why New Orleans?

After my most recent emails to friends and family, I received an email from an old high school friend who said he was interested in reading my blog because he hoped it would answer the questions on so many people’s minds: “Are people going to return to New Orleans? And if so, why?”

I wrote him back today and basically told him that I didn’t think my blog would answer that question, largely because it was not a question I ever asked myself. In fact, despite the fact that I have seen that question asked by the media of late, I’ve always dismissed the debate with no small amount of distain. How can people even ASK that question? It’s our HOME. Of course we’ll return. Of course we’ll rebuild.

But when my high school friend asked the question, I realized it wasn’t just ignorant, naysayers asking this question. I can’t really imagine why I thought that was the case. (I guess because I’ve heard this most often from places like Fox News and Dennis Hastert) My high school friend is brilliant and sensitive and the fact that he questioned made me feel like I needed to answer.

I need to preface my answer by saying that up until Katrina, I’d been 75% sure that this would be my last year in New Orleans for a while. (If there are any school colleagues reading this, please hold this information in confidence). I always thought I’d return, but I felt very strongly that if I didn’t start exploring the world again soon, I’d never have another chance. Another admission: I never in a million years wanted to be an English teacher. I became an English teacher sort of by accident, discovered I loved it, and decided to stick with it this long. But more than anything else, I really felt like it was time to try something new. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough with my life. And I was prepared to go. Not to mention the fact that no one in my family lives south of the Mason-Dixon, my grandmothers and extended family are elderly, and my best friend in the world, my cousin, lives in Boston (and now, post-Katrina, I’ve learned she’s pregnant). The Northeast seemed a logical place for me to go. Jason and I spent five days in Providence this summer, basically to see if it was someplace I could live (it was).

Jason and I were going to ride out the storm. Up until Saturday night, we’d decided that if things got too hairy, we’d “vertically evacuate”—we’d evacuate to a high-rise hotel in the Quarter. I spent hours online, on Travelocity et al, looking for a cheap hotel with a pool. I’ve been in New Orleans for 8 years and never evacuated. All hurricanes have been near misses or total misses. And when evacuations are called, people sit in traffic for tens of hours trying to get to some shit hotel in Jackson or Houston only to have New Orleans get a good hard rain, some wind with fallen limbs, and little else. Then those of us who have stayed have had to endure the curfews, the closed businesses, etc, until everyone (braving more traffic) returns home. So, we figured, if we went to the Quarter, at least we’d have some bars and restaurants to haunt.

On Saturday night, Katrina jumped from a 3 to a 5. And we started packing our bags. Sunday morning we jammed Tony, Jason’s car, full of everything that meant anything to us, and set off. I don’t care how brave or stupid you are (and I am both), you do not mess with a 5 unless you have to (ie, no transportation, no money to leave, hence all those left behind).

And when we drove out of the city Sunday morning, down I-10 past the French Quarter, the sight of the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral in the quarter set me off. And I started to sob. Deep down, I knew. I’d never left the city before during a hurricane, I was leaving now, and I knew I would return to something very different.

Why? Why New Orleans? What’s so special about it? I don’t even know where to begin. My answer probably won’t satisfy anyone. In order to truly understand, you’d have to crawl into my body and look out through my soul. Why?

I told my high school friend that the simple answer was this: love.

Love. Because. Because any adult who could live anywhere else in the world but still chooses to call New Orleans home does so because he or she knows that there is no where else in the world that would feel the same way New Orleans feels.

Because, throughout history, New Orleans has been the home of outcasts, artists, misfits, criminals, liberals, traditionalists, decadents, foreigners, riff-raff, pirates, the richest of the rich, the poorest of the poor, do-nothings, innovators, tyrants, and fools. And that spirit, all of those spirits, run through the very pipelines of the city still.

Because, I have visited just about every “great” city in the US, and I have seen none as beautiful. I live in the heart of the city of New Orleans—in most cities, living IN the city means living circumferenced by concrete, but all around me it is green. Giant live oaks, hundreds of years old, line the streets. Great, three+ story magnolia trees bloom giant dinner-plate-sized pale blossoms. Tall palm trees stretch to the sky raucous with the sound of wild parakeets—parakeets, wild and green and noisy. The nursing home across the street from my house has a jasmine-covered fence; during the warmest months, the groundspeople must trim the jasmine bi-weekly, as the branches snake onto the sidewalks, reaching to trip passersby with their warm-smelling, tropical vines.

Because the Mississippi is just blocks away from my home, teeming with giant barges and boats and tiny, muscular tugs. Just two weeks before Katrina, I was feeling kind of low, so I stopped off at Audubon Zoo (around 10 blocks from my house, where I have a yearly membership) and spent around an hour hanging out with the orangutans and gorillas (if you live in a city with a zoo or an aquarium, I HIGHLY recommend buying a yearly membership—there is very little cooler than deciding you have a half hour to kill and knowing you can just drop by and visit your favorite animal/sea creature without having to pay a dime). And then, still feeling low, I stopped home, packed my mini-cooler with three beers (as a practiced drinker, I know I can drink three beers in a reasonable amount of time and still be well enough to drive) and a blanket and a book (ironically enough, in retrospect, Rising Tide about the great Mississippi flood of 1927), and drove up to the riverside park in my neighborhood. The park is called the Butterfly—or the Fly to locals—I don’t know why. And I sat there for three hours, drinking and reading and watching the boats lumber by, and every time I get very very lonely for New Orleans, I think back to those hours. Those hours alone are enough reason to save the city. That a woman can go and sit by the river and drink a beer and watch the sun set and watch giant boats do their business and be content and chase her blues away with the beauty and peace of this city oasis.

Because, and I have no reason to elaborate on this, there is no city with more beautiful architecture. Different, yes. But not more beautiful.

Because New Orleans embraces its history—good, bad, and indifferent. Because you have to travel outside of city limits for a sense of newness and development and exploitation of resources.

Because, in New Orleans, people call you darling and sweetheart and love and cher and baby and girl and honey and—my absolute favorite—heart (pronounced “hawt”) and it’s not in the least bit degrading or rude. They say it because they assume from the get-go that they’ll love you once they know you and they treat you accordingly. Because, in this past month, when I respond to emails that my students send me, I begin my emails “Hi sweetheart” or “So nice to hear from you, babycakes” or “My darling” and they know that I mean it. Because, despite the horrors y’all have seen on the tv, this is a city of love.

Because y’all is such a great way of identifying the second person plural.

Because ANY night of ANY week ANY time of the year, you can find exceptional music not too far from ANYWHERE you are in the city. I am a sinner. I have not taken advantage of this fully in the past eight years. I have taken it for granted, and now that I am not there, I am so sorry for that.

Ditto for food.

Because at one end of my block is a great big Victorian mansion that is (was) for sale for $850,000 and at the other end of my block and around the corner there are Section-8 apartments. Because in any neighborhood in New Orleans you live side-by-side with millionaires and people who are on welfare. And that, my friends, is beautiful.

Because it is hotter than hell in the summer. Because of WWOZ radio and Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras. Because of the Rebirth Jazz Band and Preservation Hall and Trombone Shorty and the Blue Nile and the Neville Brothers and the Marsalis Family and Harry Connick, Jr. and Grayson Capps and the Flamenco scene and the Tango scene and the late beloved Buddy D. Because of the Landrieus and the Mannings and Tipitinas and Fats Domino. Because, this summer, I saw a free Michelle Shocked concert in the business district. Michelle lived in New Orleans for years and had to leave during her ugly divorce. This concert was her first return to the city. And every song she played was a peon to her love for this place. She cried. I cried. We all wanted her to come back home.

