As If All These Other Posts Haven’t Been: For a hundred days, I have explored life after Katrina. I’ve thought, meditated, observed, written, cried, laughed, raged, dreamed, travelled, advised, counseled, been counseled and chewed my lip on who I am, what I want and what home (anywhere) means to me. Only a few of these emotions predominate at any give time, thankfully, and are soon replaced with another overwhelmer or those triple boons of my life – work, reading and exercise. (As an aside, let me praise the ways in which these activities have saved a lot of us.)
With the onset of Christmas season, it makes me mildly ill to acknowledge that this coming weekend will not see me in my home putting up my tree, ornaments and home decorations or burning the 500 assorted seasonal candles I bought for this season. At the very least, my candles are in storage that still exists in a home that still exists, right? Things could be a lot worse: my home could be a flattened pile of moldy wood, glass and slate with my personal possessions stolen or in an impersonal mound of debris on a neutral ground. As I mentioned to a colleague this morning, I could be a Pakistani orphan standing outside the rubble of my former home with trapped family members dead or dying inside. I could be … it could be …
You know what? Things could be a lot better. I could be in the solace of my own space, walking in my own town, surrounded by my own friends, shopping in my own favorite spots and putting up my own Christmas tree, amongst other things that I will not mention here. I could be in one place instead of three (NO, Houston and on the road). When I think of my friends now in New Orleans, I feel a twinge of envy because, no matter the conditions, they are living and making decisions from one place – home base. “I want a home and some stability just for myself,” Ms. K said to me yesterday. Life wasn’t precisely a clean slate even before the hurricane; this doesn’t help things.
Through all of this, the questions of identity prevail: Am I the sort of person who needs the comforts of life or can I make it through my day without certain luxuries? Do I require consistency or can I handle change and motion? Where is the line between displeasure and acceptance? What is my boundary between needs and wants?
As I ponder another hundred days of living away from home, a voice flies in on the cold front coming into Houston, “Time flies, you know, Maitri.” In the case of some, it doesn’t. For wafting in on that same breeze is this latest from Chris Rose, whom some believe to be the voice of New Orleans. Flip on the Empath switch and see if you can’t feel his struggle and strength, too:
God help us. The most open, joyous, free-wheeling, celebratory city in the country is broken, hurting, down on its knees. Failing. Begging for help.
Somebody turn this movie off; I don’t want to watch it anymore. I want a slow news day. I want a no news day.
But we have to try. We have to fight this thing until there is no fight left … if [the woman in Rose’s story has] got a taste of [hope] in her mouth, then the rest of us can take a little spoonful and try to make it through another day, another week, another lifetime.
It’s the least we can do.
I purposely left out some crucial words and phrases from the above lines because I don’t want to give away what Rose wrote so passionately about. Read his words and why he penned them. Then, look New Orleans in the eye before denying its problems, writing the city off or casting punditry on it like you know anything of its character and living there, and spewing absolute, hateful, ignorant vitriol like this.
On a brighter note and speaking of airwaves: listen up, America, not everything black and out of New Orleans is bad (kindly refrain from placing your crime problems wholly on New Orleanian evacuees and those of the African-American persuasion). From the NY Times: “Today, Lil Wayne releases “Tha Carter II” (Cash Money/Universal), his fifth solo album. It’s an impressive CD, and in some sense historic: it is poised to become the first top-selling New Orleans album since the hurricane.”
Chris Rose asks a great question in his aforementioned column: “… if you weren’t from here, didn’t have a history here, didn’t have roux in your blood and a stake in it all: Would you want to be here?”
Yes, I would. If only to repay the debt I owe the city for giving me some of the most exciting years of my life.
It’s the least I can do.
Hang in there Maitri. You’re a suvivor, and the city will be the better for having you.