"Women must labor to be beautiful" -- WB Yeats, "Adams Curse"

“Dirty. Ow. Hurt everywhere. Ow. Aw, snow.”

I sent this text message to Jason this afternoon when he sent me a text message asking me if I was working hard. The “aw, snow” was in response to the fact that it is snowing in the Boston area today. The rest of the message refers to the effects of my new part time job.

Today I officially began work as the assistant to a friend of mine who is a real estate developer. Hal offered me the job on Thursday, explained that it would be mutually beneficial. I’ve always wanted to learn about home restoration, and he needed an extra pair of hands. The homes we’d be working on were flooded, some as little as a couple feet, some as much as six or seven. And for the most part, they’ve already been stripped to the bones. What better way to learn about home construction than to work on the “innards” of a house.

It’s not a “real” job, by any means. I work when he needs me and when I have the hours to spare (these days, I have lots of hours to spare). But it pays well and I like that I am helping out a friend. In my mind, though, I had the job all trumped up to be some sort of HGTV or DIY home renovation episode. But, all romance aside, what I really am is a day laborer.

Today I spent a meager five hours doing hard labor clearing out all of the debris, fallen limbs, and trash from Hal’s office. And every single muscle in my body hurts. Hurts! Like crazy shaky horrid pain. Never in a million years would I say that I am “the delicate type.” If anything, I’ve always thought that what I lack in height I make up for in sheer brutish determination (that’s supposed to be a little funny, it’s okay if you want to laugh—but only a little, okay? I’m a pretty tough cookie).

But yowzers, manual labor is hard shit. It’s not the kind of work you’d do around your own house. Around your own house, you’d take it easier, take liberal breaks, lift and carry loads half as heavy. Because you ain’t getting paid to clean your own back yard. You’re on your own clock. You know you can go inside, have a tuna sandwich, and come back and finish the job.

It was fun, though. I’m using a very loose definition of “fun” here. Hal came and went, but when he was around he worked as hard as I did, and he took me out to a wonderful Middle Eastern lunch (you work up quite the appetite hauling crap around). That’s a good boss.

Here’s what I learned: If I had a choice of having to work in a cubical all my life or having to work at manual labor all my life, I would choose manual labor in a nanosecond. That being said, people who lift and carry things for a living have clearly sold their soul to the devil. No “normal” human being’s body can put up with that for very long. Dead rats smell deceptively like rotting fish. I spent the entire morning thinking I’d find a flounder in the back yard that had been stranded by the floods. No such luck. There is, in fact, nothing alive left in the flood-stricken area. I spent the day removing piles of branches, bricks, flagstones, roof parts, building parts, leaves, cans, and other flotsam and jetsam all the way down to the bare earth without ever once seeing so much as a slug or a spider or a worm or a grub. Nothing alive except the occasional fly. There were perhaps three sprigs of something green under all that debris—everything else was dead. Including the rat. I don’t know what that says about what was IN the flood waters. I also don’t know what that says about what could possibly now be in my lungs (when I blow my nose, black stuff comes out—oooh, that’s too much information, Chipman). And finally, if I ever have a chance of getting back into my size 2 jeans, this is it.

It was a fine week at school. It was so great to see the girls. I have 13 seniors, 12 freshfolk, and 4 girls in Drama. I teach only 1st, 2nd, and 3rd period each day, which is convenient. But the first day of school, when third period was over and I left school, I cried. You know, under any other circumstance, this arrangement would be cool. I have time to pursue my own interests (but under these circumstances, I am just plain ol’ uninspired. I haven’t written a word of fiction since Katrina hit). I get to leave school before lunch (but under these circumstances, I miss lunch terribly—it was always the one period a day you got to hang out with the grown-ups, catch up, and be social). I have whole afternoons free to get things accomplished, flit around the city (under these circumstances, there’s just not much to do or see—not to mention the fact that Jas is out of town, so I don’t even have a post-work playmate AND that I’m on half-pay, so I don’t have money to play with anyway). My classes are ideally small. I don’t have all the nasty “extra” duties that teachers normally have (carpool, detention, etc).

