It’s been a dramatic week around here, first with the Virginia earthquake that rattled the East Coast and even managed to shake to us a little here in New York. Then, the arrival and aftermath of Hurricane Irene which many are still in the midst of recovering from. We left the city not certain if our Brooklyn neighborhood would be affected by flooding, and were pre-occupied with knowing our help was needed at my family’s house on the beach in Connecticut. After making sure the house was boarded up, basement cleared, and family members safely in a hotel, we weathered the storm with my husband’s family on their homestead just north. Despite some damage to my family’s home on the coast, the silver lining in all of this for us was the time spent together, working alongside each other, and spending some quiet moments while we waited. It’s amazing how short our conversations and overall attention span has become with most of us usually distracted by gadgets, so the simple pleasure of just talking for hours was a welcome change. I’ve been thinking about how lucky we are to have made it through, while others have not been so lucky, and their lives forever changed. It’s essential that we strike a balance between technology and holding on to the simple things in life that seem to be slipping away from us. Have you been thinking about this too?

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Photo by Irene Suchocki