I've often kept a journal. It's helped me keep focus when life's day to day chaos kept me clawing for solid ground.
I'm creating this blog as an outlet, primarily for myself to have a safe haven to go to away from loved ones to share moments of pure joy, exhaulted pleasures, share my own bewilderment at what continues to pass for normal in our society, to share humor-which we need more of I'm convinced, a place to release and unload my frustration, my hurt and anger, rage even - because it is an emotion that is so much easier and safter to have than pain...but the emotion that I find that is mine more than any other lately it seems is...guilt.
Seems I take on guilt rather readily in my life. I always have. It's a trait I recognize in myself and have tried to overcome, as I know it is not a healthy one when taken to extremes, or when taken and the guilt is not yours to take, but it is still there and I seem to possess it none the less.
The latest dose of guilt I've been feeling has been hitting from all sides, and a great deal of it comes from my city's recent disaster...Hurricane Katrina.
I am not a "native born New Orleanian". My family is from the northern part of this beautiful state, but I was born in exile in the desert-where nothing was green. While that part of the country was good to my parents, I longed for trees and "green stuff".
As a child, I remember my first visit to New Orleans to visit great aunts, and even at that early age, I was with the old New Orlean's style homes and . Those tall ceilings, crown mouldings, hardwood floors that just begged for sock covered feet to run and slide down their long halls... I didn't know the names of the styles, "shotguns, , ,", I just knew that I had to have one when I grew up!
As I said, my parents' business was good to them and consequently, I benefited as well. As I grew up, I traveled all over the world, spending many conferences and vacations here in New Orleans, but nothing could ever touch my heart like this city.
So in 1999, I finally moved here, with the dream of getting my own old style house in an old neighborhood, with similar homes around me. I dreamed of being able to walk to little bistros for either a glass of wine or maybe a cup of coffee, stop, sit outside and enjoy my city while watching the people pass by. Being that my first major in collage was to be art, and that I still love the smell of oil paints and linseed oil, I reveled in living in a city so rich in it's history of artists and galleries knowing how I could entertain myself for days, nay, weeks on end, just browsing galleries and antique shops. And that I am a jazz and blues aficionado, that had also come to love the likes of Dr. John and the Radiators and their funkiness many, many years before moving to New Orleans and attending my first Jazz Fest (which incidentaly, always seems to fall on or around my April 24th birthday-what a totally and now traditional way to celebrate it).
I even love the smell of my city, and strange as that my sound...it gets even better the closer I get to the French Quarter. It becomes even more heady. It's a rare mixture of the and french cuisine cooking, the totally brain inoculating liquors found sold all up and down Bourbon Street to the tourists, to the resulting trash on the streets before being picked up after everything is closed, to the strong incense now being sold in the French Market by people who look like they come from an even more desert than where I was born. My God, I love this city! I often ride the Harley just to soak the city up in all my senses.
Now it took me 10 months, 2 weeks and 6 days to find a house that my, at that time boyfriend, Pat, and I could agree on. Even though I was buying the house, I valued his opinion...well, except the parts about how "I didn't need to buy in New Orleans or in Orleans Parish because of the taxes being so much higher than in Jefferson Parish or St. Tammany Parish", and how "I should look in Metairie" where his parents had built a beautiful home some 30 years ago, or in "Slidell, where the crime rate is so much less, and the prices are better." Yes, he made good arguments, problem was...they weren't New Orleans...they weren't my dream.
Pat did have other good ideas however. He told me he would move wherever I wanted to go even if it was into the St. Thomas Street Projects (I think secretly, he feared that I really would find a house across the street from them). His one request that he really was going to insist upon, however, was that he would really like off street parking.
Well, we finally found our double shotgun and it does have off street parking, and as luck would have it, it is located only blocks away from what was once known as the St. Thomas Street Projects, but what is now the site of a Wal-Mart
Pat and I have been together for going on seven years now, and we married over 3 years ago. True to my love of this city and it's old world charm, we said our vows on the steps of an old antebellum home that had been completely restored on St. Charles at Avenue Plaza Hotel, out by their pool. Most people don't even know it exists, but a very dear friend of mine, Barry Soileau, turned me onto it, as his hair salon used to be at "APS" before he moved off to the Big Apple and really made it big.
