No silver lining

As I told the story of our recent flood damage, I could see the interviewer’s mind working, piecing my hodge-podge tale into whole cloth, weaving meaning from this disaster. “So, your neighbors getting together, helping each other out, that would be a good thing that came from this flood, you could say...”

As if drawn by candy, I followed her bait and agreed. But inside, I was yelling, “No! We don’t need a flood to know we have good neighbors, and this destruction is not the inspiration for a town barbeque!”

No matter, I was not quoted, even after my ingenuous agreement. Certainly, there were many more tales of heroism and loss to fill the airwaves and newspapers, and many more dramatic stories than ours.

This week, sitting in the open-air cafe of the Adelphi Hotel in Saratoga Springs, I read of Barbaro, the doomed race horse, and of Beirut, in flames. We had escaped our own recent trauma with a long-planned vacation, skirting tornadoes on the way, and on arrival, found our treasured Adelphi threatened by the near-collapse of a neighboring hotel.

Hmm, will we find something good in all this upheaval? Not likely.

My husband and I use this time every year for a trip to Saratoga, and this year, even the flood could not keep us away. If anything, it spurred us on. Not to the races, with which most people associate Saratoga, but to the ballet at SPAC, upstate’s version of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.

In past years, our trip was a couple’s indulgence, a retreat from family life, and a preview of our future life, alone together. It affirmed our companionability apart from children and reminded us why we are together. This year, it also serves as a retreat from flood waters and the physical labors they demand. And, it provides some needed perspective on recent events.

As we threw out drenched boxes of former treasures, from my mother’s art books, photos and memorabilia, to waterlogged furniture and electronic equipment, I noticed how little any of it meant to me. The most-loved photographs are still etched in my mind and always will be; the art books are gone but somewhere copies still exist, in libraries and collections. My mother’s silver frog was rescued and is draped by its chain on a mirror in my bedroom. It is both a reminder of her favorite amphibian and of the frog who took up residence in our basement, croaking farewell as we were evacuated by boat.

What mattered to me more was the loss of our landscape. The perennial bed that edged the deck. Mature hostas, the fringe tree, astilbe and goat’s beard, lilac and dogwood, the flat-bottomed boat that sprang up with daffodils each spring, all lost to the river brute.

“I used to think of the river as my friend, my solace. Now, it’s almost an enemy...” said a neighbor recently as we surveyed the roiling water from the town deck.

The river. Have I lost the river? My muse, the force I once adored, I now look on with mistrust. “You can’t interfere with the force of the river,” said the Department of Environmental Conservation engineer, when we mentioned our plans to protect our property from future damage. When I repeat that statement now, I say “river” in a mocking tone. The “river” interfered with the flow of my life, I want to say. I’ll do what I can to protect what we have.

A new river greets us now, a foreign landscape just outside our window. An unfamiliar bare sandbar littered with rock juts up from the murky water, an unwelcome reminder of the transformative power of nature.

It’s too early to tell if our personal paradise will be restored. Only days before the flood we had affirmed our good fortune to one another. “Nice place you have here, Mr. Stratton,” I had said, surveying my husband’s handiwork, and my own.

We wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, but we could if we had to, and we could come to love another place, another home, so long as we’re together, still healthy.

Maybe we are lucky, after all.

“Would that mean something good had come from all this?” I hear the interviewer say.

Absolutely not. And you can quote me on that.