But in the end, no matter how cheerful I try to be about my situation, what matters most to me is that I miss being part of the community. All the literature on recovering from trauma says that you should surround yourself with friends, get involved with your community, give back to people, and get involved. Get back on the horse. Resume as much of your “old” routines as possible. And damned if this part-time gig doesn’t thwart all that in spades. My friends at school have been amazing. Looking out for me, checking up, calling me at home, and inviting me to do stuff. My seniors email me at home at all hours looking for help with their college essays. But it’s not the same. This whole week, I was at sixes and sevens with “routine.” Monday night I stayed up until 4am. (Don’t worry, I don’t work Tuesdays). On Tuesday, it felt every bit the same as having a “sick day;” I flitted listlessly around the house, ate lunch in front of the TV, stressed out until Erin invited me over for dinner. Oh… there’s a funny story there.

So Erin emailed me around lunchtime and asked me to dinner at her sister’s house, where she’s currently living (while her home is livable, in the basic sense, she has no gas—and it’s freezing now—and her neighborhood is completely desolate). She sent the address. When it came close to 6pm, I re-read the address and hopped in the car. I got around a mile down the road and realized I FORGOT the address. I knew the number but not the street. I did some quick thinking and decided it was on Camp St. I drove down Camp Street—that number didn’t exist AND it was in the wrong neighborhood. Okay, maybe it was First Street. Right neighborhood, but again the house number didn’t exist. Well, maybe I was wrong about the neighborhood and didn’t look carefully enough down the block on Camp St. Back to Camp St. No, no number. Maybe I didn’t look close enough on First St. Back to First St. No. I called Erin’s cell. No answer. My message began, “Erin, honey, I’ve lost my freaking mind….”

I got back in the car to head home to read the email. It was 630pm and my “hot” crab dip appetizer was cold. Thankfully, Erin called and let me know it was Second Street. I walked in the door and said, “Well, the good thing is that you don’t have to ask me how I’m feeling. The fact that I’m 45 minutes late pretty much sums it up.”

So that’s the state of me these days. Very achy, very spacey, a little sad, a little lonely, but in marginally better spirits (largely because I’m sick of being SO very sad all of the time).

State of the city to come soon. (Preview: Just about nothing new in the past two weeks)

wish I could take credit for this

This letter to the editor in today's Times-Picayune.

"When Lafcadio Hearn moved to New Orleans in the 1870's, he wrote to a friend back in Cincinnati:

Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under a lava flood of taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become only a study for archaeologists. Its condition is so bad that when I write about it, as I intend to do soon, nobody will believe that I am telling the truth. But it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes, than to own the whole state of Ohio.

Yes.

C. Ward Bond
Baton Rouge"

the state of things

Ma always said “if you don’t have something nice to say…” Actually, I don’t really remember my ma ever saying that. But clearly someone’s did. Point being, I’m going to keep my trap shut about school for a while. The long and the short of it is that I had a horrid week at school—meetings and more meetings. It’s an incredibly sad and uncomfortable place to be these days. The only bright spots were seeing my friends again and catching up with the odd stray student who’d wander in (not that the students are odd—or not all of them, at least). My heart has indeed been broken.

But tomorrow is the grand re-opening. I’m looking forward to seeing my girls and teaching some poetry (finally). Who knows what’s going to happen with Drama? I’m going to throw a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks. But every time I think about teaching Drama, I’m reminded of the actual drama teacher—a young woman who lost her home, whose entire family lost their homes—a teacher that all the girls love.

Right now I have Wilma on the brain. Or more specifically, Punta Gorda. As too often has been the case in the past two months, I’m utterly without words to articulate how sad I am that Wilma seems to be on her way to Charlotte County. Yesterday, I dug around in my dirty laundry until I could find my Celtic Ray t-shirt. It is a Hurricane Charley leftover and says, “We Never Closed. We Never Will.”

I’ve emailed the Celtic Ray and Julie and said my door is open to anyone who needs shelter.

