Nothing about the Tsunami

Posted on December 31, 2004 in Crosstalk Journalists & Pundits Writing

Maria of alembic writes that she cannot blog about the tsunami. The fact is neither can I. Oh, but you say, I’ve seen two articles in the past week about that terrible natural disaster here. And I reply Oh really? Read them again. Those articles tell you nothing about what happened on the shores of the Bay of Bengal, nothing about the smell of the land before and after the wave hit; nothing about the taste the salt mixing with earth that had never known the touch of salt water flooding your mouth; nothing about the trembles in the land that preceded the coming of the terror; nothing about the sound — was it thunder or an overwhelming swish? — ; nothing about the sight of the line raised above the normal horizon as it swept onto the land.

No, you have read nothing about the tsunami here. Like many adults I’ve have murmured the casualty figures as if they actually represented something. But I could just as well tell you the value of the condominium across the street and you would be clueless about what I am seeing now: the very pale cerulean sky; the dishwater clouds splashing over them; the curved clay shingles turning to a reddish brown after a day of being an excited orange; the cold beige of the walls; the blinds in the window — in this one they run horizontally and in these others vertically –; the open garage door; and the stains from the storm that make parts of the sidewalk almost as dark as the street.

The number tells you nothing. The comments of politicians tell you nothing. They are not the tsunami or its story.

At alembic, I left a comment which ended:

So I write about the rain that falls on my roof and stains the sidewalk. I take my pen and batter my keyboard on the topics that I can get my hands around. I found a strange plant the other day: it had thick, gray, fuzzy leaves without any discernable odor. The naked boughs rose crookedly from the ground, ending in tufts of these. I have taken it to a nearby nature center and they have not seen anything like it. But then they are young.

That’s the news of my life. That’s what I have a handle around. So that’s what is best for me to write about.

It is far too easy to regurgitate numbers. The pundits tell us that that is the news. In a few weeks we will hear amounts of money. That, too, will be called news. I will let them call it that, but I won’t call it good writing on the topic.