All that being said, there is a “because” that outweighs all others. New Orleans was all that and much, much more before Katrina. Simply put, we have no idea what New Orleans will be like now. There are whole neighborhoods, whole gigantic suburbs, that have been utterly destroyed by Katrina. Some of these areas are a mere 10 to 12 blocks from my home. Why do I need to go home? Why do I feel like I may need to stay regardless of my prior plans? Because, simply, if I don’t return, if people like me don’t return, then who will be the stewards of the city?

Already rumors abound—giant conglomerations trying to buy up giant tracts of land in New Orleans and environs. Housing developments where there were historic shotgun homes. Strip malls where there were parks. Box stores where mom-and-pops reigned. If “we”—the young, the intelligent, the ambitious, the culturally attuned—don’t return, New Orleans will become… well… Florida.

Why? Love. Why? This is home. Tell post-9/11 NYC that their city is a sitting duck for terrorists. Or the people of DC. Tell San Francisco they live on a fault line. Tell Hawaii they live in the path of a future tsumani. Tell Los Angeles, today, right now, that there are wildfires blazing outside of their city and they really should leave.

Home. Love. Loyalty. Passion. Home.

Throughout our history, people have shed blood, laid down their lives for HOME. For land, for place, for culture. Why should it be any different now?

first anniversary

When I was in high school, heck even when I was in college, I used to celebrate my “one month anniversaries” with boys. One month anniversaries used to be significant. And in high school (even college), every month of a relationship brought new depth, new adventures, new connection. The older you get, the less significant the passing of a month becomes. These days, when Jason and I end up apart for a month (or more) during the summer, it’s sad, I miss him, but I don’t feel like there’s huge significance to the “time lost.”

This weekend was the one month anniversary of our relationship with Katrina, with Florida, and with exile. We celebrated it by ignoring it. To this moment, neither of us has brought up the fact that we’ve been away from home for thirty-one days. This month, this relationship with displacement, strikes the same chord that high school relationship anniversaries did. After a month of dating, it was hard to remember what life was like before the boy, hard to imagine life without him. After a month of exile, memories of home are fuzzy, the “old normal” routines a bit hazy. Perhaps this is self-preservation, the same way that we tend to forget the pain of breakups over time. Perhaps I’m forgetting the actuality of home in order to prepare myself for the reality of it.

How have we passed the past month? To be honest, we’ve spent a great deal of it sleeping. Unless we’ve had something to do in the morning (check out of a hotel or work at Habitat, for example) or something keeping us up all night (the coverage of hurricane Rita), we’ve regularly clocked 10-13 hours of sleep a night. Depression? Avoidance? Exhaustion from stress?

In recent weeks, just about once every four or five mornings, I’ve woken up and started crying even before I’ve opened my eyes fully. The conversation that ensues is the same conversation each time:
“What’s wrong?”
“I want to go home.”
“We can’t go home”
“I know.”

So, a month after Katrina, what do we know about home? We know that our area did not flood. We know that a window blew out in our attic. We don’t know if my car is okay or even still there. We know that some people have returned to the “dry” areas of New Orleans to find their houses smothering in mold; we know of others whose cars have been totaled this way. We know that electricity is on near our neighborhood, but most likely not in our neighborhood yet. We know that the water is not drinkable and that you can’t even wash your hands in it. We know that the Walgreen’s down the street is open for business, is stocked with Halloween candy, and is allowing customers to charge their cell phones in their photo department.

We know that my school sustained only minor damage and that clean-up has already begun. We know that I will be paid through October, and that most of our students plan to return to New Orleans either in January or for the 2006-07 school year. We know that school will most likely start again on January 3, 2006, but it may start earlier in some capacity.

We also know that if another hurricane enters the Gulf, an evacuation of New Orleans would be harrowing. The I-10 East bridge, which we took to get to Florida, was washed out during Katrina. New Orleans’s perilous position during hurricanes was not just in its geography, but also in its lack of viable evacuation routes. Now we have fewer. Last we heard, there are no gas stations open for business in our area. And of course, we have the weakened levee system.

Mayor Nagin announced once again today that he will allow our neighborhood return to the city starting on Friday. The announcement comes with several admonitions. In fact, the official announcement begins: “On behalf of Mayor C. Ray Nagin and the City of New Orleans, welcome home!” and then goes on to say “(1) You are entering the City of New Orleans at your own risk…”

We will most likely start heading back some time this weekend, with at least one or two stops along the way. The city is under a 6pm-8am curfew, and we will want to arrive well-rested, but with plenty of time before the curfew kicks in. Keep checking in on my blog to get the final decisions.

Finally, I can’t possibly sign off on this email without again expressing my gratitude for the love and support we have received along the way. People as far away as Australia and Great Britain and the Czech Republic have sent us money. We’re currently staying in a condo owned by a couple I’ve never met. I’ve heard from high school friends I haven’t heard from SINCE high school.

I am so lucky. So grateful.

And I’ve not yet really blogged about being in Punta Gorda because I’ve had a tough time figuring out the right words to describe this community.

On August 13, 2004, Hurricane Charley came ashore in Punta Gorda. Charley was a Cat. 4 and was aimed directly at the Tampa Bay area, 100 miles to the north. Few people here evacuated. Just hours before the storm was supposed to hit, Charley took a sudden southward turn. Around 67% of homes in Punta Gorda were destroyed.

Just about everyone I've met here has stories like you wouldn't believe-- being trapped for hours in a closet, having the ceiling fall down on them, hiding under mattresses, ducking out of the way just as the windows burst inward. Every time I hear a new story, I cry. And inevitably, the storyteller says "No, no, don't cry. We're fine, and you'll be fine too." Amazing survivors here. I couldn't have hoped to be exiled to a more sympathetic community.

We’ve found incredible solace being here. These people are an inspiration. We’ve met many of them at the Celtic Ray, an Irish pub down the street from our condo. The owner, Kevin, a Dublin transplant, never closed and the Ray became the center of the community in the days following the disaster. During the first few days, despite the fact that his bar was in ruins, Kevin gave away food, beer, and water. After that, for weeks he charged at cost. For some reason, the Ray had the only working phone line in the city for several days after Charley, and Kevin tells stories about the line of people waiting for the phone that snaked out the door. Julia, a regular, told us a story about how her family of six (including an 8-month pregnant sister) took refuge in a closet with the door held shut by her infirm father for hours. About emerging during the eye to see daylight through the roof, only having to retreat again when the western eyewall hit. Eddie, a retired guy from Philly who we met last night, told stories about racing from room to room in his condo as the windows smashed and great chunks of ceiling fell on him and his wife.

Punta Gorda has been the best thing that’s happened to us since we left home. The city is still in ruins. Homes boarded up. Apartment doors still marked with spray painted notes made by rescuers who went door to door looking for survivors and dead. Washed out businesses, buildings still roofed in blue tarps. But there is no self-pity here. And the abundance of concern and love and support we have received from people who have suffered losses much greater than hours… such a blessing.

We will leave here with a heavy heart. And while, under “normal” circumstances, Punta Gorda would not be a place that moved me or inspired me in any way, I suddenly feel like I’ve found a home away from home. We will be back. Without a doubt. We’ll be back when Kevin finally re-opens the Temple Bar, the bar next door to the Ray that was so damaged that it could be another year before all the repairs are made. We’ll be back to visit with Julia and Max and Tess and all the people here who have taken us in and made us friends.