Jason left last night for his road trip to Boston. He didn’t get twenty minutes out of the city before he hit a pile of debris on the highway and blew a tire. An NOPD and NYPD officer stopped and helped him put on the spare. He spent four hours trying to find a place to buy a tire and eventually just continued on his way on the spare. Made it all the way to Knoxville, but at 50MPH, it took him all night and into the morning. When I talked to him at 3pm, he was still waiting in the garage. Poor thing.

On Friday night, we drove out to the airport to pick up the car (a white mini-van I’ve nicknamed Great White) and had our first encounter with some of the worst damage. To get to the highway from our house, we had to pass neighborhoods of houses with waterlines over my head. The transition between “saved” neighborhoods and destroyed neighborhoods is almost a distinct line. Drive down Jefferson Avenue and pass block after block of green grass in the median (“neutral ground” in New Orleans lingo), the occasional blue tarp, abandoned refrigerators, and cars that look newly washed. And then suddenly, the grass is brown—if there’s any left, the trees stripped of leaves, the neutral ground is covered in trash and debris and white powder like snow from crushed sheetrock. Cars, parked in the neutral ground a good two feet off of street level, are grey or green or camel-colored from the water—some have distinct water lines on the doors, others are clouded all the way to the roof. And some are flattened.

This morning I woke up and wandered from Uptown coffee shop to coffee shop like Mary looking for an inn, trying to find one that didn’t have a line out the door. It’s such a weird bubble out here. By no means does it look or feel “normal,” as a whole, but in tiny bite-sized places you can start to feel like things may be “normal” soon.

But there’s so much abnormality. It takes a half an hour to get through the grocery lines some times. Even in the places where the traffic lights are out uptown, there are never snarls—just not enough people out and about. One of the weirdest, saddest things I’ve noticed is the swell of anger, the people—mostly couples—fighting. Last night around 1am, I heard a couple shrieking at each other down the street. Doors slamming. The woman crying. This is the second time I’ve heard a fight down the street, but I am not even sure if it was the same couple both times. Today I went to the FEMA office to talk about my denied application, and the couple sitting next to me with one of their elderly mothers started yelling at each other and the woman started crying and then she yelled at the old woman and her husband dragged her outside so “everyone wouldn’t know their business.” At the grocery store. In restaurants. Bars. In the bars, people get drunker. It used to be that you had to go to the Quarter to see more than one or two stumbling drunks in a night. Now they’re everywhere.

As I said in an earlier post, there are a lot of people who see things through a different lens. Who see all the good. And I have my moments, too. But then I find myself feeling guilty for my moments of “normality.” The fact that my classroom is just as I left it in August. The restaurants that are opening. The garbagemen who took away half (but only half) of the trash outside my house (and also took the trashcans themselves). The occasional mail delivery. In the confines of my apartment, it is easy to believe that everything is A-OK (with the exception of the swarms of fruitflies). I spent last night in blissful escapism, fending off the aching loneliness from Jason being gone, watching TiVo and cooking an entire bunch of asparagus and eating it all myself. But it was still 330am before I could fall asleep.

Today, I decided to face the demons. After a quick coffee at an as-yet-undiscovered new coffee shop, I hopped into my car and started the drive. I retraced our route to the highway on-ramp, this time in broad daylight, and then kept driving. Down Carrolton to City Park and then further on toward UNO. Just a few blocks off Carrolton, the road became nearly impassable—ruts and rubbish and dirt. Remembering Jason’s flat and that I had no spare, I turned around. Grateful, actually, for the excuse not to continue on. This isn’t the 9th Ward or Lakeview or St. Bernard Parish, we’re talking about now, places I barely know and rarely haunt. These are my routes. Angelo Brocato’s, where we get cannolis and coffee. Kanpai, the all-u-can-eat Sushi buffet. The route to Jazz Fest and the Art Museum. The route I took every day to grad school. The coffee shop I lived in while getting my Master’s. I brought my camera along, but couldn’t bring myself to take very many pictures. In fact, I only got out of the car once, in the parking lot of Rock N Bowl. There were so many people out—wearing dust masks or gas masks, loading armfuls of debris into dumpsters or pick-up trucks—it was a gorgeous sunny October day. You can check out the pictures here. I doubt I’ll be taking very many more. Newspapers and magazines and internet sites do a good enough job of documenting the state of things.

Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to keep blogging. I will, for now. I have to be honest, I thought the “journey home” would be over by now. But it’s not. Home is more than four walls or even a city. Coming back here was just the beginning.

this is where we used to live...

In 1998, I moved to New Orleans to be closer to my then-fiance, future ex-husband, Blake. We rented half of a shot-gun apartment on Camp Street-- an apartment that is just a block and a half from my current home. It was a bit run-down, but we loved it. Invested in a paint-job for every room-- yellows and sages and blues we eventually used again in the house we bought after we married-- and new linolium floors for the bath and kitchen. We even tried to buy the Camp Street house at one point, wanting to steal it away from the neglect of its current landlord, but we found that it was locked up in an ugly inheritance battle. We moved out when we bought our house, and soon after that our neighbors also moved. For the past four or so years, the house has remained empty. Last week, I was forced to detour down Camp from Magazine. Crews were trimming trees or fixing powerlines, I don't remember which. And when I passed the old apartment, my first home in New Orleans, I saw it in ruins. The roof and the floor a sandwich for everything within. The outer wall on "our side" of the house leaning up against the house next door. Today I went by to say goodbye. Obviously demolition crews have been at work. It's no longer even recognizable as a home, except for the foundation and the front steps. I'd hoped to take a pirate turn and steal away some small piece of the structure-- a bit of moulding or a sliver of the stained glass attic window-- but everything worth keeping has already been salvaged. A man and his three boys played basketball in the driveway across the street. He said "Hi" and I said "Hi" and then "This is where I used to live-- a long time ago, not now of course." He just shook his head, didn't respond except for a sad smile.

I haven't lived in that house for five years, but I still feel as though I've lost something. We were married while we lived in that house. That's the only house that my family has visited. The last time my grandparents traveled together was to visit us one Christmas, where we celebrated at that house. We got our first dog at that house. It feels so silly to be so nostalgic about a place that has absolutely nothing to do with the life that I now live.

drama

I’m not really sure what I meant by the “best possible outcome.” Whatever I meant, I don’t think I got it. I’ve picked up a half-credit Drama class, but I’m still part time. One of very few part-timers. I wish I could process this more professionally, less personally, but I mourn more the loss of my former position—I mourn a sort of displacement from a greater community.

I’ve not yet talked money with the administration. I felt far too sad today to have that conversation. But as one of the seemingly very few people who’ve not received help from FEMA, I definitely have a lack of wiggle-room in the finances department. Right now, in New Orleans, jobs are plentiful in the service industries. I could moonlight at a bar or a restaurant or a coffee shop, but I have to start thinking of my own bigger picture. While I could make do, and possibly even be content, to juggle teaching and moonlighting until January, I just can’t see that as being an option until June. Truth be told, even doing it for the next few months makes me terribly sad. All this time and education and career-building… Do you want a single or a double latte?

And of course, I’m consumed by the fact that my sorrows are so minimal compared to so many others’. That sort of guilt grief or grief guilt that comes from not knowing how to process a setback that pales in comparison to the great losses around me.

Great White

Ah, luxury! Last night Dear Landlord delivered us a brand-new fridge. He excitedly began to explain to us how he got it, but I made myself scarce once it became clear that it had something to do with threatening the manager of the local Home Depot. It’s best not to know. Anyway, she’s beautiful and clean and white and cold…

Jason cooked fried chicken tonight to celebrate. Oddly enough, he’s cooked every meal since we’ve been home. Sure, he cooks on the rare occasion, but suddenly he’s Martha Stewart. Maybe it’s his coping mechanism the same way that cleaning has been mine.

