Come Sail Away

I've been following the story of Jose Salvador Alvarenga, the apparent castaway from Mexico and El Salvador who turned up in the Marshall Islands recently. It's been interesting to see the media and all the people skeptical of his story try to figure out what really happened to him and whether or not his story is plausible. When it comes to the crux of his story - that he was away at sea for over a year - many people are saying his story has to be a hoax. They point to his physical condition (he has some meat on his bones), "paleness," and the implausibility of him surviving such a scenario as evidence that he's making the whole thing up.

But sometimes, you know, the truth is really stranger than fiction.

Personally, I'm not on board with the people who say Alvarenga's story is a complete fabrication. As part of my law school education, I'm currently taking Evidence. Although the class itself is really concerned with learning the rules of evidence, it's based heavily in logic - and what facts can potentially be inferred by evidence, i.e. the ways in which evidence may be interpreted by a jury. If you look at the evidence available to prove or disprove Alvarenga's story, thus far, it weighs heavily in his favor.

Thus far, we have:

• Statements by the government of the Marshall Islands that he washed up there and was found with a dilapidated boat on a remote atoll. They have also said they have found no reason to doubt his story and that he was hospitalized on the Islands.
• Statements from the hospital in the Marshall Islands where he was treated indicating he arrived in poor health and was readmitted after he was initially released.
• Statements from Mexican officials saying everything they've heard thus far adds up, as far as they can be sure.
• Statements from Alvarenga's family that they hadn't seen him in eight years and assumed he was either dead or in jail.
• Statements from people who worked with/for Alvarenga's employer in Mexico that document him, his boat, and his companion going missing in November 2012. A search was said to have been conducted, but it was unsuccessful in locating the boat or the two men.

Now, unless news media has fabricated this evidence and flat-out lied about speaking to his family members, government officials, and others involved, you have people in at least three countries corroborating his story. Of course, that doesn't mean that it's conclusively true, but it lends credence to his tale. It's possible that the information provided and statements made by these people are fabricated, but what motivation do they have to lie? Unless you're a big believer in transnational conspiracy theories, they really have no good reason to do so.

Alvarenga, who's currently getting his 15 minutes of fame, also can't be said to have a strong motivation to make the whole thing up. In order to make the story plausible, he would have to somehow make himself so unhealthy that he was admitted to a hospital, venture to a remote part of the world and somehow get his boat there, make his companion permanently disappear, and lie low enough in some other part of the world so as not to be easily detected. This guy was a fisherman working in Mexico who seems to have come from an economically challenged background - do we really think that he came up with the world's greatest hoax and went to such extreme lengths to carry it out? No, I don't think he did.

I think Alvarenga was a man who was thrown into extreme circumstances and found out exactly what he was capable of. Life-threatening circumstances have made things that seem impossible possible before; it's not a new phenomenon. You can find any number of stories about ordinary people lifting extraordinary weight when a family member or friend is trapped under something, even though they never should have been able to have the strength to. You hear about horrible historical events like the Holocaust, where some people were miraculously able to survive work camps even though they had no food, no water, had to work constantly, were beaten, were abused in every way possible, had no sanitation, etc. Sometimes, against all odds, people are able to survive. Just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it's not possible.

Do you believe that truth can be stranger than fiction?

Snowpocalypse Janus

Right now, I'm comfortably settled in the law library, and there are approximately 14 inches of snow on the ground. Snowpocalypse Janus hit Long Island and NYC yesterday, causing massive chaos and panic throughout the region. Attempting to make the drive home yesterday was one of the most physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting experiences I've ever had in my life, so much so that I think I might still be running primarily on adrenaline now.

In the morning, everything was fine - until the snow started 3 hours earlier than predicted. By noon, the media and public officials were telling everyone to get home ASAP, because the worst of the storm would be upon us soon, and travel would be extremely hazardous. Of course, the NYC and Long Island region is hugely populated, and millions of people commute back and forth to work every day. In fact, so many people commute back and forth that rush hour in the region, occuring in both the morning and in the evening, can be up to four hours long each rush, because of severe overcrowding of the roadways and public transport. So yesterday, all at once, you had not groups of commuters on the road (people who generally leave their workplaces at different times during the normal rush hours), but ALL commuters on the road. Literally everyone in the area decided they'd better head home at the same time. Most of the main roads were sanded and/or salted in the morning, but snow was coming down at the rate of over an inch an hour. Temperatures were well below freezing, and the roads filled so quickly and cars had to move so slowly that it actually felt like the apocalypse was occuring. My boyfriend's home, which is normally a relatively quick 10-20 minute drive from my school, took me over 90 minutes to reach. Traffic on the parkway going towards his house moved at an average rate of about 7 miles an hour. Cars were sliding out and getting stuck all over the place, and I passed accident after accident on the way.

After stopping at my boyfriend's house to check the traffic reports and the weather, I figured out an alternate route home. I got back in my car, and it was honestly like the world was ending. Two hours later, I'd only made it about two miles from his house, and I hadn't even managed to average a mile an hour the entire way. I stopped at the Container Store just to get myself out of the car and calm down; the radio had announced that two of the nearby parkways were closed due to accidents, and the weather was steadily getting worse. My parents, both frantic, kept trying to get in touch with me. My father suggested staying in a hotel, but everything I'd really need for an overnight stay was at home: my phone charger, my medications, etc. My father's girlfriend's house was about another two miles away, and we decided that I'd try to get there, and either my father would try to come get me later or bring me some stuff, if the roads weren't going to be passable for my small car. It took me almost two hours to get to my father's girlfriends house, but thankfully, I made it there safely.