So thank you, to all of you, who have sent a bit of your love my way. We are well, sad but well. And we are looking forward to going home.

wild kingdom

As we piled into the car today for another day of pointless errands (to the Post Office to send a book to my mom, to the Red Cross so Jason could register—only to be chastised for even daring to dream that we could go home this week, to K-Mart to by tackle for a night of fishing aborted by rain), Jason glanced toward the canal and said “what’s that?”

“Bubbles!” I exclaimed, bounding from the car and down the dock in time to see the bubbles increase to Jacuzzi level. I waved my arms at Jason and he cut the engine and joined me just in time to see a form, like the bottom of a capsized bathtub, emerge from the brown water in the canal, and snuff the air like a St. Bernard.

Manatee.

So many times during my exile, I’ve felt the irony of finding refuge in a state that I’d run from screaming in frustration around eight years ago. When I lived in Tampa, I was not blind to the beauty, but I was aghast at the mis-fit between my personality and this state. I hated my life in Florida. I was miserable. Lonely. And there was such a disconnect for me. The strip malls, the giant housing developments, the conspicuous consumption, the overpriced everything. The glitz, the emphasis on newness over history, (again ironically) the desperate divide between the haves and have nots.

I am not ready to cash in my LA drivers license for a FL one. And I am still feeling the mis-fit.

But I have experienced some gorgeous hours here. As I mentioned very early on in my blog, one of my first post-Katrina joys came from seeing dolphin bound through the Intracoastal Waterway in New Smyra Beach.

Several nights later, on the last night of my stay in New Smyrna, Jason and I walked out to the end of the dock across the street from the Night Swan B&B in New Smyrna. It was around 11pm, and we were hoping to catch a glimpse of those dolphins in the lights of the bridge down the street. We stood there for a half hour or so, watching and waiting. And just as we decided to go in, I motioned to two eddies, weird currents, underneath the neighboring dock. We watched as these currents fought the natural flow of the water until they passed right underneath our dock. I was frantic, beside myself with excitement, but trying desperately to be silent (so hard, I actually pulled something in my stomach!). Two days before, Jason and a few other people had seen manatee in the waterway; I’d been inside napping, and I was so pissed at myself.

Just as the currents reached our dock, a mass of bubbles appeared and the fist-sized lump of a nose emerged. I just about peed my pants. Wonder. Childlike wonder and awe and joy.

For some reason, more than actually watching the manatee today—at least five or six surfacings in the space of a half hour of motionless watching—that night goes down in my top ten most amazing moments spawned by nature.

I added another moment to my top ten last night. Right now, we’re living on the Peace River in Punta Gorda, Fl. (Peace River—how lovely). And our particular inlet is bioluminescent. That, in and of itself, is an amazing thing. I know that there are bays and inlets in the world that actually glow starting at dusk for a few hours. My science knowledge is pretty slim; all I know is that, after dark, the fish and critters in our inlet glow when they move. We noticed this shortly after moving in, but Rita kept us inside mostly at night and it also kept the inlet stirred up which seems to abate the effect a bit.

Yesterday, Jas and I stopped at K-Mart to buy a fishing pole. All day long we hear and see fish jumping all over the canal. So last evening at 6p or so, we headed down to the dock and cast the rod over and over. Around 730p or so, dusk hit and we watched the canal light up with firefly-like fish. And then, almost precisely at 750p, it was dark and something just short of God happened.

The canal lit up with a veritable commute of fish—a river of fish, a sea of fish, an amazing swarming current of fish of all shapes and sizes of fish started moving parallel to the dock in the pitch black. Green, like fireflies, almost uniform in movement and direction. Sometimes we would see a giant fish sail by, the bioluminescence flickering off its fins, its giant fan-like tail. A fish would jump leaving concentric rings of light-stick glow in the water. Tiny shrimp, which underwater appeared like bees, were the only ones to buck the tide and swim in circles and counter-current until they bumped into each other and bounced off.

This magic hour lasted only, perhaps, twenty minutes. Not to diminish the beauty of every moment of the five and a half hours we sat on the dock and cast our rod fruitlessly into the canal—it was all beautiful, the glowing fish glowed still when we packed it in near midnight. But that twenty minutes was magic in the mass migration.

Our little kingdom is, in effect, pretty darned wild. You’ve heard now about the manatees and dolphins and the frogs. I mentioned the 4-foot black snake in my Habitat post, but we have a 3+ foot long one living right under our deck here. There are two alligators (at least I think there are two—Edgar and Ernest, I’ve named them) who patrol the canal in the early evenings (how they coexist with the manatee is a mystery). When Jas and I went to the Miami Seaquarium, we confronted wild iguana. At first we thought they were an attraction, wandering the park, until we saw HUGE wild iguana in a park by the aquarium. At Lorin’s, I saw buzzards (not a pleasant sight after you’ve been through a tragedy). And near Tampa, I saw cranes as tall as my shoulders wandering through a mall parking lot. Here in Punta Gorda, we also have herons and egrets and osprey. And fish… my goodness, at least in the light of bioluminescence look like sea monsters.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something in this great menagerie. But beauty abounds. And there are people in the world who are lucky enough to live with it every day. Perhaps I am seeking it. Perhaps I am looking through child-eyes and loving it more than adults do. “Living” here I am reminded so often of my childhood, when I would spend hour upon hour on the dock in front of Vange’s house (my grandmother) fishing with earthworms for sunfish and the elation of the occasional wide-mouth bass. When I would spend whole days on the rocks by the dock down the street from Nana’s house with a crushed mussel or a snail at the end of piece of rope fishing for a pail of crabs that I would inevitably pour back into Long Island Sound to be fished out again in the morning. Last night I longed for a butterfly net to swoop into the water and pull out the strange sea-creatures that lit up the canal—just to be able to see them more clearly.

I don’t know. I just know that as beautiful as nature is here, as much as I sometimes muse that it would be nice to live here or somewhere like here, it doesn’t alter the fact that I’d trade all this beauty for my home. My lousy, crowded little apartment on Leontine St with my psycho landlord, even if it lacks power and potable water. I could be wrong; the caseworker at the Red Cross today told us that we should count on needing therapy after this—“Everyone here, after Charley, needed therapy. We’re all still in therapy,” she said. She told us not to underestimate how awful it’s going to be, even if our home wasn’t flooded (which it wasn’t), even if we’ve lost little (which we hope we have). The beauty around here offers a better promise to us. Perhaps that life is wild and weird and inexplicable. And horrible and lacking plan or plot. It just is.

Habitat for Humanity

Booger. This morning, I spent 30 minutes typing a blog and when I went to post it, it simply disappeared. Lesson learned: type these in Microsoft Word, save, and then post.

Eh, keeps me from being too chatty if I have to type things twice.

Saturday, I spent the day working at Habitat for Humanity’s Home Center in Port Charlotte, Fl. I was hoping to work on a build so I could pick up some skills that could come in handy when I get home, but the last bits of Rita put the current projects on hold. The Home Center just opened in June; it’s essentially a thrift store version of Home Depot. All items are donated, both by individuals in the form of used and left-over materials (like the $15 fridge, which worked just fine and the cabinet door with “Carl is a But Head” scrawled on it in crayon), and by builders in the form of brand-new surplus (like the gorgeous $800 slipper-shaped, fire-engine red Jacuzzi). All proceeds support Habitat, which is a huge force in this community.