Tomorrow is the big meeting at school. I’m more nervous than I was the very first day I started at the school. Yesterday, it was posted on our blog that those teachers who wouldn’t be starting until January will not receive any paychecks after October, and that school will pay only the school’s portion of their healthcare. Totally tragic. In the past two weeks, every bit of news I’ve gotten from the school has disappointed me. It seems the very definition of “community” has been called into question here. I hope I am proven wrong, although it doesn’t seem likely.

I remain in basic isolation mode when it comes to exploring the more damaged parts of the city. It’s enough, still, to listen to the 24-hour call in radio—the stories of the displaced. The sad news of the homecomings.

On Saturday, Jason and I went to Café Luna to read the paper, and I bumped into a senior who I teach—or now taught. She’s in boarding school in Tennessee and will remain there. She has nothing to come home to; she was home, her mother explained, only to “say goodbye” to her house. I was supposed to teach her in an independent study. She’d already started reading Kate Chopin before we evacuated. Heartbreak. We must have hugged a dozen times.

While this week of meetings will be difficult in many ways, the real hard work will begin when the girls come back. Teaching English is a piece of cake compared to the other stuff that’s going to have to happen in the classroom and out. And right now, no matter what my feelings about school may be, I know that school politics is the least important part of my job.

Keeping my fingers crossed for the best possible outcome…

Pictures

In the past week and a half, I've only taken 17 pictures. The fact of the matter is, I'm just not comfortable snapping shots of the real horrors here. It's too much like rubbernecking. So what you have in this slideshow are just little scenes of the return.

Click the title of this post to see the whole slideshow.

steps in both directions

So much has changed since we got back to New Orleans. Our block now bustles with activity, there are at least two coffee shops open in our neighborhood—one brand new, we’ve seen a bunch of our McGehee friends and spoken to people that we see all the time but have never gotten to know. There are grocery stores open until 6pm (rather than the usual 24 hours); the curfew here closes the bars and few open restaurants at midnight, not 8pm as when we first arrived (again, rather than the usual 24 hours). Progress.

It’s funny though, talking to returning friends and neighbors, everyone has a different take on being back. Some are overjoyed, optimistic, heartened by what they’ve found when they’ve come home. And some are sad, brokenhearted, dismayed.

Unfortunately, more often than not, I fall into the latter category. When I was “in exile,” I truly believed that when I got home—no matter what I found—everything would be okay. I’d feel better being home, less stressed out, able to understand better and better grasp what lies ahead. I was so wrong on that.

And I say that after a week, after never venturing more than two miles from my home—into only the least-effected neighborhoods. I have not yet viewed the horrors of the 9th Ward or the Lakeview area. I’ve seen homes destroyed, yes. There’s even a home not too far from here marked with rescuers’ spray pain “Two Dead Outside, One Alive Inside.”

Truth be told, I can go weeks and weeks without ever leaving this two-mile radius. Actually, more frequently than not I stick very close to home. Everything I need is here. Grocery stores, coffee shops galore, restaurants of all types, my favorite bars. So it’s not odd that we’ve stuck so close to home. But this has been a more conscious decision.

We’ve been more social than we’ve ever been. In fact, I’m almost embarrassed to admit that Monday we had our first dinner guests over—ever. Carla and Bob from school christened our hospitality. And last night we had another friend over for dinner and “Lost” watching. This increased domesticity is in part due to the fact that in the past week, I have spent just about every waking moment cleaning. Slight exaggeration, but only slight. I’m not Martha Stewart, by any means. Heck, I’m probably not even Rod Stewart when it comes to keeping house. But there was a feeling of solidarity or oneness with this city as I scrubbed my kitchen floors for three hours, on my hands and knees. “It’s cheaper than therapy,” I keep telling Jason.

The most recent news from school is that I will be teaching one section of seniors and one section of freshman. This makes me feel somewhat better—at least I will be in the classroom. I’ve heard from several friends who have been asked back full time, and I’ve heard about others who have not. Part of the gloom of all of this is that I’ve seen school as my “second home” for four-plus years. I truly thought I would spend the better part of this week there, helping out, cleaning up. But I just don’t feel like it’s the welcome place it’s always been for me.

