Day 6 List
-send pics to insurance
-organize Ares’ keys
-find Cookie a home
-figure out my Google 2-step verification issue
-salvage bike
-find a hairbrush
Day 6 Two Biggest Struggles
1. Still no water.
2. I went to a neighbor’s house to ask about finding workers. There was some older German man there that I had never met before from another village. As soon as I asked about finding workers to help clean-our our house, the German man started scolding me about the need for patience. Reminding me that I was in a natural disaster and that everyone needed help—like I needed reminding. He continued to lecture me about how well the Greek government’s response has been—I never said they weren’t doing a great job. Surprisingly I kept my cool, nodding my head, because I was in someone else’s house, and it was their guest. I am shrugging it off, but boy o’ boy where does this guy get off telling me what I need to have.
Day 6 Biggest Celebration
Jonathan found my phone under lying on the kitchen floor in the mud, with the book, “The Metamorphosis of Longing,” lying over it. The biggest surprise is that it works! Now I can get my two-level verification, get signed onto Google to receive emails and all my passwords. Life just got a bit easier.
Day 6 Morning Reflection
I spend a lot of my time tidying-up. This is the way I process my emotional energy. Somehow my morning angst is calmed by going through the familiar motions of organizing, sweeping, and scrubbing. As a child I spent the majority of my day with my grandfather while my mom worked. He too kept a very tidy home. I don’t so much remember him actually cleaning, but I remember the way it made me feel—that everything was in order, that the world was calm, controlled. After the house was clean we would walk down the alley pushing yesterday’s shopping cart back to the grocery store. The smell of citrus accompanied us because everyone in Canoga Park had a citrus tree in their backyard.
As I slowly walk through the mud-soaked house, sifting through possessions, hoping to find something intact, I feel no angst, only surrender. There is no order in our world, no sense to the randomness we encounter. My sense is that my grandpa knew this more than anyone as a holocaust survivor. His tidying-up, as is mine, is to feel just for a minute or two, that everything has its place, that there some order in our world.
Following along from New York and so so saddened by your ordeal. The found and miraculously functional phone is a victory and there will be others. You, two, are resilient adventurers. You will find your way.
Jonathan should bring cookie when he comes. We can take care of him for awhile and try to find him a home.,