I remember the hurricane that came through New York when I was about six. My parents had been married the day before the hurricane of 1954, which was, I am told, a doozy, and my mother worried about hurricanes when they came through New York. She told me all about them -- this was the first time I'd heard the word -- and I stayed home waiting for it to come. I remember how dark it was, and looking out of my window onto 90th street (this is when we lived on the 2nd floor, in apartment 2-G) when it came through. I saw only one man on the street (though I was surprised to see any, because she'd warned me that people could be blown away), struggling East against the wind, holding his hat tight on to his head. It was clear that this weather was a serious anomaly, and yet somehow not as serious as I'd thought it was going to be. As with the total eclipse a while later (see earlier entry) it turned out that this major experience of the dangerously exoctic was less major than I'd been led to believe. I remember these things more because of my anticipation of them than because of the actual experience. But the actual experience was, in retrospect, quite important too: it somehow confirmed a sense of safety even in an interesting world. My room was my room, even as I wondered where that man had to go in that weather; my father was my father, even as I looked up into the blinding eclipse, which wasn't so blinding after all. The things that mattered stayed the same: at least that's what I felt (without having to think it) then.