So Saturday I spent the day in service to three old guys named Dick, Ray, and Chuck, who worked me harder than I’ve been worked in eons. In fact, for the first three hours, I swept every inch of the facility. It was kind of an education, actually, as I swept up hundreds, if not thousands, of fascinating dead bugs, frogs, lizards, and spiders that looked like they could easily devour a small child. The rest of the day, I helped customers load appliances and windows and doors in their vehicles, rearranged the cabinet door section, and played tag with a 4-foor long black snake (Ray swore it wouldn’t hurt me, but told me that if I saw a small skinny snake, I should “run like hell” because they have pygmy rattlers on the grounds). I returned home bruised, bleeding from my knuckles and a gash on my foot from where a woman dropped her end of a window I was helping her carry, covered in dead bugs, and smelling like a racehorse. It’s Monday now, and I still ache in odd places (what did I do to my ribcage?).

At no time did I really feel like I was doing anything really important for humanity, per se, but at the end of the day, we’d taken in at least $8K, and it ended up being one of the better days of my exile thus far. It felt good to do something.

Today when I turned on MSNBC, I saw that NBC and Habitat had turned Rockefeller Plaza into “Humanity Plaza” this week and Habitat was building HOMES, whole houses to ship down to the Gulf Coast as part of a program called Operation Home Delivery in NYC, Los Angeles, and Jackson, Miss, with plans to expand to other areas. There was also a separate area sponsored by Children Helping Children, where kids were putting together “back yards in a box” (toys, seeds, plants, etc) and painting murals to place in Gulf Coast public schools (which drove me to tears—the murals read “Welcome Home Love the Children of NYC”).

A long time ago, people asked me where they could donate money, and at the time I just didn’t know who was going to end up doing the “good work.” The thing that I like about Habitat is that they need people power as much as they need money. I don’t have a lot of money to send to charities. I usually do my best to send around $50 to every cause that moves me, but that’s the most I can do on my salary. But Saturday, I felt like my seven hours of work was worth so much more than $50. So, if you have more people power than cash to donate, like I do, look up your local Habitat.

A Last Look

I've been saying for a while now that I should start loading pictures on the blog. I've not exactly been shutter-happy on this trip, but I've taken a few good pictures. I'm working on getting them on an online photo album, but with dial-up, even loading a picture or two takes eons. (Ah, the creature comforts that I miss).

But I thought with this one. Just a picture I snapped as I walked out the door of 807 Leontine in New Orleans. My last glimpse of home. I recognize the fact that this looks like an AFTER picture, but we moved furniture away from walls, took things in from our rickety shed, and moved stuff off the floor.

Yes, that is a penguin in the far center. His name is Buckley.

From home to New Smyrna

Theoretically, you should be able to click the link and view a very brief (21 photos) slideshow of my journey from New Orleans to New Smyrna Beach. I'll try to get another slideshow up soon.
xoxo

Invasion

Unlike most people my age, it didn’t begin with the X-Files. The heart of a conspiracy theorist beat in my breast long before I saw Fox Mulder’s poster “I Want to Believe,” long before the tagline “The Truth is Out There.”

I’m not ready to sport a tin-foil yarmulke. Yet. But I’m pretty much of the “prove to me Bigfoot doesn’t exist” mindset.

I just finished watching Invasion, one of the few new dramas on TV that peaked my interest. From what I’d heard about it, it had two things going for it—alien invasion and Shaun Cassidy as a producer (he produced a forgotten exceptional TV show called American Gothic). Today, I realized it was also about a hurricane.

I never watched Lost last year until the last episode—and even that, I only watched the last 30 mins. But it intrigued me enough to watch it again. It’s pretty much the first non-news I’ve watched since Katrina. Excellent stuff. Gave me a stomach ache to watch—all that tension.

Anyway … Invasion began with a warning that due to recent events, people may be upset by the images of the fictional hurricane Eve. Jason was watching upstairs as I watched downstairs and we called out frustrations and discrepancies to each other. They’re letting the kids out of school in the middle of what looks like 50MPH wind? Look at all the cars on the road, what’s up with that!? A child Rose’s age would be old enough to know better not to go out in that weather.

And then finally, the most “upsetting” fictional image of hurricane Eve? Dawn breaks. Dad and Rosie are somehow alive and unscathed inside the truck after it flipped over at least once (in and of itself absurdly fictional). And what wakes them from their slumber? Help. Help in the form of the military. There. In the middle of the Everglades. Immediately.

Of course, this was Florida.

Truthfully, even without the lens of Katrina, the show was pretty lame. But it posits (I think; there was nothing conclusive in the first episode) that this particular hurricane Eve was not a weather-born event, but rather either something extraterrestrial or something constructed by the government.

And, you know, if today, as Rita became the third most powerful storm in US History, less than a month after Katrina clocked in at #4, you aren’t going “what the hell is going on here?”—WHY NOT?

No, I don’t think W and his cronies are manufacturing these storms to provide more no-bid contracts for Halliburton or to crank up oil prices so we have more excuses to drill in ANWAR. (After all, this storm seems poised to hit Texas). And the internet is full of religious zealots claiming that Katrina was God’s cleansing modern Sodom and Gomorrah of New Orleans—just in time to ruin Decadence Festival, New Orleans’s Gay Mardi Gras. (Again, I say, it looks like God hates Texas too). But Global Warming? Mother Nature, perhaps, not God, saying “No no no?”

Perhaps.

I’ll just say this—as I drove to the Circle K tonight, I had to swerve continually to avoid hitting the masses of frogs that carpeted the streets. Frogs. A—shall we say—plague of frogs?

Today I went to the Red Cross to see if I could volunteer. They took my name and number and added it to a massive list of potential volunteers. So, I swung by the Chamber of Commerce and was told that they hire a volunteer recruitment firm to provide them with free help. (Does seem odd to you, or what? Like I need to sign up at a temp agency just to find work that I can do for free?). Anyway, they directed me to Habitat for Humanity and an animal rescue shelter. I’ll give those a shot tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing a whole lot of nothing, as usual. Watching the news, sleeping way too much. Aching to go home. Aching even more for something to do.

new look

Bored by the old lay-out. I realized that I could add links to this one.

katrina insert story #1: Burt Fish

I’ve purposely kept this small drama out of the blog because I know my mom checks the blog and I knew she’d be upset. (Hi Mom). But I also feel like it needs to go in the blog because I’ve been so negative of late, and this is evidence of small kindnesses done on my behalf.

One of the last nights I was at New Smyrna Beach, it was rainy. Around 10pm or so, I headed back to my room to go to the bathroom and I slipped on the wet stairs to my room with a wine glass in my hand. The glass shattered, shearing a huge flap of skin from my right pinkie finger. My social self took over. Blood poured from my hand, spattering the deck, the door, my shoes. I retreated to the bathroom and left a trail of blood behind me. I locked myself in and tried to rinse it off, not wanting to use the white towels. Jason happened in to the room around 10 minutes later, after I’d wrapped it in layers of Band-Aids. He insisted he should take me to the emergency room, but I argued. He was the host at the workshop. I told him I could walk to the ER (just three blocks away) if I needed to, but all would be fine, blah blah. Instead we hit up one of the workshop participants for some gauze and tape and we wrapped it up good and went back to the gathering. Around midnight or so, blood dripped from the bandage to the porch floor, so Jas piled me into the car and took me to the tiny ER.

We got there and waited and waited. Finally, Ellen from the Burt Fish Medical Center (to whom I owe a thank you note), saw me and said I needed stitches. She sent me to the check in area, and the woman there freaked when she heard I was from New Orleans and fed me answers as I checked in, trying to make the insurance thing as painless as possible (I hadn’t yet received my insurance card for this year). Around ½ hour later, Ellen came back and said that there had been a car accident and that there were only two doctors on duty and both were needed. She said it could be as much as 6 hours before I could be seen. So Ellen, against all hospital protocol, cleaned me up, put some sort of magic bandage on my hand and told me to leave it on for five days. She talked to the insurance lady and the two of them decided to delete me from the computer so I wouldn’t be charged for anything.