Normally, I spend a maximum of two hours driving in the car per day. By the time I arrived at my father's girlfriend's house, I'd spent a total of five hours driving my car through snow, ice, and stand-still traffic. I was so glad to be someplace warm where I could rest and try to relax.

For the next few hours, I monitored traffic cameras, traffic maps, and attempted to figure out what to do. At around 9 o'clock, the roads were finally clear enough that I was able to go home, driving less than 35 mph the whole way. I don't think I'd ever been happier in my entire life to be home. There were many times in the car yesterday that I wondered if I would even get home; I worried that I'd run out of gas, spin out, get in an accident, have the car break down, break down myself, not be able to physically endure the demands of driving due to my EDS - it was terrifying.

I am so grateful that I made it home in one piece. I am not grateful for the mass hysteria induced by the media and public figures, or for the utter failure of anyone to predict how bad the storm would get so early. Realistically, by the time anyone revised the time that the storm would be the worst, we were all screwed, because it was a race against the clock to get home before then - and no one could. We were all out in the worst parts of the storm, simply because someone got the weather report wrong... and then scared us all into heading out exactly when we should have been sheltering in place.

I think I need a nap.

Still Processing

At the moment, I should really be doing my reading for Trusts and Estates, but as it's been a day full of a whirlwind of emotions for me, I wanted to take some time out to talk about what today is to me.

Twelve years ago, as I was sitting in my morning homeroom class, I had no idea that my life was about to change. It was, for all intents and purposes, a routine, sunny day that would be spent in class; the school year had started only recently, and I probably wasn't thinking about anything in particular. As the day drew on, it became clear that something was amiss - there was an announcement made over the loudspeaker that teachers were not to turn on classroom TVs under any circumstances, and the phones started ringing in all the classrooms, calling to let lots of students know that their parents had arrived to pick them up. I found out some time around lunch what had happened.

Today, twelve years after that day, I'm still trying to process what happened to me and the people around me because of what we bore witness to. Every year there are memorials held, moments of silence conducted, news articles written, and speeches made about remembering, about the importance of not forgetting what happened to us - as individuals, as people, as a nation. Frankly, this confuses me, because even though I was fortunate enough not to have been in Manhattan that day or to have lost anyone close to me as a result of the terrorist attack, I still lost a lot that day - and part of me would do anything to forget.

I think about the events of September 11, 2001 almost every day, sometimes multiple times daily. I feel uneasy every time I see the a digital clock that reading 9:11. I live near a small, private airport, as well as within 50 miles of two major airports, and I get the same feeling every time I see or hear a plane. I constantly wonder if it's flying too low, if there's a chance it could crash into a home or a business or a landmark or the cars near and around me on the highway. When I'm inside my house and hear the roaring of an airplane engine, I feel a pressing need to look out the window and make sure everything's okay - that I am still safe, that it isn't about to rip through my window. On the anniversary of the attacks, every year, I feel guilty. I feel like if I don't say anything about it, if I go about my daily business, if I allow it to be a normal day, I am somehow disrespecting the horrors suffered by others as a result of those events. I feel like I can't let myself be happy today, because somehow that would mean I'm forgetting, and forgetting isn't allowed.

For the first time since the events of September 11th, I'm in one of the boroughs of New York City on the anniversary of that day. I go to school here now, and I can't just miss class, but today has been... especially stressful. On the drive in, all I could think about was if it was really safe to be driving into the city. I worried about the risk of repeat attacks, and what I would do if the local county borders were closed, like some were on that day. I wondered about the advisability of studying on the floor of the library I prefer today - it's several floors up, and I wonder if that's safe; if I could get downstairs fast enough in the case of an emergency. I feel like there's almost a haze over reality today, like something crazy could happen, and I wouldn't be at all surprised. I am on edge.

I had several relatives in NYC when the attacks took place. Each and every time we've gathered as a family since then, they talk about their experiences. It's like they're stuck in an infinite loop of repetition - they can't stop talking about it, and they can't really talk about anything else. I've heard a hundred times about how transportation was shut down. I've heard a hundred times that the city was in a panic, because no one knew what was happening. I've heard a hundred times that my aunt, who was home after emergency eye surgery, though she was dreaming when she first saw the tower on the news, how she later found out that the building she worked in, WTC 7, was destroyed after being hit from the debris flying off of WTC 1 and 2. I've heard a hundred times about my aunt's partner arriving home late that evening, having walked over the Brooklyn Bridge covered in ash, having witnessed people jumping to their death from the towers, choosing not to spend their last seconds huddled in a death trap, knowing their fate had been sealed.

I would do anything to be able to forget 9/11. I don't want to remember the horrors, I don't want to remember the feelings of vulnerability, I don't want to remember the sick, twisted events that took away whatever remained of my childhood, I don't want to remember the stress I still feel every day, on a subconscious level, because of those events. I just don't. Is that so bad?