Day 3

Last night’s live coverage of the tsunami in Japan was one of the most frightening things I’ve ever witnessed, especially after yesterday’s story. The wall of unrelenting, unfeeling water just kept pushing forward as an anonymous helicopter silently captured every new surge. The direction made no sense when seen from above. Each tiny, invisible dip brought the whole mass rushing in a new vector. No one on the ground had any idea where the water was, where it was going, where to run. Cars were passing each other on the roads, each fleeing to safety, neither finding it. The water wasn’t coming from the levee. It came from inland. From the east, west, south, north, from everywhere and nowhere and hell.

I can only imagine what it was like staring into its leading edge. Not water but a solid mass of wood, metal and occasional flame. What does a tsunami sound like? I think the disconnect of simultaneously having the omniscient narrator’s view above the chaos, free from the sound, seeing the water and not just the wall of debris at its front, and identifying with the real people in its path pushed me over the edge. I’ve been thinking all day about what I felt at that moment. It was helplessness. The helplessness of the individual suddenly and inescapably surrounded by the water, no exit, no do-overs, and my own helplessness watching through the safe eyes of the helicopter from the comfortable remove of ten time zones and a satellite relay.

My life is so very controlled. Even the real, physical threats can be plotted for, parried with awareness or preparation. Someone could t-bone me running a red light, sure, but I can always drive more defensively. Brake. Swerve. Whether or not I actually do the right the thing is irrelevant; I know that there IS a right thing, if only I can discern it. Seeing those cars suddenly hemmed in and watching until the last minute before the camera cuts away I was forced to empathize with those staring into the face of an unsolvable…what? Robert Fulchum writes about the difference between a problem and an inconvenience, and the necessity of discerning between the two. This didn’t feel like either. A problem is still something that can be worked through. What is the word for life’s endgame?

We all die. I know this. I’ve held hands and prayed and cried through a dozen deaths in the last year. None of them were easy. Each one, however, at least happened in a hospital. Something was tried to save them. They got to fight, even if the fight was rigged by genes, microscopic bugs or “just one of those things.” None of them woke up to find themselves alone and facing a noose of water. None of them had to physically run and run even though it was hopeless just…because. Because it’s what any sane person would do. Because we are human and we want to live. Because life is always precious, even if it’s just a few more seconds.

A day later I am haunted by those images.