CATHARSIS
Well, damn…
What do you say? Is there anything you can say?
I don’t think there is anyone from any part of Louisiana that isn’t affected by Katrina and what is happening in the state. Love it, or hate it, we are all tied to New Orleans in some way. I think about all the people I know from school who were from New Orleans, or moved there, and I wonder where they are... were they there?… did they leave, did they stay? How can I find them? I think about my family, and how, thankfully, my closest relative to there is in Baton Rouge. I think about the 2 times in recent years I’ve nearly moved there, and how I could be either one of the dead or one of the walking dead… I look at maps and try to figure out where relatives used to live, but I can’t tell because it’s all water now. I just can’t stop putting myself in the place of all those people I see on TV… the angry ones begging for help that hasn’t come yet… that promised help that they are supposed to “be patient” for… that life saving help that they have been waiting days for already…. With many dying … they made it through the hurricane… they made it through the water to a “safe” place… and they die waiting for help.
On TV yesterday, they were talking to some survivors on an overpass. The lady who was acting as a guide pointed out a family trying to take care of their grandmother who had Alzheimer’s. All I could think was “that could be MY mother”. And I know with my mother’s current condition, I truly doubt she’d last the first night out there without water. So, I know that many of people that you see waiting for rescue won’t live to see it. A healthy adult can go without water for what, 3 days? What about the sick and infirm, and what about children and babies…. Dear God, the babies. That is something that I just don’t let myself think about. Until I hear some soulless bastard say “It’s there fault for staying” or “it was stupid to build a city below sea level”. Well, I’m sure Bienville will burn in hell for not having a fucking GPS when the damn territory was settled a couple of hundred years ago. How easy it is for some people to sit with their full bellies, in their safe and dry house and pass judgment on other people…. To pass judgment on the 3 week old baby who was being held up by its father outside the Convention Center as he begged for formula or water because they hadn’t had water and food in 3 days. Yes, by all means let’s blame the poor, the young and the sick. I put people who do that in the same category as the looters.
I also feel horribly guilty. I have friends who are missing family members, I have friends whose family members now only have what they left New Orleans and Slidell with… And I’m okay…. My life is fine, better than it as ever been actually, in many ways – through no fault of my own. I’ve just been lucky. And I feel very guilty about that. I feel guilty that I can’t help… Yes, I’ve given money already… and will again. But I can’t go save anyone. I feel like I need to. It feels like it’s not enough unless I personal go and pull people off the overpasses. Intellectually, I know that’s wrong but I’m getting a little too wrapped up in this and I don’t know quite how to pull back.
I have been asked, more than once, why am so upset about New Orleans since I’m not from there. I am from North Louisiana, but my grandmother grew up there. That was the port of entry for her grandparents, her grandfather came from France and her grandmother came from somewhere in Eastern Europe – possibly Russia, but we’ve never been able to nail that down. My grandmother loved New Orleans passionately! She frequently visited her sister there, (her sister… now there’s a story for ya’! Another day perhaps) and would return with tales of the “Big City”. She passed her love for the city on to me. New Orleans was my fairyland (pardon the pun, since she spent most of her time in The Quarter and the Garden District); it was my Camelot (from the wrong side of the tracks). I was raised on my grandmother’s story of being a Flapper in New Orleans during the ‘20’s. Stories of Mardi Gras Balls and the antics of her younger sister’s questionable acquaintances filled my head along with such big city things as elevators and street cars. Nope, no castles and dragons for me… it was New Orleans! I knew I wanted to live there one day when I grew up, so I could be like my grandmother. It was my achievable fairy tale. Later, after I was actually allowed to go to New Orleans, I fell in love with the history, with the architecture, with spirit of the place. New Orleans is just different. Some people get it, and some people don’t. If you get it, you love the city in spite of itself. It’s something that I can’t really explain to you, but if you have it you know what I mean.
For better or worse, and whether you like it or not, New Orleans was Louisiana. Don’t give me all that crap about the “piney hills” in the north, and all that other stuff. It’s just splitting hairs. New Orleans is symbolic of past, of our heritage… of why we are different that the rest of the country. If you don’t believe that Louisiana is different, try living another state for while. My God I miss it! I would have already moved back, except for the economic climate, job market, and poverty – I’m better off living outside the state and it kills me. I miss the people, I miss the land, I miss having parishes instead of counties…I miss having calendars with Mardi Gras on them. And now I’ve missed my chance to walk in my Grandmother’s footsteps. I’m glad she didn’t live to see New Orleans slowly drowning along with her people.