I'll skip alot of other details that went on the years between then and now, but I think you can get a feel for what this city means to me.
That brings us to Friday, August 26, 2005. I'd been sick for a couple of days after a sales rep had brought some food to my newly opened hospital, where I was the Director Of Nursing, to smoozh us. I hadn't been able to keep anything on my stomach for two days and...well, lets just say I had ALL the symptoms of food and leave it at that, shall we?
My daughter was working that weekend at the Hyatt, so she brought our grandsons by before going to work. Hurricane Katrina was brewing in the gulf and according to forcasters, we were right in her sights, so Pat was trying to get his mother, who is in the advanced stages of , squared away before he could get our house ready. This is no easy task because we have ten feet tall windows and doors if you count the transoms, and add that our house is raised, requires lifting the plywood up on a 12-14 ft ladder. Nope, not too fun. (I want shutters for Christmas.) We thought for a while the storm might turn like it always does, but Pat said something was different this time and he wasn't taking chances.
My daughter would be lined up to work at the Hyatt and Entergy was right next door so they would have power no matter what, plus, that is where Mayor Nagin was going to go, so she felt good about it and planned on taking the boys and her pet ferret and our pet sugar gliders with her, since they had cleared pets to come with employees who were working through the storm. She had also gotten a friend, Lori, to agree to leave her home in Chalmette and come and stay with her, who would watch the boys while she worked. They planned to be there 2-3 days. We were welcome to stay also.
Luck was on our side and we'd managed to get all the patients out of my newly opened hospital because of routine discharges, and even though we expected new admits as a possibility, everything started being prepared for the storm, and we weren't going to be actively seeking new patients.
Saturday, August 27, 2005 came. My stepson, Wesley, came over and helped Pat get all the windows boarded except the front and glass sliding doors, then he had to leave town. I was still sick, but my daughter, Desiree, came and got the boys, Colton and Bo, and the gliders after she got off work, so I helped Pat get the front windows done. We planned to do the glass sliding doors on Sunday morning when I got to feeling a bit better and stronger, as well as Pat. It was such a hot day, we were both drained by the time we finished the front windows. I packed a couple of days worth of clothing for Pat and myself...just in case.
Sunday morning, August 28, 2005, at 03:20am. Change of plans. My boss called. They needed more muscles. My hospital is owned by a corporation that also owns several nursing homes, assisted living facilities, another hospital in a different town, etc. Since my hospital was empty and they had one home with over 184 residents to evacuate and another one with something like 169, could I please come help? They'd already called the NOFD and they could not come, but Acadian Ambulance had sent 3 units and crews to help but it was not enough. The corporation had chartered enough commercial buses for all the residents to be evacuated, and those that could not sit up were being taken by ambulance, along with food, juice, bathrooms on the buses, etc. So much for finishing the glass sliding doors. Pat could not do it alone, and we chose people over property. It was a no brainer really. I took his trans-am and left him to finish getting his mother out and our new puppy and harleys loaded up.
I went to the facility on Haynes Blvd. and after we got all the residents loaded and they didn't have enough nurses to ride the buses, I loaded up and left Pat's car there. When he finished what he had to do, he followed me to Baton Rouge and after we unloaded all the residents there, he and I tried to get back into New Orlean. The Mayor ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city, the 1st in New Orleans' history. It saved numerous lives, I'm convinced, but we couldn't get to the Hyatt, or to the kids. That is when all my mothering and grandmothering took over and made me a nervous wreck.
That brings us to the death and devastation of Monday, August 29, 2005. Hurricane Katrina. Failed levee systems. Rising waters. Oil spills. Lost homes. Lost possessions. Lost lives. Lost relationships. Lost past. Lost history.
