Care Packages

Just when my sprained ankle/foot began to get the best of me, I enjoyed three lovely surprises:

1. an unexpected gift of real New Orleans coffee, wrapped beautifully as always by my friend S in a kitchen tea towel and ribbon, which also serves to secure the ice pack to my foot;

2. a Gryffyndor scarf and chocolate frog from Harry Potter World;

3. hand-delivered by my one and only blood nephew, whom I had not seen since early December.

Even my swollen toes were well pleased, although you can't tell from their sad bruising.

Hurricane Season

Cool last night, cold almost. 55 degrees on waking and wind, as if autumn has already arrived. But August hasn't ended even though the foliage suggests it has.

The end of the month is yet to come, as everyone who lives in or is from or once lived in New Orleans and towns scattered west and east, know. Saturday marks a terrible ten-year anniversary: the disastrous Hurricane Katrina.

As happened after 9.11, artists have responded to the events, and in the case of Lolis Eric Elie, who wrote this essay, have responded to the aftermath, making the terrible beautiful and immediate.

Lolis Eric Elie's THE WHYS (The Reasons New Orleanians Came Home) was published in The Bitter Southerner.

Some of us came back because we lived in the old city — the Vieux Carre, Faubourg Treme, the Irish Channel, Niggertown, the Marigny, the Garden District, the Warehouse District — the 20 percent of the city that didn’t flood.

Some of us came back because we had a cousin or auntie and they said we could stay by them until we got it figured out.

Some of us came back because we knew they didn’t want us back.

Some of us came back because we got tired of having to fight just because we were from New Orleans.

Some of us came back because we didn’t think it would take that long or cost that much or require so many tears and so many pained laughs to fix just one house.

Some of us came back because we thought we knew for sure we had enough insurance to fix everything.

Some of us came back because we didn’t believe that the insurance company that we’d dutifully paid for decades would cheat us in our hour of gravest need.

(If Dante Alighieri had endured the inferno of our flood, he would have kindled a special fire for insurance companies!)

Some of us came back because we know what it means.

Some of us came back because we didn’t want to keep saying Hoover or Pittsburgh or Sugarland when somebody asked, “Where y’at?”

Some of us came back because, have you ever been to Kalamazoo?

Some us came back because it didn’t flood on our second story and we could live there while they fixed the first.

Some of us came back because we had rebuilding skills.

Some of us came back because Richard Baker, the Baton Rouge Congressman, was right: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did.”

Some of us came back to fight for our homes in the Lafitte, in the Magnolia, in the B.W. Cooper, in the Melpomene, in those timeworn fortresses, those unflooded, moldless bricks.

Some of us came back because the traffic in Baton Rouge was one reason too many to hate that place.

Some of us came back because we had sharpened our clippers and smoothened our tongues and poised ourselves to fleece the sheep, the desperate homeowners begging for help.

Some of us came back because we felt a moral obligation to rebuild our city.

Some of us came back because the arrow of our moral compass points permanently in the direction of steal.

Some of us came back because Yemaya, the orisha of the waters, was true to Her word and protected New Orleans from the brunt of the storm (though it would have been nice if She had told us that the federal levees were not in Her purview).

Some of us came back because we believed Him when He said to us, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Some of us came back because G-d said, “For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land.”

Some of us came back because the Prophet (peace be upon Him) promised us in Surah 2:215, “They ask you, [O Muhammad], what they should spend. Say, ‘Whatever you spend of good is [to be] for parents and relatives and orphans and the needy and the traveler. And whatever you do of good - indeed, Allah is knowing of it.’"

Some of us were inspired to come back by Rep. Dennis Hastert (may his sentence be a long one). He said our city was seven feet below sea level, and we wished to visit this twisted Atlantis of his dreams.

Some of us came back because, as Pastafarians, we thought the Flying Spaghetti Monster would want us to help in the rebuilding.

Some of us came back because, as bad as things were, we didn’t believe the ancestors would ever forgive us for being buried in Texas.

Some of us came back because, if they didn’t have enough police to arrest the murderers, they certainly didn’t have enough to arrest the fraudsters.

Some of us came back because, even after Bush’s boys took their cut, and Cheney’s boys took their cut, and the Shaw Group took its cut, there was still enough piss trickling down the leg of the disaster capitalism for us to make us a couple of dollars putting blue tarps on damaged roofs.

Some of us came back because every year, at Carnival time, we make a new suit.

Some of us came back because we’re Prince of Wales and we knew if we paraded, even two months late, it would be as a healing balm unto the people.

Some of us came back because, when we saw Prince of Wales Social Aid & Pleasure Club, we knew God was in his heaven and New Orleans was still New Orleans.

Some us came back because of the feeling we got visiting home that first Carnival after Katrina when we saw the people, our people, in the street, being us the way we be us when we gather like we do.

Some of us came back because if we heard one more person pronounce it N’awlins ...

Some of us came back because we’d rather be doing bad in New Orleans than doing good somewhere else.

Some of us came back because we had promised ourselves, Everything I Do Gon Be Funky From Now On, and that shit didn’t even much sound right coming out of your mouth in Topeka.

