Emoting live from the flood zone (Human Pursuits 19/11/21)
When you’re in a staring contest with the eye of the storm, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture.
VANCOUVER – Before I learned how to swim, I learned how to sink. And, between us, I did not care for it one bit.
So instead I stood on the pool deck, tears and snot flowing down my face as my mom encouraged me to jump. To trust the four feet of water she was standing in wouldn’t totally submerge me forever.
“Ethan, jump in, it’s OK. I’ll catch you,” she said.
“But what if you don't?” I asked.
“I will.”
“But what if you don’t?”
And so the hostage negotiation unfolded, as they sometimes do: in front of a crowd of uneasy pedestrians trying to go about their business. I can’t tell you who the real captive was but I can say that after much coaxing I dived in.
In the years since I resurfaced, safely in my moms arms, water has become one my life’s central motifs. It’s something I think about constantly. Which is good, considering I live in a coastal rainforest.
Coming from a landlocked province, oceans and inlets are a source of endless wonder - to the point of feeling spiritual. When I swim in the waters off Spanish Bank, or walk along the sea wall, I feel completely myself. Outside of my friends and career, the water is what keeps me here.
Which is maybe why the past four days have felt particularly unnerving. Because for the first time in recent memory, I have found myself afraid of water.
I have never really written about my work for CBC, and I don’t really plan to, but part of the job that has always struck me is that you can’t look away. When a month’s worth of rain swamps entire towns and cities, you have to look. You have to see homes and highways submerged under brown rapids, have to see humans and animals fleeing for their lives. Somehow, someway, you have to keep staring. Because if you don’t - who will?
The hardest part, aside from processing a natural disaster in almost real time (the only ones who experience it fully in real time are evacuees, officials and others directly on the front lines), is trying to remain level-headed. Usually this means compartmentalizing. And yet every time I do, I feel like I’m sanding myself down. Dulling myself in order to perform my duties, when in fact you should feel strongly about this. It’s not only what makes you human, but it’s sort of what makes natural disasters news worthy. Existential threats to the species are inherently emotional.
When you’re in a staring contest with the eye of the storm, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. To focus not only on the immediate death and destruction of man made climate change, but the distant unknowns, on everything else that could possibly go wrong. And yet there’s more to the picture. There’s people sandbagging pump stations and handing out meals to evacuees. There is, for lack of a better word, hope. And I know that’s not enough to undo what’s happened, to drain the bowl that is Abbotsford’s Sumas Prairie. But maybe it’s enough to keep us from sinking completely. To inspire us to kick for the surface, as if our lives depend on it.
Comments, criticisms, collaborations? Email me at ethan@humanpursuits.org, or follow me on Twitter and Instagram.