For days, we stayed in the dark. Not just in the literal sense, but metaphorically as well, because of our shock, our self numbness, disbelief. I mean, you can see a single house catch fire and be list, maybe even ignite a while block..remember when Magazine Street caught fire when the Animal Clinic caught blaze? We as were in shock and that was just part of a block, but it was close to home...so close to home. How could it not be contained sooner? Could we learn from that? Remember? And now, here we were being told that over 80% of our city was and as many as 10,000 dead were possible in New Orleans alone. And we were alone. This had other towns, like Waverly and all along the had been affected. It was too immense to grasp.
Celebrities were coming. Matthew MaConnaghy, Julia Roberts, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, New Orleans' own Harry Connick Jr., Winton Marsalis, Oprah did a 3 day special on us! We were in trouble.
President Bush made something like 8 visits. Why just last week, Prince Charles and his wife came to survey all the damage. We are in trouble.
I've tried to give you a little bit of my own history (one reason why this blog is sooooo long) so you would know where part of this is coming from, and though I can't imagine anyone who hasn't at least heard a tiny bit about our struggles down here, I felt like I needed to give this information as a backdrop for where we are at now.
The corporation we work for found jobs, shelters and/or rooms for all of it's employees that lost their homes. The corporation has also brought in FEMA and Red Cross people to the workers so that they didn't have to go and stand in any lines. They also helped those that qualified to get food stamps, and whatever other assistance they needed. They have bided some farewell as they have moved on, and yet others have pledged to stay and return to New Orleans.
I'd mentioned my guilt earlier. You see, my house survived. Well, we had some interior wall and ceiling damage, a downed fence and a few other minor things, however the most rancid thing I've ever come across (even when I worked years for the Office Of Medical Investigators in New Mexico) were the two fully stocked refrigerators and one upright freezer we had not been able to empty after I got the call from my boss that Sunday morning. Whew! Gases had built up in the freezer so badly that the door had blown open and food had sprung out onto the floor on it's own, as though they'd come into their own life.
In the over a month of no power and feeding off the rotting seafood and meat (Pat had just loaded the freezer the week before with 80 stuffed crabs and 60 stuffed merlatons and 40 pounds of shrimp for us and for my mother in New Mexico...not to mention a couple of cases of steaks I had just bought...I have to stop typing now, to wipe the tears)Anyway, the flies had grown so large they needed parachutes to open when they landed in the house. Still, this is where I feel some guilt. I HAVE a house. I HAVE a home that albeit, after much cleaning with bleach and enough incense to come across as an opium den, we will be able to return and live in it, I catch myself starting to complain about the smell, the fact that insurance still hasn't come to look at my missing wall so I don't know if I can begin to do repairs since I've shot a roll of pictures of it and since my climbing utility bills will require a second mortgage if I don't... Then I look around and see that all of my co-workers are actually living at the nursing home I am now having to work weekends at.Some even have their children living at the nursing homes, playing with donated toys. They live here because they have no homes, no clothing other than what was donated to them, no cars because they too had left theirs at the facilities where I had left Pat's and like his...theirs were turned into submarines when the facilities were submerged to the . I fall silent.
Although I've always been a hospital nurse, I find myself no longer the Director Of Nursing at my newly opened hospital, as it was also sunk up to the roof. Now I commute to Baton Rouge on weekends with the promise that someday the corporation will reopen my hospital again, location TBA. That is where more guilt comes in.
I am what I've always considered myself to be a hospital nurse, not long term care. It's just not my niche. But my hours are good and I work just on Sat. and Sundays, so it gives me the week to do what I need to do in New Orleans and to be with my family, and we need each other right now, but still, I am miserable working where I am. It is only the promise of them reopening my hospital that keeps me going. And I feel guilty about being so miserable. Is it just that things are done so differently than what I am used to? I should be grateful for my opportunity, but I can't help long for the comfort of my familiar surroundings of a hospital and more importantly...the comfort of a hospital staff, and yes, even hospital patients.