Five days later, Randy, Jason’s dad, who has some medical training, took the bandage off and rewrapped it. And now I have a somewhat deformed pinkie, but it’s all good. High drama for a girl who’s never had stitches before, never even (knock on wood) broken a bone. Small act of kindness.

lay off

Honestly, I’ve been keeping my own private journal during this, and most of it has ended up on the blog—in fact 99% of it has ended up on the blog… but some of it is too angry, too political, too—as Rush Limbaugh would say, “left wing kook.” If this was a blog only for my friends, I could probably assume that my viewpoint was shared and appreciated. Actually, I shouldn’t say that. This summer I discovered that my bestest friend in the world—my younger cousin Beth (hi sweetheart)—is a card-carrying republican. Oh how heartbreaking. And my heart hopes that she has changed her mind in light of this. But anyway, I don’t want to alienate people who I have invited to this list…I can’t sit on this, though. If you are busy blaming the local government, please listen to a resident’s point of view and stop. When I say local, I mean the mayor. My jury is still out on the governor. I promise you, I am LOOKING for the bastard who dropped the ball. I am looking hard. But so far, it ain’t Nagin, folks. So far, he has been the voice of reason and the voice of the people of New Orleans. I could be wrong, I could be drastically misled. But while he isn’t exactly our Guiliani, he’s the closest best thing that we have.

lovely rita

I’ve been so quiet lately that I’ve missed a whole bunch of good stories. So, rather than blah blah at you for pages and pages, I’ll keep the continuity and just stick the little stories in between my normal day-to-day stuff.

I’ll make sure I let you know which little stories are outside of the timeline.

Those of you who have been tracking my movements and, say, tracking the tropical activity in the southeast region, may have noticed that we seem to be, well, magnets. Yes, just as last week (?) we were brushed by Ophelia, tonight and tomorrow we will come in relatively close contact with Rita. Had we stayed in the Tampa area, we would have been free and clear, but Punta Gorda is far enough south that we should get some of the wind and rain from this hurricane.

My concerns about staying here were quickly allayed. This place is amazing. Truthfully, I feel like I am living in the very loving lap of luxury here. I am honestly driven to tears by how lucky I feel to be here. A gorgeous waterfront condo, beautiful sunsets, people who check in on us. It’s just good. In every sense of the word. I’m so glad I have a few days here—we bought groceries, can do laundry, can empty the car and repack it so it doesn’t look like a bomb went off.

Nagin wisely rescinded the repopulation order this afternoon in light of Rita. I am so glad to see him continue to be smart about this. He was smart, so smart, to say that the people who can move back should—who better to help recover the city than us? But he was also smart to say that Rita was too much of a threat to ignore. I feel bad, of course, for my friends who were intending to be first in line to get back in on Wed. That was never an option for me. But it would have been movie-eque—bad B-Movie-esque—had New Orleans been opened and then Rita flooded the city again.

effective advertising

Tonight Jason and I went to Harpoon Harry’s for dinner—a very fun waterfront bar and restaurant. Tonight was Monday Night Football with the Saints vs. the Giants. The Saints lost handily.

The focus of the evening was Katrina recovery. And while the entire event was moving, just before halftime, I saw a commercial for Katrina fundraising that somehow knocked the very wind out of me.

It featured a series of NY Giants players wearing Saints jerseys. Perhaps the whole starting line. (For non-football watchers, usually at the beginning of the game the starting line-up is introduced by showing a picture of each player and the player’s voice saying: “Bob Brown. Louisiana State University.”) The commercial featured the Giants wearing Saints jerseys. The players said: “Bob Brown. New York Giants.” “Sam Smith. New York Giants.” Ending with: “Eli Manning. New York Giants.” And then the screen went black. White writing: “Be a Saint.” And donate.

And whammo. I was floored. It was a little confusing and I didn’t get it until I saw Eli Manning. Eli Manning who went to Newman, our (my school’s) biggest competitor (tho’ co-ed). Eli who is the middle child of a nearly unparalleled football family. Eli, who I hope, at the very least, felt a little bit shitty for beating the snot out of the Saints today.

Man, as stupid as it sounds, that ad drew more tears from me than all the very dramatic Red Cross ads I’d seen all week. And so in the middle of Harpoon Harry’s I was wiping away throat-closing tears.

As a woman who teaches pop culture in her spare time—a class devoted to the study of advertising and the way that it affects us—I pay special attention to ads. And I get a little disgusted at most of the charity ads these days. But that ad, man, messed me up.

Arrr!

I'll start this post on a light note: Tomorrow, September 19, is Talk Like A Pirate Day. I, for one, will be doing my part. Not only is Florida pirate central in the US, but Punta Gorda, where we're heading tomorrow, boasts a number of pirate-related place names. We're hoping we'll find a number of like-minded pirate-types there. I highly recommend that you join me in celebrating Talk Like a Pirate day. Key words: Avast! Aye Aye! Ahoy! Arr! (ever wonder why pirate lingo has so many "A" words?) and of course Matey and Grog. I'm figuring a nationwide Talk Like A Pirate Day observance is at least as worthwhile as a National Day of Prayer.

It's been a while since I wrote a decent blog entry, and I probably won't swing it tonight either. Truthfully, there have been two reasons (1) lack of consistent internet access and (2) as any number of people who know me can attest to: when I get depressed, I get really quiet.

And I guess I wasn't all that depressed before. Horrified, heartbroken, angry, sad... I don't know the stages of grief, but I've been hovering somewhere in the "miserable" stage for the past week or so.

Rita is making her way toward the Keys and the projected path brings it too close for comfort to the Katrina affected regions. This brings yet another question mark to bear upon Nagin's plan to repopulate the city. The head of the recovery efforts, Thadd Allen, clearly doesn't think it's a good idea. No water, no power, no garbage collection, sewerage, etc. A number of people on the message board I've been following (www.nola.com Orleans Parish Board) have returned to NO only to leave again because it was so horrid. I'm particularly struck by people talking about the "stench of death." And finally, even if Rita mercifully misses us, our levee systems have been so damaged that, according to Thadd Allen, even a number of "closely spaced thunderstorms" could cause a new breach. And at least two of the most popular evacuation routes are impassable.

Okay, hopefully newsy Melissa will return in a few days or so. Love to you all. Ahoy, Mateys! Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! Say a few "Arrs" for me.

quiet

Sorry to have been so quiet these past few days. We have no internet at Jason's dad's house, so we try to sneak an hour or so at a coffee shop each day. And during that hour I devour every bit of news I can.

Tomorrow we'll relocate to mom's friend's condo in Oldsmar. Hopefully then I will have more frequent access to the internet.

The news: Our neighborhood is open for business as of next Wednesday. But we are unable to return until the 27th because Jason has a business trip to DC from the 23-27 of Sept, and I'm not comfortable being alone in the apartment while he is gone. This is a major bummer for me. I wanted to be back as soon as I possibly could. But reason has trumped this passion.

No news on school.

Hope you all are well. You can look forward to rambling entries again soon.

xoxo

duct-tape guy

The day that Michael Brown of FEMA resigned, Jason turned to me and said: "Hm. I wonder if Michael Brown was that guy who told us to stock up on duct tape to protect ourselves from a bio-terror attack."

"Hey, probably," I said. After all, it kind of sounds like something that a failed Arabian Horse Show planner might say.

Jason and I are at Panera Bread Co right now, utilizing their free internet. A moment ago, I nearly choked on my iced mocha.

