself much better). The struggle is ongoing (see previous posts), and all it means is that I will be figuring it all out in time, like I always have. There's a wonderful magnet my in-laws have on their fridge of a fellow on the tracks squashed beneath a moving train with the caption, "This Too Shall Pass".

I may have to prop up my hope with a two-by-four right now, but I always keep that magnet in mind.