Even with all our technology and the inventions
that make modern life so much easier than it once was,
it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away
and remind us that, here on Earth,
we're still at the mercy of nature.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson
This morning, the radio announcer read another high surf advisory for the next three days, warning of breaking waves as large as 20 to 30 feet (approximately 6 to 9 meters) high. Imagine a two-story building crashing down on the shore — that's the kind of power we're talking about.
Reading from the announcement, she described the dangerous conditions, saying, “Large waves can sweep across the beach without warning, pulling people into the sea from rocks, jetties, and beaches.”
She closed by cautioning, “Don’t turn your back on the ocean.”
Not everyone takes this advice seriously. On Monday, after the same alert, two people died on the Monterey Bay coast due to the ocean’s impersonal intensity.
The raging surf also destroyed approximately 45 meters (150 feet) of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. Work on repairing the damage from storms two years ago had already begun, leaving the tip of the half-mile (.8 kilometers long) structure weakened and vulnerable to the pounding surface. The force of the waves was so immense that it swept buildings, construction equipment, and even three people into the drink. All of them survived. I love how the local news reported that one of the “self-rescued.”
The next day, I saw that the bathroom building had come aground, somehow nearly intact, on the other side of the Boardwalk, at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River, which is only blocks (and a rather tall cliff) from my home.
Thank you to everyone who got in touch to find out if I was okay. I am most grateful for your concern and appreciate the chance for us to connect.
Fact is, I was only “disaster adjacent.” It isn’t the first time, and I’m certainly not the only one for whom that’s true.
A couple of summers ago, the hills around town were ablaze with fires. You couldn’t escape the smell of smoke; the skies turned orange one day. Last summer, there was a shooting at the summer beach party on the other side of the harbor, which I often attend. Last month, a friend’s house got broken into one night while they were home, asleep.
It’s difficult not to get unnerved by what’s happening, if not to us, personally, to those around us, both close by and far away. Facing that which is out of our control, those things you have no choice about — isn’t something we should or have to face alone. It’s in these moments that reaching out, getting in touch, and renewing connections becomes all the more meaningful, all the more necessary for our mutual sanity. Whether we talked recently or haven’t been in contact for years, it’s a great comfort to hear from you.
We need each other, don’t we?
I took the photo at the top of this post and doctored it a bit.
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Responses:
Betsy -January 01, 1970
I received this letter from Ed Yong (who used to write for the Atlantic) today. I'm taking the combined messages to heart this year. "In the talk I gave at the XOXO Festival this summer, I spoke about doubling down on my community. I’ve noticed that whenever I use that word, people generally nod in agreement but take very different meanings from it. Some use it to refer to a group of people bound by shared experience or identity—the long-covid community or the queer community, for example. For some, it’s necessarily local, and only encompasses people within physical promixity; for others, it includes everyone you interact with, in spaces that can be as virtual and global as a social media network. One person whom I met at a book event said that she moved to the place I was visiting for community, which, for her, seemed to mean living in a walled and “crime-free” residential area. While trying to work out what I mean when I use the word, I kept returning to birding. As I wrote in the NYT earlier this year, my interest in nature has been life-long, but I only became a birder when I started putting effort into observing birds. For me, it’s the intentionality that separates birding from passively noticing birds around you. That’s also how I think about community. My community consists of the people whom I put specific and directed effort towards, for reasons other than obligations or professional interest. They’re the ones I visit, call, eat meals with, buy gifts for, and hold in my thoughts. This definition is geographically agnostic. It is supported by shared experiences, goals, and values, but I see these as necessary but not sufficient. It does not scale: There are only so many people I have the time and mental capacity to direct attention to. And it excludes social media and other forms of communication where I’m blasting my thoughts into the world in an unspecific way. I’ve come to realize that whenever I feel compelled to do the former, I’m almost always better off doing something targeted, like texting that friend to ask how they’re doing. We are drowning in systems that strip the intentionality away from our social lives, and that offers us the illusion of community in place of the reality of it. Effort is what strengthens the synapses of our social networks. I say all this as the U.S. heads into an age of ascendant autocracy when those networks will be sorely tested. For all the reasons above, my plan is to be offline as much as possible, to double down on my community (world- and nation-wide, but especially local), and to grieve, regroup, plan, and endure. In 2016, my wife, Liz, said to me, “There is no wall to put our backs against—except each other.”
Hello Betsy - Thank you so much for the long, thought-provoking excerpt from Ed Yong's recent newsletter. I particularly appreciated that Ed wrote how his definition of community is geographically agnostic. I couldn't help but think how much this has become more and more true over the course of my lifetime. From letters and long-distance phone calls (remember when they cost a fortune!) to email, texting, and Zoom, it has become easier to stay connected with folks who live elsewhere. Certainly, teaching online, as well as meeting and working with folks located elsewhere, has made this extended sense of community so strong and vital. Wishing you all the best for 2025! Onward. Together, Larry -
Karin Horowitz -January 01, 1970
Thanks for your thoughts which spurred a few ….The radio announcer’s caution, ‘Don’t turn your back on the ocean,’ fixed in my mind like an earworm. Most immediately it made me think of the title of Nic Roeg’s film ‘Don’t look back’. Of course there’s no need to look back if you don’t turn your back. In everyday life we are always pressing forward and rely on vision to propel us. In Feldenkrais and some other movement modalities, we develop more rounded awareness, we feel back, we are more conscious. That may be enough but maybe not always, especially when things are out of our control. A hopeful message of your post is that maybe sometimes you can walk forwards with some awareness of the hazards and what’s behind and all around, when friends and others ‘have your back’. I’ve put the initial earworm to rest. But it’s raised another one as I recall Dar Williams’ wonderful song, ‘The Ocean’. https://youtu.be/vDN5I02jUnA?si=QrR5jbZ49t3crjiC
Hello Karin - Thank you so much for your thoughtful response to my post. Your use of the phrase, "we develop a more rounded awareness," reminded me of Moshe's notion of 360 degrees of awareness. It also made me think about how important it is to develop the sensation of the back of yourself when improving your self-image. Thank you for the link to Dar Williams' song. Wishing you all the best for 2025! Onward. Together, Larry -
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