improvising when all hell has broken loose

Since the extent of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation became apparent, we’ve had a hard time writing posts. We’ve wondered “what is there to write about except this, with so many people in trouble?” feeling a fierce cognitive dissonance between the people we know are out there struggling to survive and reports of our nifty Ikea hacks. Like some blogs we know, we thought of going dark for a few days.

Then we got an email from a reader about our recent post about a downed tree transformed with the generous help of a stranger; it proved a timely message of possibility to someone who was dealing with loss.We get emails along those lines frequently from people going through some big transition, from cancer to job losses, to the life changes that just happen.

‘the improvised life’ is about solving problems with whatever resources you have, and we figure that IS an important-enough message. It’s also about affirming the spirit which is so essential to any kind of creativity and problem solving. So we’ll keep on, weaving into our usual content, Sandy stories and improvisations of the most elemental and heart-renching kinds, like the man who had been using his living room chairs as firewood, and a woman who siphoned gas from a boat that washed up in her front yard.

It is all part of ‘the improvised life’.