As I told you last week, I decided it would be worthwhile for me to put some of my personal experiences and observations into words as I travel through the aftermath of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment. I was, and am, curious what I’ll learn about what it’s like to experience a disaster up close. I’ve been keeping track in my journal.
I’ll share an excerpt from it in a minute, but first I want to say thank you to those of you who sent your wishes for my well-being and your encouragement. Your kindness truly touched my heart.
Now for what I wrote yesterday in my journal . . .
“I’m beginning to work through the part of my situation where the chemical bomb that exploded a month ago took nature away from me. Nature—which, since my childhood, has been my enduring teacher, comforter, source of wonder, place of worship, and friend—now wears an invisible overlay of poison.
“And I am outraged that this has been taken from me, that nature has been transformed into a place of potential treachery, a tool of evil. It may be months before I know whether it is suicidal to walk these fields, to wander by the creeks and streams, to kneel in the soil to photograph the precious flowers. It may be that I’ll never find out. But the curse of it is that the likelihood of nature’s toxicity is high now, and always present in my awareness. That’s the personal tragedy I carry as a result of this event.
“Everyone has been touched by it, for miles and miles around. Hundreds. Maybe many hundreds. Its range is one of those innumerable things that we will not know for a while, perhaps decades.
“The normalcy bias, the cognitive dissonance and confusion are strong. It’s hard to ferret out and process the data, which becomes more and more difficult to find and is contradicted at every point. We don’t even know the extent of the danger we’re in, whether the investigators are testing for the right stuff, looking in the right places for their samples, running the right tests. Information is twisted and fragmentary as it filters through the networks of shareholders and politics. Meanwhile, mothers secretly wonder if they’re killing their children by bathing them. And everyone tries to pretend that it’s all okay now because they have nowhere else to go and no way to get there if they did.”
A few hours after I wrote that, I learned that due to yesterday’s heavy rains, a dam that had been built to contain some of East Palestine’s contaminated soil had washed away. Water and sludge were pouring down the major creeks, bound for the Ohio River, and then the Mississippi.
As if that weren’t enough, a second major train derailment had just happened in central Ohio. No fire or leaks were apparent in the drone photos, but hazmat crews were on the way and local residents were advised to shelter-in-place “in an abundance of caution.”
(By the way, if you ever find yourself being so advised, “shelter-in-place” doesn’t just mean to stay indoors. It means to tape off your windows and doors and turn off any heating or cooling that circulates air in the house until you get the “all clear.”)
Nevertheless, I’ve noticed that springtime is signaling its approach. Green sprouts poke up through the ground. The morning holds a growing chorus of birdsong, and the birds are mating. Life reawakens. It’s song goes on.
Little by little, we adjust. We begin to learn how to find balance in the midst of uncertainty. We feel more connected to each other, sharing as we do this all-eclipsing event that’s touched all of our lives in such fundamental ways. And each of us is finding out how much kindness counts.
Smile at somebody today. Look them right in the eyes and smile. It’s the best medicine out there, no matter what.
Warmly,
Susan