Some of us came back because we didn't want those lazy Mexicans taking all our jobs.

Some of us came back to prove that we were willing and able to work as hard as any Mexican.

Some of us came back because, just like the Mexicans and the Brazilians and the Hondurans we had to make that rebuilding money to send home to our wives and husbands and children and friends because they were depending on us for their beans and rice.  

Some of us came back because there was plenty of copper in those flooded homes, ripe for the stealing.

Some of us came back because we were second story men by profession and there was plenty to steal on unflooded second stories.

Some of us came back because we thought the Saints would never win a Super Bowl if we weren’t personally in New Orleans our own self.

Some of us came back because seeing the city depopulated and dirty, desperate and quiet, awakened a patriotism in us.

Some of us came back because we wanted to end our high school career at the same place we’d started it.

Some of us came back because after kicking the French in the ass, and kicking the Americans in the ass, and escaping the sea-born treacheries of the Thai fisherman, rebuilding A Village Called Versailles was a pretty much a piece of mung-bean cake.

Some of us came back because we declined to depend on the kindness of strangers.

Some of us came back because we felt the crusts of bread and such from our rich relations would not long continue.

Some of us came back to give lie to the stereotypes about us.

Some of us came back because the stereotypes about us were true.

Some of us came back because we were angry that a massive federal effort was rebuilding foreign cities laid waste by American ingenuity while an American city laid waste by faulty American engineering was left foundering.

Some of us came back because Sweet Home New Orleans helped us find affordable housing.

Some of us came back because the Foundation for Louisiana helped us re-open our business.

Some of us came back because Seedco Financial helped us reopen our business.

Some of us came back because we got money from Jazz at LincolnCenter’s Higher Ground benefit.

Some of us came back because neither the food in Lafayette nor the music in Lafayette could make up for the Lafayette in Lafayette.

Some of us came back because we thought, maybe if we scrubbed hard enough, we could wipe that smirk off of George Bush’s face.

Some of us came back because, when we left, we left in a hurry and didn’t have time to heed Fran Lebowitz’s advice that if you're going to America, you should bring your own food.

(Oh, Mr. Aligheri! If only there had been even a little salt taste in those other men’s bread!)

Some of us came back because the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic sponsored gigs for us to play and to pay our bills and support our families.

Some of us came back because we won’t bow down. We don’t know how.

Some us came back to collect the addresses of the displaced so that we could apply for their federal assistance checks before they knew what time it was.

Some of us came back courtesy of grants from the Soros OpenSociety Foundation.

Some of us came back because, unlike the Iraqi Americans, we were not allowed to vote long distance in our local elections if we lived outside our home state.

Some of us came back to help re-elect our mayor.

Some of us came back because the only way we could move the city forward was to elect a new mayor.

Some of us came back because the Tipitina’s Foundation got us horns for our marching band.

Some of us came back to bear witness.

Some of us came back because our grandfather built this house.

Some of us came back because, I’ll be got damn if I’m gonna let my cousins just take this house my grandfather built right from under my nose.

Some of us came back to prevent a land grab.

Some of us came back to grab us some land.

Some of us came back because we got a really good deal on some Stone Age marble.

Some of us came back because you’re my piece of the rock and I love you C.C.

All of us came back — like the people of New York after 9-11, like the people of Chile after 9-11, like the people of Vietnam after the American War, like the people of Mississippi after the 1927 flood, like the people of Lisbon after the great earthquake, like the people of Harlan County during the 1931 coal strike, like the people of Indonesia after the great tsunami, like the people of Los Angeles after the Northridge earthquake, like the people of Haiti after paying reparations to the French, like the people of Chicago after the great fire, like the people of Rwanda after the genocide, like the people of Iran after the Eisenhower coup, like the Cherokee after Andrew Jackson, like the people of the Dominican Republic after the American invasion, like the people of Russia after World War II, like the people of Guatemala after the CIA coup, like the people of Cambodia after the Kissinger carpet bombings — because rebuilding our homes and ourselves was our response to Camus’ one really serious philosophical question, the question of suicide.

A Little Bit of McGehee's

came to Sewanee today and made me smile.

Then, I discoverws that SWD's oldest daughter has been at camp with my neighbor's oldest daughter for the last two weeks.

Finally, my neighbor's sister, on hearing where SWD is staying tonight and tomorrow night in Monteagle, said, "Oh I know R! From New Orleans!"

Small world. Smoke and mirrors. All over again

Day 14 of 40: Another Day That Changed My Life

Second Jazz Fest: a voice commanded; I followed. Sister Gertrude beat the tambourine, sang, preached. I joined her congregation. Third fest, I bought my first painting. Every morning it sings "the fields are ripe" and I wake to her call.

That Annual Itch

It's hard to find the kind of Christmas lights that make me tingle on the campus of an Episcopalian college. My staunchly Episcopal mother was a lights snob: only white and only tiny (never blinking or synching); all others were "tacky." Tiny white is pretty much what folks around do, if they do anything at all. (I can think of three exceptions, one down the street. But only three.)