I am so sorry for everyone.
Well, damn…
What do you say? Is there anything you can say?
I don’t think there is anyone from any part of Louisiana that isn’t affected by Katrina and what is happening in the state. Love it, or hate it, we are all tied to New Orleans in some way. I think about all the people I know from school who were from New Orleans, or moved there, and I wonder where they are... were they there?… did they leave, did they stay? How can I find them? I think about my family, and how, thankfully, my closest relative to there is in Baton Rouge. I think about the 2 times in recent years I’ve nearly moved there, and how I could be either one of the dead or one of the walking dead… I look at maps and try to figure out where relatives used to live, but I can’t tell because it’s all water now. I just can’t stop putting myself in the place of all those people I see on TV… the angry ones begging for help that hasn’t come yet… that promised help that they are supposed to “be patient” for… that life saving help that they have been waiting days for already…. With many dying … they made it through the hurricane… they made it through the water to a “safe” place… and they die waiting for help.
On TV yesterday, they were talking to some survivors on an overpass. The lady who was acting as a guide pointed out a family trying to take care of their grandmother who had Alzheimer’s. All I could think was “that could be MY mother”. And I know with my mother’s current condition, I truly doubt she’d last the first night out there without water. So, I know that many of people that you see waiting for rescue won’t live to see it. A healthy adult can go without water for what, 3 days? What about the sick and infirm, and what about children and babies…. Dear God, the babies. That is something that I just don’t let myself think about. Until I hear some soulless bastard say “It’s there fault for staying” or “it was stupid to build a city below sea level”. Well, I’m sure Bienville will burn in hell for not having a fucking GPS when the damn territory was settled a couple of hundred years ago. How easy it is for some people to sit with their full bellies, in their safe and dry house and pass judgment on other people…. To pass judgment on the 3 week old baby who was being held up by its father outside the Convention Center as he begged for formula or water because they hadn’t had water and food in 3 days. Yes, by all means let’s blame the poor, the young and the sick. I put people who do that in the same category as the looters.
I also feel horribly guilty. I have friends who are missing family members, I have friends whose family members now only have what they left New Orleans and Slidell with… And I’m okay…. My life is fine, better than it as ever been actually, in many ways – through no fault of my own. I’ve just been lucky. And I feel very guilty about that. I feel guilty that I can’t help… Yes, I’ve given money already… and will again. But I can’t go save anyone. I feel like I need to. It feels like it’s not enough unless I personal go and pull people off the overpasses. Intellectually, I know that’s wrong but I’m getting a little too wrapped up in this and I don’t know quite how to pull back.
I have been asked, more than once, why am so upset about New Orleans since I’m not from there. I am from North Louisiana, but my grandmother grew up there. That was the port of entry for her grandparents, her grandfather came from France and her grandmother came from somewhere in Eastern Europe – possibly Russia, but we’ve never been able to nail that down. My grandmother loved New Orleans passionately! She frequently visited her sister there, (her sister… now there’s a story for ya’! Another day perhaps) and would return with tales of the “Big City”. She passed her love for the city on to me. New Orleans was my fairyland (pardon the pun, since she spent most of her time in The Quarter and the Garden District); it was my Camelot (from the wrong side of the tracks). I was raised on my grandmother’s story of being a Flapper in New Orleans during the ‘20’s. Stories of Mardi Gras Balls and the antics of her younger sister’s questionable acquaintances filled my head along with such big city things as elevators and street cars. Nope, no castles and dragons for me… it was New Orleans! I knew I wanted to live there one day when I grew up, so I could be like my grandmother. It was my achievable fairy tale. Later, after I was actually allowed to go to New Orleans, I fell in love with the history, with the architecture, with spirit of the place. New Orleans is just different. Some people get it, and some people don’t. If you get it, you love the city in spite of itself. It’s something that I can’t really explain to you, but if you have it you know what I mean.
For better or worse, and whether you like it or not, New Orleans was Louisiana. Don’t give me all that crap about the “piney hills” in the north, and all that other stuff. It’s just splitting hairs. New Orleans is symbolic of past, of our heritage… of why we are different that the rest of the country. If you don’t believe that Louisiana is different, try living another state for while. My God I miss it! I would have already moved back, except for the economic climate, job market, and poverty – I’m better off living outside the state and it kills me. I miss the people, I miss the land, I miss having parishes instead of counties…I miss having calendars with Mardi Gras on them. And now I’ve missed my chance to walk in my Grandmother’s footsteps. I’m glad she didn’t live to see New Orleans slowly drowning along with her people.