I think about the fact that I USED to have a nice M-F job, and that Christmas Eve is on a Saturday and Christmas is on a Sunday this year, and now that I am on a weekend gig, how will I get to spend any of that with my family? Will we be in Baton Rouge still, or will we be back in New Orleans, where I could at least see them at night? What about morning Santa finds with my grandchildren? Family traditions? Is this something else that I must now sacrifice? I feel myself becoming angry and then the guilt begins to creep in because I should be happy that I have the blessings that I do, but I can't help myself.
Pat has been taking all of this hard. Not the loss of the city or his car so much I don't think, but the loss of support systems. I don't think he ever really had as much as he might have believed he did, but then, not knowing is sometimes a blessing. When we don't have to test our theories, we can sometimes rest easier.
I think life is made up of 3 Important "P"s..."Priorities, Perceptions and Presentation" When you think about it, everyone is defined by their priorities, but they don't always have the same perception on a matter and two people can say exactly the same words but have it come across as totally different ways, depending on their presentation.
One of Pat and I's bonds is that family has always been a priority. , not everyone feels that way, and they put possessions first. We both find ourselves bewildered each time this happens.
I will miss some of the lost relationships that are a casualty of Hurricane Katrina, like my friend, Nicole, who has relocated to some country named Texas, to start her life over with her husband Rick, an attorney, and their tow girls, that I will now miss getting to watch grow up and all those other firsts...1st day of school for Callie, Emma's first boyfriend and date, 1st time Mama has to take them shopping for prom dresses, and I find myself feeling guilty because I know I should be happy that they have found a beautiful place to live, but I just want my friend "HOME".
I will miss my relationship with my friend Leslie, who also went to that country, only as a pitstop before she goes on to Canada. Leslie, who will continue to raise her children alone , go to school and who is one of the most people I have ever known or worked with. I feel the guilt creeping in again.
I will even miss Paul Accardo, the familiar face with the NOPD that you saw on the news anytime there was a tragedy or shooting. A tremendous loss, not just to NOPD but to the city of N.O. as well.
And I miss the relationship with my city. My New Orleans will never be the same . The people have changed. Not all of it is bad, mind you, it's just not the same, and I think we fear uncertainty. Every street you go down has a pile of debrid on the sidewalks and street in front of the housed. Piles of broken furniture, cabinets, pulled up carpet and paddings, mattresses, morter work, bent pieces of metal, duct taped refrigerators, and freezers line the streets and neutral ground like they are new forms of lawn furniture. Cars and windows on homes are marked with graduated white water lines while have the same color brown lines chowing water levels that went anywhere from a foot to the eaves of some properties. Huge "X"s are painted in paint with markings to indicate dates and findings on if anyone or if a body or"SPCA" 1-cat or 2-dogs if need be. The smells I once loved in my city have evolved. The first couple of weeks in Sept. are hard to describe. I'm not sure I should even try. Now it is better, but some areas are overwhelming with the dankness of mold and mildew.
The downed tree limbs have for the most part been cleaned up and now there are just a couple of huge jump spots on the I-10 West Florida Blvd Exit and Exit. There are probably more but those are the ones that I have seen.
Traffic is a nightmare. It is a cross between Christmas time shopping and evacuation. It's that bad. With so many people gone, I was amazed, but then when you figure the hours that stores are limited to being open because of the limits of workers they have and top that off with the limits of what areas have stores open...I guess it makes sense. Stores and gas stations close early, usually by 7pm, so everyone has to plan ahead, but still it's better than just after the storm. There is also a curfew still in effect in Orleans Parish.
It's strangly quiet on our street at night now. I was up at 2:00am the other morning, and it was silent. No cars, no one was walking down the street and talking as in all the years before. In the first week, it bothered me. I'm starting to get used to it now. Next week, I might even enjoy it.
Well, this one has been long, but it was because it is a first one.
Posted by irishchannelrn
at 12:01 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, 4 January 2006 3:53 PM EST