"Hey Jas," I said. "Remember when you said that you thought Brownie might be the duct tape guy?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Brownie is not the duct tape guy. The guy Bush hired to replace Brownie is the duct tape guy."

DUCT-TAPE GUY: "I recommend that people returning to New Orleans have on hand one of those little yellow plastic margarine tubs for each family member. If you find that the air in and around your home is hard to breathe, strap one of these to your face. Parkay works best. Remember to place tub on your own face before strapping a tub to the face of children or elderly."

a bit batty

Jason and I arrived in Boca Raton last night. Jason's dad, Randy, lives with his girlfriend, a cardiologist named Lori, in a gated community on a golf course. It's a surreal place; the kind of place where you have to show your ID to get in, where security guards will call you up in the middle of the night to let you know that your garage door is ajar, where the ground crew arrives with electric clippers the minute one of your bushes sprouts an errant branch. There are around 2200 houses in the community, divided into 14 different little enclaves. Randy lives at the end of a street full of identical pink houses with identical cathedral ceilings, identical swimming pools, and identical Saabs and Lexuses (Lexi?) in the driveways. Culture shock to the extreme.

Just an hour ago, Jason heard a press conference with Mayor Nagin where Nagin said that as soon as he gets test results back from the EPA, he'll be able to determine who can move back and when. This announcement is expected to happen on Thursday. Nagin said that it wasn't inconceivable that my neighborhood would be allowed back-- back to STAY-- as early as next week.

That could change everything. I'd love to be able to get back home-- a bit horrified by what I may find when I do. He said he won't allow people back in before hospitals are operational and grocery stores are open. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I'm truly teetering on the edge of batty these days. I owe phone calls to so many people, but I am just not really up to talking about things these days. It's even a bit of a chore to be social with those people I have to be social with. I'm sorry. I promise, I'll pick up the phone soon.

Love you all.

slide show

An incredible slide show of the course of the hurricane in the quarter.

Oh-- O

I realize now that I have failed to mention the fact that I am in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Yeah, look at the weather channel-- that big red blob of a tropical storm right off the Atlantic Coast of Florida? Well, she's named Ophelia, and the big red blob is... oh... right where I am. As I walked back to our room a minute ago to grab another beer, a great big tree limb fell not ten feet from me. Crash-crash-ker-thunk.

Oh sweet mysteries of life.

flip flop

There seems to be less rhyme and reason to my moods these days. I guess to a certain extent that's due to the fact that before a couple of days ago or so, there were only lows to contend with. Lows and lower lows. Now I have my good moments (see the last post), my stupid happy moments. My stupidest happy moment today came when I spied a pod of dolphin frolicing on the Intercoastal Waterway in front of the b&b. I was blindsided by eight-year-old Melissa-ness; I morphed into a totally goofy little girl in an instant. Standing on the sidewalk, watching the dolphin play, clapping my hands, and babbling incoherent "yays!" every time I saw another dolphin breach. Yay! yay! Wow! Cool!

And then I had one of those "Oh, Chipman, you're in public" moments and stopped the clapping and kept the yays in my brain for only my other personalities to hear.

It was nice. Nice to know that small things still please.

Yay! Dolphin! Cool! Wow!

Yeah, not tonight, though. Tonight I'm in a funk. For no damned good reason either. Just blue blue indigo.

And I stress: no good reason. Had a lovely night. Tom Corcoran is here teaching at the workshop. Tom writes mystery novels set in Key West. I've read two-- Gumbo Limbo and Bone Island Mambo-- and they're really, really great. Much better than your standard genre drivel. His characters are wonderful and he does a fantastic job of setting. So I was pretty honored to meet him, and then absolutely enchanted by him once we started talking. It was a great night, listening to him talk about hanging out with Jimmy Buffet in the 70's (he co-wrote "Fins" and took the cover photo for 7 of Buffet's albums), about his "old college classmate, a journalist named PJ O'Rourke," and about his lifelong friendship with Hunter S. Thompson (he just returned from a road trip to go to Thompson's funeral/fireworks). And he's just a really nice guy, too. The kind of guy you wish lived next door.

And then the evening was over and I was checking the news-- and sure, it's bad news, but nothing newly bad-- and I sighed this great big sigh and Jason said "Oh, that's a big sigh, what's wrong?" And before I thought I said, "I just want to go home." Jas said: "What's wrong? Aren't you enjoying yourself... oh... you mean home."

I miss my life. And that's saying a whole hell of a lot because I wasn't 100% thrilled with my life when I left it behind on August 28. I was, as some of you know, in the midst of what I have been told to call my "one-third life crisis" (as opposed to my midlife crisis which means I'll croak in my 60's). Feeling the wanderlust. Feeling some wacked out existential crises things like "what do I want to be when I grow up" and "do I really have a purpose here on earth." I was, I daresay, rather unhappy. And now, geez louise, I would gladly reclaim that BS, I would gladly suck the very marrow of my one-third life crisis. Hell, I would love to go back and grade papers all weekend and have no life to speak of and be overworked and underpaid and listless and questioning and grouchy... just to have the chance to teach a damned poetry class. I never even GOT to TEACH a single poetry class this year. Never got to whip out my Yeats and stun the girls with the brilliance of "The Mermaid." Never got to see the little lightbulbs going off all over the classroom when the girls realized that they, too, could write sonnets. I want to go home and listen to my fricking landlord play crappy Southern Rock until 4am. I want to go home and live in the crowded, messy apartment-- you know, if we'd stuck out the storm and died in the apartment, rescuers would have noted that we were "eccentric pack rats" much like those news stories you read about elderly men and women who die and go undiscovered for months and are found in apartments with back-issues of the New York Times and Southern Living piled to the ceiling... Yes, I want that back. (Tangental note: Exile really shows you how little you need to live. I have designs on going home, shoveling out the apartment-- I shudder to think-- and seizing a life where all I own can fit in the trunk of a car-- it's doable.)

I want to go home. And that's selfish and self-centered and lousy for me to even think because so many people have nothing-- and worse, no one-- to go home to. But perhaps watching dolphins today triggered my child-mind, and now I am just a kid-- a 32 year old kid-- who wants to be in the place that she knows, doing what she knows how to do, knowing what will come next, tomorrow, next week, next month.

"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers"

In my first post, I talked about waiting... about waiting for the right words to describe my sorrow and fears. For the emotions churning inside of me to organize themselves into articulatable (is that a word?) chunks. And over the past few days, I've added another mess to the chum in my brain: an overwhelming gratitute and wonder that defies all of my attempts at coherent thought.

Where are all these people coming from? I never had any idea that I had so many friends! It's just amazing to me-- I had no idea, none at all... (did I mention that I'm really not able to articulate yet?). Honestly, I don't think I have ever been so surprised by something in my life. I could babble and gush and thank and weep for hours over this.

First of all, we just finished up our week with Lorin and Brenda. Lorin and Brenda housed us, fed us, kept us occupied. And more than that, they sympathized, cursed at the television with us, assured us that we would never be without a home or an adjunct family, no matter what. And then they sent us on our way with belated birthday cards stuffed with money and love. I have adored these two women since the day that I met them (the same day I met Jason)... but their generosity has shattered me.

We have received offers of housing from every corner of the US. And it looks like we'll take up temporary residence at the home of a complete stranger to me-- a co-worker of my mother's has offered her vacation home in Oldsmar, FL to us. It's conveniently located and empty... and I just can't believe that some woman who doesn't know me cares enough for me to GIVE us her house for as long as we need it. (again, I babble, but this stuff is damned amazing to me)

A friend of Jason's sent an email to their mutual friends-- I don't know what it said, but suddenly people from Australia and England are sending us gas money! And just today I received two Target gift cards from teachers I worked with this summer. Unspeakably kind-- un-freaking-believably kind. I am so blessed.