I’m sure many people have had this experience, and this is at least the second time I’ve been through this (when will I learn?), but it’s been very sad to come to the realization that no matter how much school seems like a family to me, it’s really a business. So much of my energy and time in New Orleans is invested in school. All of my friends in the city (truly, no exceptions) are friends from work. I spend more time at work than I do anywhere else. I live, breathe, eat, and sleep school, for the most part, from August through May/June. And no doubt, this has manifested in a frustrated sense of entitlement lately. As someone who has been so invested in the school for the past four years, I feel like I ought to have some say, some input, a voice in the future of the school. I’m not alone; all decisions have been made by a tiny handful of administrators—as far as I know, no teachers have been asked to help plan… Perhaps this is a good lesson to learn. Maybe if I’m lucky it’s the last time I’ll have to learn it.

There seem to be very few opportunities in New Orleans for volunteers. I’m sure many of you have been following the national news about how so many of the contracts for rebuilding New Orleans have been going to out-of-state companies. It’s almost as though the same thing is happening on the humanitarian level as well. This Saturday, we’ll participate in a Clean Up Magazine Street thingie organized by locals. That will do my soul some good. I haven’t been able to get in touch with the local Habitat folks, and all of my “bright ideas” for doing community service have been somewhat frustrated by my new school situation. I’ll keep plugging away, though.

Of course, the national New Orleans news you are probably more likely to have heard has been about the NOPD beating of a 64 year-old retired school teacher on Bourbon Street. Chilling and depressing. More depressing still because it occurred after Katrina—in light of all this hope to build a “better city.” Instead what we have with this is the worst of the Old New Orleans. The worst of the Old New Orleans: the horrible public school system, the political and police corruption, and the crime. All those things that we hoped would ebb away with the receding flood waters.

On a lighter note, I actually took a picture of a mailman and my FULL mailbox today, I was so happy to see mail service return to the city. Silly, I know, but the smallest things can please me these days. Now, if we can just get the garbagefolks back, I’ll be waiting on my porch with a six-pack of beer!

The fridge saga continues. My Dear Landlord showed up on our front porch yesterday, proudly Vanna White-ing a disassembled fridge. “Look what I’ve got for you!” It was a little old, there were little bits of mold, the hinges were rusted… but it was a fridge, and it supposedly worked. But it STANK. Dear Landlord insisted that the owners had cleaned it out prior to Katrina, so it was just musty smelling from being closed so long. So Jas set about hosing it out, scrubbing it, Lysol-ing it. We even took q-tips to the vents. And we dragged the sorry broken beast inside—and it STANK.

Long story short, turns out that Dear Landlord and the landlord next door traded the use of DL’s chainsaw for one of the rotted out, but hosed out, fridges from next door. The very same fridge, in fact, that our neighbors have been complaining violently about for days (they couldn’t get it out of the house because it was too big to fit through the doors). The very same fridge that our neighbors did NOT clean out before the hurricane. We nailed DL with this and his excuse was that he was trying to get us a fridge quickly. So we hauled the rotten thing out again. A good three hours of lost time cleaning and hauling a rotten beast. As penance DL brought over a half of a bottle of tequila, margarita mix, a tray of ice, and a lime.

And I swear to high heaven, AS I was typing this, we heard DL barge outside and start yelling “Hey are you selling those?” Jason went outside, and there was DL attempting to FLAG DOWN the very same pick-up truck that we’d just watched removing the rotten refrigerators from the retirement home down the street. His response: “I just thought those might be in better shape.”

Ahh the wee daily dramas.

Amusingly enough, we’ve made good friends with the elderly landlord next door. His name is George and he’s living in Alexandria, LA after he retired from teaching Art at one of the competing schools here. I brought him and his helper four beers yesterday, and now I’m their best friend. He just told me a great story about how this neighborhood used to be called “Rickerville” because Old Man Ricker owned all the land. He had two dogs named Leontine (the name of our street) and Octavia (the street two down from us). George just drove off for home after spending two whole days fixing up the apartments next door. Ah, dream landlord.