I am so sorry for everyone.
posted by Loren at Thursday, September 01, 2005
3 Comments:
I remember you telling me the stories of your grandmother and your great aunt in New Orleans. I think the 20's would have been such a wonderful time to have lived in New Orleans. I don't care much for this late 20th early 21st century invention of "business casual," I was taught you conduct business in a suit. It's old fashioned now but it's what I was taught and what I believe. If I wouldn't get laughed off the street I would wear a hat as well. I think I could have handled the 20’s very well, at least fashion wise. And would have enjoyed the fashion, speculative market always equals short skirts.
But back to you and your wonderful post. I too have not been able to stop placing myself in the images on my television. I know I would never leave Cat’s or my mother’s or my brother’s corpse on top of my house for me to be rescued. I know that is stupid but I would rather die than leave someone I love to rot there as I fly or boat off from them. I have imagined myself holding on to my girlfriend, my mother, my brother, my cats, to strangers against the currents, and the anguish the desperation as their hands release to the currents from mine. The last sight of someone you love, someone you would swap places with without question, without thought if you could flowing away.
This may seem strange but do you remember the time you and I were driving down 165, on a weekend I think, bored in Monroe? We were listening to a baseball game on the radio, which I think is the second best way to take in a baseball game. We talked about how one would have pictured the ball players described in the broadcast having never seen them. That is one of the things I have been thinking about. What would this be like without television, listening to someone describing New Orleans over the radio? How would we picture the flooding? The misery? The crime? I think Shepard Smith could have done it, I think he could have described it for us on the radio. I can hear him screaming over the radio, “there is hope, over that bridge is Jefferson Parish, they have electricity, they have water, they have food, here is Orleans Parish; there is a check point leaving the Superdome and the convention center, the government will not let these people leave Orleans Parish to go to Jefferson Parish, they turn them back at gunpoint!” That was his report on FoxNews last night almost verbatim. When Sean Hannaty tried to spin this, and say it need to be taken into perceptive, Shep told him point blank “that is all the perceptive you need!” I have watched Shepard Smith on Fox for quite a while, I really don’t care if I get my news from a network with a liberal or a conservative stance, I can read through the bullshit on both sides. Everything I have ever seen of him he is true to his Mississippi upbringing, (which was probably not too unlike my own) to tell what he sees. When Karl Rove said that liberals wanted to console terrorist after 9-11, Shepard said on the air “Mr. Rove I was here in New York with liberals, who wanted to do nothing but kill.”
I have now very much left the original message of this post, to comment on your post. I really do think you should write for a living or film for a living. I think you could capture so much more than is conveyed to us now.
A little Boz Scaggs enters the house now.
Guess this post should go on in real time. Why not?
I remember as a child wanting to live in New Orleans too. My mother lived there for a couple of years, in Irish Channel where my people came in and went to work. She had her fist shots of Jim Beam there. She was a college graduate and 22 when this happened, I don’t know if it was because of her Southern Baptist upbringing or being the child of an alcoholic that caused this event to happen so late in life, but it did. I used to take her to the Jazz fest every May, and every time we went through Irish Channel she would tell me that she could taste Jim Beam. She would also tell me that they would leave the back window to the apartment open incase of lost keys. In New Orleans, an unguarded apartment with a window open, that is the city I dreamed of.
I remember her dreaming of coming to visit me living in New Orleans, I did nothing to discourage this. I too shared this dream, either a Garden District home or a French Quarter apartment, the edge of the Quarter so I could sleep a bit.
There is nothing in your post I can disagree with. There were many parts of it that hit home with me. And there were many parts of it that made me cry. It was the first time I was really able to cry during all of this. I tried to work during the week, but unlike most weeks I did not turn off the TV. I could not keep myself away from it. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know every neighborhood and it’s condition. I felt guilty knowing that everyone I knew in the city was out early. Instead of crying, actually crying, I would seek out more information. It wasn’t till your post and the childhood images of New Orleans, the vision of this great city in Louisiana that was mine to go to. The same vision that I had as a child of this wonderful magical place that was within our state.
