Your nests, your homes

If you don't have a young child, you may not know what they're showing on Sesame Street these days, but I can tell you, because we TiVo the show every day for Katie. 

They're re-running a week of shows on the theme "Hurricane on Sesame Street."  As far as I can tell, nobody was killed from the Hurricane on Sesame Street, and nobody got stranded in their home without food and water, and nobody refused to leave their homes, and nobody died in the street during the aftermath.  There were no leaders of Sesame Street who had not done what they could have done, or who made lighthearted commentary about the whole situation.  The people who were affected by the Hurricane on Sesame Street were brown, white, red, yellow, purple, blue, green, pink, and turquoise - and poverty doesn't really exist on Sesame Street. 

But last night before bedtime Katie and I watched as Big Bird found out that his home was destroyed.  There was a very basic framework of his home left, but there were no walls or doors, and nothing inside was where it should have been.  His friends were all there, though, including Gordon and Susan and Luis and Maria and Alan (who in my head I think of as "the new Mr. Hooper"), Elmo and Tully and Cookie Monster and Grover. 

It's kind of silly, right?  It's this big huge yellow bird with a weird voice who is kind to everybody but who is not always the brightest bulb on the tree, and he's NOT REAL, and Sesame Street doesn't exist, and it wasn't hit by a hurricane.  And yet when Big Bird stood there and said, over and over and over, "My nest, my home.  My nest, my home.  My nest, my home," it made me so sad.

His friends told him that it was ok, that they would help him rebuild it, that they would put everything back where it belongs, that he will live there again, and he thanked them, but still he stood and repeated, in a sad, shocked, disbelieving voice, "My nest, my home.  My nest.  My home." 

The Hurricane on New Orleans took whole homes and worse, and yet what brought the sadness home to me most recently was Big Bird despairing over his destroyed nest.  This is how it has been for me - the whole is too overwhelming.  I can only feel it in pieces. 

Comments

[TB]

I know exactly what you mean Jessie. I was driving to work this morning and there was a story on NPR about the musicians who make a living playing in and around New Orleans and how so many of them have lost their livlihoods. I was in tears and I just kept thinking, so many people have lost so much it is practically inconceivable to me Yet the things that really bring it home and cause me to feel really sad are the small things like people losing their pets, or the lost musical heritage. I think that's how we cope sometimes, by reframing something so horrific to make it more manageable so we don't just lose ourselves in grief.

[Nina]

I think those little things sometimes have what it takes to break down the idea that the people on the TV are somehow "other." When it's too big too comprehend as a real thing, focusing on a detail somehow drives home exactly how real it is, and how complex the problem actually is for the people who've been affected.

As for the Sesame Street episode, I know exactly which one you're talking about. They aired that series of shows several times in a row after the 9/11 attacks. In fact, I think they might have been created in response to 9/11, because they started about two weeks later, iirc. Long enough to be written and produced. They really did do a great job of portraying a sense of loss and despair via Big Bird, and balanced it well so it wouldn't suck kids down to a place they couldn't handle. I think having the puppet do it was key, because they do have to elicit a response that is totally in the realm of empathisizing/understanding and doesn't sink into obsessing. That can be hard with kids.

[Laurie]

Same with me. But for me it was 9/11. Sesame Street's first episode that next season after the tragedy was about Mr. Hooper's store catching on fire and how children - no matter how frightening - should run to the firemen. But Elmo stood out there watching all of the chaos of firemen trying to put out the fire, and he was shaking and frightened and hid behind Maria when the fireman came over to console him. I immediately got choked up and began to cry. I hated seeing Elmo NOT carefree - know what i mean? He was no longer the innocent 3 year old monster. Oh, it was awful. I kept thinking about the children there in NYC and how horribly earth-shattering it had to have been for them.
Is it just mom's that cry for Sesame Street?

[Beth]

Being a daily Sesame Street TiVoer myself, I just watched this episode yesterday. At first, I clapped when the episode started, and said, "Look Beckett! They're cleaning up Sesame Street! We should clean up your ROOM!"

And he clapped and said, "Yay!"

But then we kept watching, and every time Big Bird said, "My nest. My home." I would cry. And then the in-between segments were all about friends and sharing, and I'd stop crying. Big bird would come back and still be visibly devastated, and I'd cry again.

By the end of the episode, Beckett was coming up to me when Big Bird would say, "My nest. My home." , and kissing me to make it better. That's something he's just learned.

I'm glad that Beckett doesn't understand what happened to the people in New Orleans or to Big Bird's nest. I'm not ready (and honestly, I'm not sure I'll ever be ready) for him to experience the intense empathy and depression, and endless crying that I've gone through in September.

I watched my city be rebuilt after Hugo hit Charleston in 1989, and can't help thinking that I just don't want Beckett to grow up, because someday he'll understand what it feels like to have something taken away from him that he loves. And some of the things that will be taken away from him in his lifetime will change who he is as a person.

They can rebuild the walls and the streets and the levys, but they can't rebuild some of the people that will become dazed and different after living through this catastrophe. I know that Big Bird will recover. He has a lot of strong people and puppet friends supporting him. He's lucky. But there are people out there, far away from the place they love who aren't as lucky as Big Bird, and won't recover for a long time, if ever.

My heart breaks for them. Especially as I sit in my cozy nest, typing and drinking a cup of hot tea with Big Island honey, packed and brought 5,000 miles to the Mainland with loving care. When I left Hawaii I knew I was leaving, and I carefully packed and brought the things I love along, including my little family. After seeing the things I've seen on TV about this disaster, this honey tastes sweeter. The sky seems bigger. And Beckett kissing away my boo boos feels like being a billionaire.

Life is fragile, but we have to live it like it's dense and unbreakable.

[april]

Kevin has been in NOLA all week, helping get the hospitals back up and going. Every night he tells me about something he's seen or heard that makes it a bit more real.

[Amy Steier]

You aren't alone in how you feel about the hurricane aftermath. If I watch it for too long, I am sad beyond belief. It's just too much to swallow. I can't even imagine being a victim of it all.

[Elizabeth]

I can totally relate. What got me to dissolve into tears (at work, where I work in emergency preparedness & response), was a picture of a teddy bear lying in the grass, surrounded by debris. For some child, that teddy bear was everything, and now it's gone. And when that child looks to his or her parents for help in coping? They aren't able to cope either.

Everyone I've spoken to in my line of work agrees with you - it's too big to wrap your mind around.