Oh, how I love lights.

In New Orleans' City Park, a light fantasia reigns every Christmas season. Even without children in tow, folks find Celebration in the Oaks inspiring. When I lived in the city, I drove St. Charles every evening and marveled at the crisp white lights draped over stately mansions. Once, a friend who lived in the same Metairie neighborhood as Al Copeland, flashy founder of Popeye's, took me to see his display. He spent a fortune on Christmas decorations of the kind not only my mother would pooh-pooh, but of the kind even I found over-the-top tacky.

Another Christmas, when I was living in Birmingham, I was invited to a Christmas party that included a tour of Gardendale lights, including one house that lit up the entire neighborhood. Every window opened onto a special enclosed scene, and music blared. I would not have wanted to live near that house, but I sure enjoyed seeing it.

Tonight, feeling Christmas-lights bereft, I drove out of the parking lot at the Pig. Instead of pulling up to the highway, I stopped just short. The Amish Hippie's lights and light rain made just the kind of scene I have been missing.

Maybe I should drive over every night, just to scratch that Christmas itch.

Ice Houses

I

In childhood, my family sometimes spent summer weekends at a "camp" on the Black Warrior River. We stayed in Cabin 1, a two-bedroom wooden affair with a screen porch along the front and no running water. To cool our drinks, my father would stop on the way out of Birmingham at an ice house, which sold dry ice, block ice, and chipped ice. Inside the big cooler, where I was sometimes allowed, everything shimmered starry blue.

II

Years later, when I lived in New Orleans, I knew the family that founded and ran Pelican Ice. From my friend, I learned about the contributions of the ice company during hurricanes. Until then, it had never occurred to me that ice was such a precious commodity, especially along the coast. 

I was a late-learner.

III

I am not a late-appreciator of the beauty of ice, however.

After picking up our ice for our River trips, I loved running my hand across the block, feeling the cracks and crevices, the watery bits and the sticky bits. Or when my father or a brother chipped it, I loved the thunk of hammer and tinkle of chips collecting, spattering and sputtering against a metal container.

IV

I have always known ice storms. Birmingham is sometimes the epicenter of dangerous ice storms that bring down power lines and trees, marooning folks inside their homes for days.  Strapping on my boots and jeans, I headed out to the creek, walking across slippery leaf litter and railroad ties, just to look at the slickery rocks and frozen bits of weed or limb along the shoreline. Sometimes, I headed to the neighbor's hilly lawn for a ride downhill, trudging through knee-high weeds encased in ice.

V

Today, the lake shimmered, and I thought about the river, the Behres, the creek, and the ephemeral beauty of ice.

An Old Friend and a New One

On an unseasonably cool day, scrambled eggs with onion, cheese, and tomato served enchilada style with homemade salsa, good coffee and cream, a rainbow-striped umbrella, and an old friend and a new one -- these compromise the recipe for a lovely lunch. Eugenie, a former student of mine from 30+ years ago in New Orleans, and Bob (her new husband) traded their porch in the Monteagle Assembly for my deck for an hour or so this afternoon.

The rewards of slow living are many, today's visitors among them.

NOLA Window

This afternoon, I walked into my living room after spending hours at my computer, reading and commenting on student work. I was struck by the light pouring through New Orleans, hanging in my front windows.

Although the stained glass panel is always there, in late afternoon, when the sun lowers across my front yard, light throws itself into the space of my furniture and books. It makes a kind of exploding silence that fills my house with New Orleans -- humidity, joy, red pepper, the smells of mildew and musk and sweet olive and beer and crab boil, wrought iron, good friends, former students, PJs coffee, Maple Street books, the streetcar clang , and the cool sweetness of Camellia Grill's coconut cream pie.

The window itself is a kind of lagniappe. Taking the Magazine Street art walk one weekend, I entered Diva, the gallery owned by a student's mother, a stained glass artist whose work I had never before been able to afford her work. But that afternoon, she advised me to put in a bid for the window. She said I had a good chance of winning since no else had entered the drawing. Later that day, she called to tell me the good news.

The window reminds me of Sally and of her daughter Morgan and of all those women I taught and all those friends I made (and lost) in The City That Care Forgot. The stained glass always throws me something.

Booking It

Today was reserved for rest and relaxation as I needed recovery from last night's harrowing drive back from Bell Buckle through blinding rain and hail after a foiled attempt to see The Tennessee Shakespeare Festival's first production (A Midsummer Night's Dream) at Webb. The play was canceled, and we headed out Highway 82, which was blocked by a fallen tree. That meant the long way home, and while I didn't have to drive (my SOL friend Jan did), I was still frightened out of my wits. So. Today has been easy. Some Wimbledon, some NYTimes, some pleasure reading, some bookbinding.

I laid out, printed, cut, folded, covered, and tied 10 miniature matchbox books: Sunday Fat Cats. While these are fun to make, I don't much like the box insert. I can't cover it because the paper would make it too thick to slide inside the top. I can't remake the insert because I don't have paper of the right weight. Bother. We shall see if the teens here for the Young Writers' Conference are interested in making small purchases at Shenanigans.