It is strange, I guess misery truly loves company; I really am relishing moving to Florida. There is something about being in “Dixie” as all this is going on. A Soldiery of sorts. I know most people think Texas is southern but it isn’t, we in Dallas have much more in common with L. A., Phoenix, and San Diego then Atlanta or New Orleans, and there is nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with it at all.
Dallas and Fort Worth and Plano and Frisco have opened their hearts this week, not to mention Houston (which does have a bit in common with New Orleans). But the Texas’ heart is big, I have learned in the last five years. Texas is now Louisiana’s 4th biggest city. The mayors of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Plano, Tyler, Frisco, Huntsville, and our right wing, born again Republican Governor have said very clearly “you have people, we have space and open arms.”
God Bless Texas
PS--- Now that I can post on your blog I guess next I can talk about Biloxi.
Down around Biloxi,
Pretty girls are dancing in the sea
They all look like sisters in the ocean
The boy will fill his pale with salty water
And the storms will blow from off towards New Orleans
Sun shines on Biloxi
Air is filled with vapors from the sea
The boy will dig a pool beside the ocean
He sees creatures from his dreams under water
And the sun will set from off toward New Orleans
Stars can see Biloxi
Stars can find their faces in the sea
We are walking down beside the ocean
We are splashing naked in the water
And the sky is red from off toward New Orleans
And the sky is red from off toward New Orleans
Down around Biloxi
Pretty girls are swimming in the sea
They all look like like sisters in the ocean
The boy will fill his pale with salty water
And the storms will blow from off toward New Orleans
Thank you, Bunny! You should get your own Blog, because you too right very well. ;)
You really want to cry, Play Aaron Neville's version of "Louisiana 1927". On Tuesday, one of the networks played it in the background of people waiting to be rescued.
"Louisiana, Louisiana... they're trying to wash us away..."
How prophetic song writers are at times.... How often does history repeat itself inspite of the best efforts of SOME.
That was the first time I really cried. The next time was during Bush's press conference at New Orleans.... Because I knew he still didn't quite grasp it. He seemed to glib, to upbeat. Yes, he's job is to boost morale, but it wasn't a damn pep rally. I wanted to see on his face an acknowledgement that people where out there dying as he spoke. It wasn't there.
I cried walking home from Walgreens the other day too... I had starting to talking to some people from Metarie, New Orleans, and the Mississippi gulf coast. The pharmacy had been overwhelmed with evacuees who needed their medication. It had taken the guy from Metarie 24 hours to make it to Memphis (he had left Sunday, when it was his area's turn). The couple from Mississippi left "...as the roof left..". Some of the other people still appeared to be in to much shock to say much. It was all just to much. It's now at the point where I just can't really comprehend the human toll of it all.
I'm like you... I don't know if I could leave my parent's corpse on the roof... or leave them to die. You know, if my dad was still alive and in New Orleans, he wouldn't have evacuated. Some one would have had to have picked him up, and dragged him out... and he could swing a mean cane. LOL. If I had been there I would have said with him... and the cats. I would have had to float him and cats out. It's almost a funny mental image. Gallows humor I guess, but it's a coping mechanism and you go with what you've got.
I still don't know.... grievously sad, and grievously angry. I've stopped have chest pains though....I haven't had an anxiety attack in almost a day. The community outpouring of support helps I think. Watching people here in Memphis - especially alot of people who are not well off - who said that they don't have alot but they know where their family is, watching them give whatever they have to people who have nothing. I'm proud of Memphis. Like I said before, it hasn't been perfect but we are trying. I'm proud of both Mayors here, Herrington and Warton. I think they grasp the enormity of the situation quickly. ANd by wednesday, they were already making long range plans for Education, Housing, Jobs and other Assitance, and had asked the Governor for emergency assitence. They were planning to make the evacuees part of the community for as long as necessary.
All that makes me happy.... but the world still isnt' the same for me as it was last week. I have faith in my fellow man... actually it's been reaffirmed. But governments, I don't know.... I have even less trust in the Federal government, and I really didn't think that was possible.
Now, to your first paragraph... I can see you in a hat. It suits you. ANd searsucker suits in the summer. They suit you too - pardon the pun. I can see you in the 20's-30's-40's. I miss people dressing up. My grandparents always did... Older southerners still do... but they are dying off fast. OH, get Ann started on cami's, pajama bottoms, and flip-flops as proper public attire. Heeheeeeeeeee.
I know, and how ironic, President Coolidge telling the reporter "Ain't is a shame what happen to this poor old cracker, let's get back home" and what we got from the federal government early in this.
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