And strangers-- a few days ago we were having a beer at a pub I used to frequent when I lived in Tampa, the bartender gave us free drinks. Two days ago, we were eating at a restaurant and the manager bought us nachos. Simple stuff. Little stuff. Amazing little acts of kindness.

I have heard from my old high school in CT. I have heard from students that I taught at CTY last summer. I have heard from an old high school classmate that I haven't talked to since graduation. I have heard from college friends that I haven't heard from in years. Everyone wants to help-- me, Jason, my school... whatever they can do.

Thank you, all of you. From the very basement to the attic of my heart, I am full up with love and gratitude for everything. From the kind words and thoughts to the generous offers and support... it means more than I could ever possibly articulate, even months, years from now I don't know if I'll have the right words for it.

You know, you get older, you get jaded, you think you know stuff. You think you can predict, assume, make reasonable guesses. Then things you thought were inconceivable start becoming reality-- and during this ordeal, at first all of those things were horrifying. But now I have seen inconceivable kindness, inconceivable generosity. Man, I knew nothing.

a burden lifted

Last night our headmistress posted a letter on our website that assured faculty that the September payroll is up and running and that we will remain on health insurance. I found out around 11pm last night and the relief, however minor, was such that I did the one thing that I hadn't been able to do for a week-- I went to sleep like a normal human being.

So what now? More waiting, truthfully. Now that I know I'm still on the payroll, I'm at the school's beck and call. The news answered one question, but raised more. No matter how generous the school is, it's hardly rolling in money. If we're to open in January like Tulane and Loyola and only teach one semester, the school can't afford to pay us for a full year. Will we cobble together some sort of crazy school year that begins in January and ends in August? Will willing faculty be asked to relocate to schools that have taken in our girls?

The independent school response has been phenomenal. Schools as far away as CT and NH have offered to take our girls free of charge, many even donating uniforms and books. The Hocakday School in Texas alone has probably taken in fifty girls.

Anyway, this good news potentially frees me up a bit. Unless school calls upon me in some way, I can return to New Orleans when it is safe to help in whatever way I can. And if the best option is to settle elsewhere for a while, I can do so knowing that I won't have to flip burgers.

I say it again: I am so lucky. There is probably only a tiny, tiny fraction of those displaced who are as lucky as I am. All of my loved ones are safe. I have no property to worry about. I took those things that I truly care for. I am still employed. I have been staying with friends who have treated me in the kindest way possible. I have people coming out of the woodwork with offers of help.

Even on the day that we evacuated, it seemed as the gods were with us. Despite the fact that we took a wrong turn that cost us three hours, we were only on the road for 13. As we listened to the radio we were aghast at how many times we heard that we had just narrowly escaped something that would have made the evacuation difficult or impossible. First we heard that a bridge in Miss. had been closed, just a half hour after we passed over it. Then, as we drove through Ala, we heard tornado warnings for the counties we'd just passed through, tornadoes that passed right over the road on which we'd just been driving. Then the tunnel in Mobile became backed up with an hour long wait, around a half hour after we'd zoomed through it-- then it closed. Then a highway in Fl closed just after we'd driven through that area.

I can't believe it has only been a week.

sunday update

Lorin has a back patio with a screened-in pool.  A little waterfall runs off and on into the pool, and I find myself needing to go to the bathroom every twenty minutes.  It’s either the sound of the water or the beer.  It’s Sunday; this weekend, Jason and I were supposed to go away for our shared birthdays (Aug 29 & 31).  I’d pretty much decided on a fishing camp on the water in Morgan City; I’d wanted to go to Biloxi to see Dwight Yokem in concert, but the room rates were too expensive.  And now, neither Biloxi, nor the rooms, nor Dwight Yokem is there.  Morgan City still stands.  

As I type this, the red-boxed “Breaking News” on CNN.com is that police have shot and killed 5 members of the Army Corps of Engineers on a bridge outside of New Orleans.  Details to come.  

Was it just yesterday, or this morning, that I felt for a nanosecond that things seemed to be getting better?

I’m so tired.  I don’t sleep well, and that has nothing to do with Lorin’s accommodations.  And I don’t sleep much.  And just being awake makes me tired.  But my God, any time I feel myself lapsing into anything that even remotely resembles self-pity, I feel like dashing my head against bricks.  And that in itself is exhausting, to be honest.  I guess this is what they call “survivor’s guilt.”

I really anticipated having some “news” this weekend.  But we’ve heard only briefly from our headmistress.  You can read her letter to the community here.  I got a personal email from her this morning; she told me to be patient and that she was assessing how much of the community was in Houston.  I’m gathering that there may be a satellite school in the works there.  Those of you who are really interested can read our faculty blog here.  This is where the faculty have gathered to share travel information and questions and love.  If you don’t already know, at school they call me “Ryan,” so you can follow some of my posts there.

I’ve checked out my block on Google Earth; the satellite pictures as of 8/31 and 9/1 show my house and my car.  They’re there, and there’s no tree damage, but that’s all I know.  The Whole Foods three blocks away is missing a good portion of its roof.  We read on the www.NOLA.com message boards that the Whole Foods and all the blocks between there and our apartment had been looted.  But at that time (two nights ago) the homes had been spared.  

Every so often, I think of things I left behind.  But somehow in the rush of preparedness, I managed to fill Tony (Jason’s car) with so much of meaning.  

I have the photo album that Vange, my grandmother, gave me on my 20th birthday full of original and irreplaceable pictures of my dad as a kid.  

I have a few pieces of artwork that I did—crappy though they are.  I have the one piece of original art I’ve ever bought, a picture of an iris.  I bought it last summer for more than I could afford directly from the artist in a gallery in Bay St Louis, Miss.  A town that, essentially, no longer exists.

I have framed pictures of my dad.  I have framed wedding pictures of both of my grandparents.  I have the engagement ring that my dad gave my mom that has, since my divorce, hung on my wall in a glass box.  

Jason suggested, as we were leaving, that we should just take everything in our closet and stick it in the trunk.  So I pulled armfuls of clothes out of the closet and shoved them in Tony’s trunk.  As a result, I am lucky to have a plethora of outfits (although not a single pair of pants), but I also have a ton of clothes that don’t fit me—clothes that stayed in my closet “in case I get skinny again.”  If you know of any homeless Katrina victims who are a size 0 or 2, let me know.  

Update:  Now CNN says that the corps of engineers were not killed… the people who were shooting at them were.

My lifestyle is such that I am frequently away from home for months at a time, especially in the summer.  This summer I was away from home from mid-June through the first week of August.  Last summer, I was away from home the entire summer.  I am used to being away.  I’m sure Jason is too—he averages one trip every other month, maybe more.  But still… homesickness.

Last night, Brenda and Lorin and Jason and I went to the Tampa Theater and saw “Broken Flowers” starring Bill Murray.  I’m a huge Murray fan, and he didn’t disappoint.  And yet, I was the only person in our group who didn’t like the movie.  When they asked why, I could only say that I was not in the mood for that kind of movie.  The cynicism of everyday life doesn’t interest me any more.  I used to be a card-carrying cynic.  But all of that seems so shallow right now.  

Links to editorials

From Anne Rice, NYTimes 9-4-05

If you read one link, read this one: Open letter to the President, Times-Picayune 9-4-05. For those of you who aren't familiar with the T-P, please note that they are NOT a liberal media outlet, by any means. They are the sole daily in NO and tend to lean toward the right, at least when it comes to endorsing politicians.

