It’s September.  I want to write about New England Asters and their gracious willingness to sprout up beside goldenrods; about gazing at them from a pond’s edge, finding endless joy in their electrifying color.  I want to write about my first mouthful of buttery-bright delicata squash; or the quiet hum as homeschooling reclaims our house; about the tiny thrill we all feel as the yellow school bus drives by, and Saoirse stands on the front porch, raising her cup of coffee in a “glad-I’m-not-joining-you salute.”

But as we drive home from the Eye Doctor’s on Wednesday and observe all the southern license plates on the highway, I know I have to write about hurricanes.  

In this moment, Florence is pounding the Carolina shores.  The latest report says it has been downgraded to a category two, and we’re receiving assurances that our government is fully prepared to address the needs of the people. 

But I can’t help remembering all the other details that hide behind black and white reporting after our own county was devastated a few years back:

The feel of the mask over my sweating face as I tried to avoid breathing in the gas fumes and molds released by the flooding.

Watching my friends decide if they could salvage their children’s keepsakes.

Boxing up carton after carton of pulpy books.

The sobbing that would overcome me at inexplicable times – guilt over how unscathed our own home was, worry that people we loved would give up and move away, or just feeling the collective pain that swelled up from the valley floor.

Red cross sandwiches instead of homecooked meals.  

Life reduced to garbage bags, rubble heaps and soggy couches.

An old man on the side of the road, the remains of his house a garbage pile behind him, sitting in the soaked vestige of what was probably once his favorite recliner; gazing, lost, at nothing.

But some other memories come back, too:

The sides of main street Schoharie piled high with rubble and despair while two girls in rubber boots take a moment to hold hands and skip through the puddles.

The efforts of neighbors to find housing and help for each other.

Volunteers in our community shelter doling out real home-cooked food.

Voluminous laughter.  We laughed at seeing big lives made small, at the awkwardness of cleaning out the intimate corners of friends’ lives, at the little jokes we made to lighten the mood, at the ribbings we gave to each other to push through the work.

And certain lessons have stuck:

Community is more permanent than storm damage.  

Very few things are worth owning if you might be faced with cleaning them up after another hurricane. 

People care about each other.  They come through for each other.  

And after the storm has passed, the asters and the goldenrods will bloom again.

Trying to figure out how or where to send donations?  Last year the New York Times ran a helpful piece titled “How to Decide Where to Donate Your Money After Disasters.”