Day 1087: Neither Here, Nor There

After a good chunk of last week in Houston for work, I spent another glorious weekend in Ohio visiting family and friends.

Each time I see my family, they are older, the products of time, work, declining health, the usual and unusual wear and tear. When we are children, we see our parents, siblings and other members of the family all of the time; we cannot observe them age as they do not see us growing up right in front of their watchful eyes. Also, as kids, we think of our parents as rocks, as constants who aren’t going anywhere soon. Death happens mostly to the aged, and that is a long way off from the cognition of youth. In a blink of an eye, we’re transported to our 30s and 40s and, guess what, our parents are much older, too. Dissonance. Disbelief. Discombobulation.

My mother is not doing well and is most likely in for more surgery, this time on her back. At this year’s Varalakshmi Puja, a ritual very important and exclusive to certain Hindu families (so it has to be done right, or else), Mom’s hands shook while she attempted to steady herself and simple things like sitting, standing and walking were nothing but sources of immense pain for her. My beautiful, smart, agile, strong, strident, able busybody of a mother had a really hard time keeping it together and, to her helpless and onlooking daughter, it seemed like an invisible someone taking a knife to Mona Lisa, a hammer to David, a match to a monument. Why does life build us up just to take us down? I want to say you can’t imagine my anger and frustration, but you’re a child, too. You know.

Before leaving the area, D and I spent some time with my 92-year-old grandmother who taught me how to wear a nine-yard sari (the more common version of the sari is only six yards in length) while admonishing me in Tamil, “You knew how to wear a sari like this when you were only eleven, and now you stand before me having forgotten it all. Keep it in your head this time and pass it on.” D took approximately a hundred pictures of the process and I’ve promised my grandmother the definitive blog post on How To Wear A Nine-Yard Sari. This is my mother’s mother, whom I have spoken off before, who has now twice beaten cancer, but is a physical shred of her former self. While her mind is as sharp a tack – she wants to travel between the homes of her children, learn a new style of painting from my father, take singing lessons, talk up a storm about the past, present and future – her body does not cooperate.

Patti has been a permanent fixture in my life and never had I given a thought to her not being there. People die, so will my grandmother, so will my mother, so will I, so will my children and so on. Right here, right now, however, is as important in its gravity as it is in its fleeting weightlessness, its tiny speck of meaning in the larger cosmic timeline. The urgency of my grandma’s current stage in life and the importance of my visit didn’t faze me until I gave her a goodbye hug, inhaled her scent, kissed her cheek and a pang of understanding seared its way into my heart, scrambled up my chest and gushed out of my eyes as hot tears. Before I let go of my grandmother and let her see my face again, I willed my eyes to suck those tears back in, for I would not allow her to see me upset. I would not force her to consider her mortality at that moment, not because of me. She would see her happy and vibrant granddaughter and think of all the good times we’ve had together.

The dam broke last night when I sat in front of D and cried my heart out while asking, “How do you deal with your mother being gone? I can’t deal with her death, how can you?” It was not simply questions on mortality that arose, but also queries on what I want from my life and what exactly I’m doing down here when I should live close to my family and be a helpful daughter. A job, a career, it cannot be as important as my Mom and Dad, nieces, godbabies and everyone back home. They are not replaceable. What the hell am I doing more than thousand miles away from the people I love the most?

On returning to New Orleans, I’ve discovered that the city wrongly demolished a home, Jessica Hawk (from Ohio) was found murdered in her home on the 3000 block of Chartres in the Bywater, two people were shot to death at an Uptown intersection where my friend takes frequent afternoon walks, McSame and Bush will make their obligatory New Orleans visits this week (for more cake, I’m sure) and, to top it all off, Mayor Ray Ray will be presented with The Award of Distinction For Recovery, Courage, and Leadership” by a group called The Excellence in Recovery Host Committee,” led by a prominent member of our City Council. I feel like a bit character in a poorly-reenacted mashup of The Enemy Within and Mirror Mirror set in New Orleans.

Yes, corruption and incompetence are found wherever power and money are to be had, but not like this, not when we should all be extra-vigilant during this reconstruction. Returning to pre-Katrina dysfunctional bullshit is not recovery. It makes me want to run screaming back to Ohio or Wisconsin. The Upper Midwest is not exempt from flood, government incompetence and crime, but it’s not an excuse to dodge the issue that there are serious problems down here, and that almost 25% will leave if we as a city don’t address them. Wisconsin and Ohio don’t have Mardi Gras, Jazzfest, jazz funerals, the architecture, running through the Quarter in a red dress, the glory of Audubon Park and City Park, the food, the music and whatever it is you love about New Orleans, but no amount of culture and cool can overcome fear, assault and death.

Understand that these are not easy statements to make, nor are they concrete in their utterance. While crafting and reading emails and talking with members regarding Krewe du Vieux functions, finances, floats and costumes, I ask myself how I could ever stop being a part of an event so amazing, planning so much fun in its utter chaos, a group so goofy and unreal. How could I not own the streets of New Orleans with the Krewe of Chartreuse on Mardi Gras Day? How could I walk away from dear friends as unique as this city? There’s one thing more, I miss the one I care for, more than I miss New Orleans.

The pull of the South and my career here is strong. The push of home and family is stronger. Logistics and commitments prevent us from leaving any time soon, but the decision to stay or to go is going to be a big weight on my mind in the coming months. It’s not an easy one, so please hold the “New Orleans sucks, leave!” or “Go, you’re not wanted here!” comments, because it just isn’t like that. When faced with decision gates like this in the past, I’ve shut down or punted, taking the course of an inanimate leaf in the wind, with decent as well as disastrous results. Suddenly (to me), I’m an adult, it’s not a coin toss or a decision I can leave to someone else or fate. Suddenly, I’m an adult and I am forced to contemplate my parents’ mortality and accept that human life is something borrowed, not owned. Suddenly, I’m an adult, and I’m neither here, nor there.