And, for everyone who has said "How could they have known...?" Here's a Times-Pic series from 2002 called Washing Away. I'd also direct you to Mike Tidwell's book Bayou Farewell and the excellent Rising Tide by John Barry about the 1927 floods.

Straight from the horse's mouth: Michael Chertoff says that "Availablility of supplies is not the limiting factor" and tells NPR's Robert Siegal that the reporter that NPR has IN the convention center (who happens to be on the other line) that reporters are spreading "rumors" about the thousands of people without food in the Convention Center. Siegal also cites a 2001 report that a hurricane in New Orleans is in the top three possible natural disasters that the US could suffer.

Word from the extreme right. An editor at the Spectator is perhaps the very first person on the face of the earth to accuse the NOPD of being "PC." He says "New Orleans has been a wasteland of politically correct dysfunction for decades"-- Yes, I agree with some of what he says in here. Both Jas and I have mused on the fact that no one seems to blink an eye at the rising murder rate-- just about one a day-- in New Orleans. Yes, New Orleans has lost its way since the late 90's, when we seemed to finally have lawlessness and police corruption under control. And yes, there have been solid reports of police contributing to looting. But for every right wing pundit that gets his/her knickers in a knot about Jesse Jackson claiming that neglect of our citizens is a "race issue," you have another right wing pundit claiming that the failings of the city fall squarely on the black population. Uh, read Anne Rice's editorial for a less racist POV.

And when this is all over, perhaps we'll all be invited to sit on the porch

I will, I swear, try to keep my political and social frustration minimized here. But I thought I would share a piece of a transcript from George Bush's briefing from Mobile, AL today (yesterday).

BUSH: ... We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

GOVERNOR RILEY: He'll be glad to have you.

fresh air

First of all, my cell service is down again. I had a few days of luxurious communication, but now it seems the circuits are jammed again.

We're staying in Tampa with Lorin, a mutual friend of ours from the Writers Retreat Workshop, which Jason runs. Our friend, Brenda, lives down the street. Tonight we had sushi with Lo and Brenda and Brenda's two amazing daughters, Liz and Anna. They're "little kids"-- I don't know, maybe 12 and 9 or so-- but they made me miss my students something awful. But I spent the night bonding with them over their summer experience at "Career Camp" at Sea World and our mutual love of ocean critters and pengiuns, and for a little while life felt pretty normal. It was great. They know what's going on, Brenda even said that Anna was composing an "angry" letter to George Bush, but they're too young to really know how to talk to adults about it. But I sensed that they're intense focus on entertaining me with stories of swimming with dolphins was a conscious attempt to reach out to me. The only mention of the hurricane came in a lull in conversation when Anna blurted out "You know, we're having a bake sale to raise money for the hurricane." I said thank you, and that was that. And it felt good to escape for a little while.

I just read that Tulane is cancelling the fall semester. All week long we've heard from students who are enrolling in schools elsewhere. Early in the week there was talk about setting up a sattelite campus somewhere-- most likely Houston-- but for reasons that are probably out of our control, I think it may be too late for that. My growing sense of things is that we too may be out of commission until January.

I don't know when official word will come-- our headmistress has been without cell service or internet since the hurricane, but is relocating to NYC tomorrow. It's been frustrating to have no "leadership" this week-- it's left our whole community wondering and grasping at straws.

And I don't know what this means for me. We have the next few weeks worked out. Jason's job, thank goodness, is relatively portable. But it also calls on him to travel quite a bit-- a challenge seeing that (A) he doesn't know where he will be travelling from and (B) I left my car behind (my poor Igor, I hope he is okay, but I have my doubts). While Jas and I have been a couple for years, we've enjoyed a great deal of freedom-- at least for the forseeable future, we're pretty much a unit in a way we've never been before.

My colleagues are scattered to the four corners of the US. Some are already looking for houses. All profess a committment to return to the school to finish this school year that is still in its infancy, but we're only in the first week of our exile. It makes me very sad when I start to crunch the realities of returning-- without a doubt our student population will be diminished, and the students who return will be hurting in ways that I cannot even begin to imagine yet. While I feel tremendous loyalty to my school, I feel much more loyalty to doing the right thing by these girls. And I love my colleagues so much because I know they share that sentiment and I have faith that the majority of them will return, even if they've relocated, to finish out this year, just so the girls have some semblance of normality.

We'll be with Lorin until Wednesday and then the three of us are off to the Night Swan B&B in New Smyrna Beach where Jas and Lo are leading a workshop. After that, depending on the developments from school, we may head to Boca Raton to visit Jason's dad (from whom he's a bit estranged, and whom I've never met). And then it will probably be time for me to make a life for the next few months. Any suggestions?

Love you all.

first thoughts

I’m waiting. I’ve always been bad at waiting. Terrible at waiting patiently.

And yes, like every New Orleanian, every displaced denizen of the Gulf Coast, I am waiting for answers, for news, for concretes. And like every American I am waiting, and not very patiently I might add, for help to arrive in my city. For those who have the power to step up and do the right things, the logical things, the compassionate things…

But it’s Friday now, and I’m still waiting, and this time patiently, for the right words. I told a number of friends who emailed me early this week that I would send them a “proper email” as soon as I could. And I can’t.

As soon as I knew I would be displaced (although then I thought it would be briefly—weeks, not months), I knew I’d have a lot of people who’d want to know the hows and wheres and whats of my displacement. I decided that the best way to do that would be to establish a blog; that way I wouldn’t trouble people with newsy emails and anyone who was interested could check in at their convenience. I thought too that it would be nice to have a journal of the experience for myself.

And as I said, it’s Friday now and I’ve yet to put finger to keyboard except to respond to emails, briefly, and to search the internet, incessantly.

Writing has always been an escape, a catharsis. But for the past days, the act of articulation has seemed burdensome.

And I am waiting, too, for the enormity of this tragedy to finally be real enough to me that I am able to parse out my emotions. Grief, yes, more than I can possibly articulate. Anger like I have never felt in my life. Anger that I hope is common to everyone who tunes in the news. But there are other emotions there that I have yet to tap or yet to identify. Dichotomies of selfishness and selflessness, hope and despair, optimism and crushing pessimism.

But there has been a single sentiment that has eked through the morass in my brain, even long before I saw my city become alien to me, long before the ravages of nature turned into the savageness of unrest and criminal neglect. In the course of a lifetime, we are confronted by personal tragedies, even social tragedies, to which we respond “My life will never be the same. I don’t know how I can go on.” Death of loved ones, divorce, even the enormity of events like 9-11. But even as early as Monday morning, when the national news began to release image after image of places that I know and love fallen, under water, the lives of so many washed away—whole towns wiped from the continent—I felt humbled, tragically naïve, to have ever believed that any sorrow that I have suffered, either personally or sympathetically, could ever have made me feel like it would be difficult to “go on.”

And in the past days, it has gotten worse. My gut response was to the power of nature. I am now—we all are now—confronted with so much more to process. We’ve seen true evil. We’ve seen incompetence and neglect that is unfathomable. We have seen preventable suffering and death and despair that goes beyond our ability to comprehend.

Hopefully within the next day or two I’ll be able to start this blog properly—to use it to disseminate information about my plans, about the status of my school, about what people can do to help those who need help. Right now I have absolutely none of that information. We are safe in Tampa, displaced but not homeless in anything but the sentimental sense of the word. Heartbroken but so lucky. Grateful for the love and kindness of our friends and family. And despairing with helplessness and uselessness.