Sorry for all the minutiae. We’ve got a lot of that these days. From the mice that have invaded our grocery store (they’re just about the cutest things I’ve ever seen, the size of a half-dollar and fuzzy wuzzy) to debates over whether or not the city is going to extend Daylight Savings Time for a while so more construction can get done. Small potatoes all of it.

But life here is baby steps. I’m going to babystep inside and take myself a nice long shower.

highs and lows

Signs of life in our neighborhood. We’ve been pretty much alone on our block until today. Today just about everyone came back. The first coffee shop in our neighborhood opened. We nearly kissed the owner.

Our landlord returned home—he lives on the other side of our shotgun double—to find that on his side the ceilings had fallen in, in two rooms. So we are even more blessed than we thought. He promptly told us that we had to find our own fridge (more on fridges later); we’ve heard that the stores have a three+ week waiting list. That’s next week’s hurdle.

I’m sorry I haven’t updated the blog sooner. My relief at being home promptly gave way to emotional overwhelm. I am riding highs and lows, big time. And, I find myself, as I was at the beginning of this journey, at a loss for adequate words.

Here’s evidence. I tried to write a blog entry the day we returned and ended up running into a brick wall when it came time to describe my home turf. Here’s how far I got:

Wednesday October 5

We are so lucky. I write you know from the comfort of my New Orleans home. Our wireless internet is up and running. Jason is watching the Red Sox-White Sox game on satellite. Our home is cooled by air conditioning. We have phone service. It is, in most cases, the selfsame hovel we left behind.

When we saw glimpses of our neighborhood in pictures online and on tv, the sight brought us joy. It didn’t look “normal” by any means, but bounded by the frame, these isolated images told only part of the story. My few friends who have ventured even into the outer reaches of the city told me that nothing could prepare me for what I would see when I got here.

As we drove across the Causeway and the skyline of New Orleans emerged first in outline and then in greater definition, one of the first sights we could see was the pristine white dome atop the Superdome. And for that nano-freaky-millisecond, my heart leapt. Home. As it always has been. But as we approached Metairie, the first building we saw was a high-rise, its windows blown out, boarded up. A quick glimpse to the left showed the city skyline from another view, the burnt-orange wounds of the Superdome roof we’ve come to expect from news footage. Home. Different.

The drive down Causeway Blvd toward the River Road shocked me. Our mall, parking lot full of RV’s and tents. Blue roofs everywhere. Debris everywhere. Homes in ruins. But life. Traffic. People working outside.

River Road, bordered on one side by the Mississippi River levee, a road I lived two blocks from in my old married life, was one causality after another. A tree cut squarely down the middle of Matt & Naddie’s restaurant. Garages and carports collapsed on cars. The stained glass windows of the church around the corner from where I used to live blown out. Blue tarps on the homes of people who’ve returned, gaping holes in the homes where people have not.

The turn down Magazine was like a punch in the stomach. Audubon Park….

And that’s where it ended. At the park. What was running through my mind when I stopped was: “I’m getting emotional about trees.” Yes, it’s tragic. Yes, the park is a great loss. But… again, a loss for words.

So I don’t really know where to start now. A mix of joy and sorrow. It’s 814pm on a Saturday, and the weather is gorgeous. Cool and fally. I’m sitting on my porch and the National Guard just drove by and waved. They’re everywhere. Army. The Corps of Engineers. Gigantic cammo Hummers. Every time I’ve been in the grocery store, there’s a bevy of military people—most looking like teenagers—buying tooth paste and Doritos. Actually, I take back the “they’re everywhere” comment. They’re around. But at night this place is very quiet and deserted. Unsettling.

