The Faboo Refugee, or "we might miss a beach day?"

I became a refugee this week, albeit briefly, and with the full resources of Provincetown, Massachusetts at my disposal. (Espresso, Art Films, and T-shirt shops out the wazoo.)

Perhaps I should explain.

I'm spending a few weeks on a small island off the coast of Massachusetts. It's off the grid, so power is supplied by a generator. I bring everything I need across the channel in an 18" outboard.

It's spectacularly beautiful, but the channel becomes impassable in even moderate blows. So when tropical storm Beryl headed our way I decided to go ashore for the night. (I am a little gun shy of storms after losing my beloved dog Lucky to a seizure during a similar storm on the island last fall.)

So I fled, hurriedly packing a few modest effects and beating a hasty retreat to Provincetown. It was funny to me that when I mentioned the storm everyone there responded "what storm?" By and large, urban folks are so out of touch with the weather. When told a tropical storm was on track to the Cape most folks responded "We might miss a beach day?"

Now I am fully aware that this exodus hardly qualifies me for UN refugee status. On the scale of human suffering, breakfasting alfresco on Crepes Forestieré and Cappuchino ranks not one iota.

We in America are so divorced from the suffering caused by natural events, and especially by wars. It takes something on our own shores like Katrina to wake us up. How quickly those of us not on the Gulf coast have forgetten.

This is especially tragic given the blinkered worldview of our administration. Now more than ever, we are strangely divorced from the suffering our actions cause worldwide as well. (See my next post on Lebanon.)