Word Soup

I left New York City not too long after watching the towers fall and settled down next to a river for a brief break from city life. It was an idyllic little home, where I used to work via Wi-Fi while I watched kingfishers, otters and blue Herons from the back deck. It was just what I needed at the time after seven years in Manhattan IT.

Roughly one year ago today, the river rose up and swallowed the neighborhood I was living in whole. I lived in the hardest hit town. In that town, my rented house was the closest to the river, though being on a high bank, it had survived any real flood damage for decades.

This however was a five-hundred year flood that descended quickly, and for roughly four days, six feet of river water, mud and other assorted bits of business flowed through my home, destroying almost everything I owned.

I'm doing great now, better than ever in fact -- but only because my family and girlfriend spent days on end helping me collect bits of my funk-soaked life and helped me get re-established high on a hill.

Some people died. A lot of people are still struggling. A lot of people never really recovered. I'm very lucky.

Two once in a lifetime disasters in one lifetime has been enough.

More pics and tales from that bizarre week here.

Fittingly, it's raining.