In the light of day on Thursday, we reassessed the house and were still very thrilled at the lack of damage. The neglect of nearly forty days was much clearer. We’d definitely been visited by four and six-legged friends while we were away, and our refrigerator began belching swarms of bugs. Our landlord swore he’d come home and “take care of the fridge” but by Friday he hadn’t shown up. I made a pot of coffee and by the time I took the pot off the burner and poured myself a cup, there were six flies floating in my coffee. On Thursday I’d started a mad sanitation—we have open cabinets and our visitors left presents everywhere—that I only just finished today. On Friday night, a friend dropped by with a broken dolly and Jason, who’s pinched a nerve, and I dragged the stinking, bug-spewing fridge from the kitchen. It was a massive labor, but today my kitchen is clean, largely bug free, and seems huge and wonderful with the lack of a fridge. (“Always look on the bright side of life…”)

I realize that I am jumping all over the place here. Such is my frame of mind.

Thursday evening I met up with Erin, my best friend and colleague here in NOLA. We had drinks at a local bar—so strangely “normal” once you walked inside. It was heaven to be with a local friend. Share stories, gossip, reiterate each other’s sorrow. Since then I’ve bumped into a whole bunch of school people.

Huh, another big hummer just drove by. We live on a narrow side street. And this is the first time I’ve seen military here after dark.

Anyway… the big news is potentially bad news for me. I received a call from my boss this morning that set my world in a bit of a spin. Only 200 girls have reenrolled at school for the October 24 re-opening, and she was calling to say that they may only be able to offer me a part time position. While I was shocked, I took the news pretty much in stride. I could get another part time job to tide me over until January. But when I asked about January, my heart fell. No, she said, she couldn’t promise me that I’d be switched to full time in January either. They just don’t know. And they won’t know until November. Kim said they were “looking” for a way to keep me on full-time, but no promises. She said I should think about what I want to do.

So, to say the least, I’m very sad. I understand, and I don’t feel angry really (although, there is some anger, I admit). We’re so very lucky to have a school at all. Our girls are lucky to be able to return. I was not the only person to receive this kind of call. Already there’s a post from a Lower School teacher who’s been asked not to return til January. I imagine a lot of the newer teachers will lose their jobs outright. Again, this shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but I guess the school teaching community has done such a good job of keeping in touch and being supportive of each other that I was a bit lulled into believing that we’d have the same or similar community to return to.

Nothing is certain, of course, so I can keep up the hope that things will change in the next two weeks. But I also have a lot of thinking to do.

first homecoming email

Just in case you missed it...

I just wanted to let all of you know that we are safe, sound, and even more lucky than I have believed all along.

We returned home yesterday evening (I'll detail the return in a blog entry soon; I just want to address the personal stuff here) to find our home sweet hovel in pretty much the same condition in which we left it. We are blessed beyond comprehension, in my opinion. Last night, we fired up all of our services to find that we had electricity, a/c, wireless internet, satellite tv, gas, phone, and water. And today, the city announced that our water is "safe."

There is damage to the house-- most shingles gone, a window in our attic, gone, the flashing falling down, the gutters falling down. But with the exception of some four and six and eight legged intruders, a refrigerator we have yet to be brave enough to open, and a few other gross-yet-sufferable horrors, we're A-OK.

I'm still processing the bigger picture. In some ways the city is better than I expected, in some ways far, far worse. But so much hope everywhere.

I am so happy to be home. Our losses have been so minor, so insignificant comparatively. It will take us one more day or so to get our house up and "normal" and we're then going to turn our focus to helping our friends and others pick up and clean up.

Again, I am so so happy to be home. Thank you to all of you who have helped in any way along the way. Just hearing from so many of you has been such solace.

I'll save my global thoughts for the blog once I get my head around them. But I will say this: barring more hell and high water (and certain human intervention), this time next year-- maybe even sooner-- New Orleans will be some semblance of the city we all love. Come. Visit. Give it love. Amazing place, this home of mine. I'd love to share it with all of you.

starting home

Tomorrow, we'll start the trek homeward. We expect to get back into the city on Tuesday. We're anxious and excited. I'll keep y'all posted. First stop: Tallahassee.

xo