Katrina-ing

Hurricane Katrina was a long, long time ago. Over three years. I have graduated from law school, moved a thousand miles North, passed the bar, found running, found a church, found friends, decorated an apartment, revisited New Orleans, embraced cooking, built a life since that evacuation. And now, on most days, Katrina is a memory and not a process I'm living through. I'm not "Katrina-ing" anymore, not wondering why or how or shouting angrily at God or redesigning a life out of the bits left behind. But Katrina was a moment, a large chunk of a moment, about a year of a moment that sticks in my head and divides my life into chapters. There is pre-Peace Corps and post-Peace Corps. And there is pre-Katrina and post-Katrina. Divisions of living wrapped up in a life.

Many people up here ask me about Katrina, ask me about New Orleans, wonder aloud why anyone would live somewhere "like that". More than one person has smilingly assumed I was thrilled to be up here as opposed to "down there", thrilled to have found the light evidently and moved away from that scary, sunken city. While such assumptions offend me to no end, they don't hurt like they used to. I was so, so disappointed in myself for not being strong enough to stay. I was quick to attack those who spoke disparagingly of my darling, battered city and quick to defend what I abandoned. I realize now that New Orleans, leaving Her, was something I felt I needed to be forgiven for, which is silly.

I haven't thought about Katrina in awhile. I try not to. I think of and miss New Orleans daily. But Katrina I try to ignore. However, I saw a movie last night (The Curious Life of Benjamin Button) that brought her home. Seeing all of the New Orleans footage was wonderful, loving those streets again, remembering those balconies and that river and that streetcar. But the last scene of the movie shows a large, beautiful clock in a warehouse as it is flooded by Katrina's waters. And for a moment in that theatre I could not breathe. The walls closed in, my face went numb, and I felt my heart stutter. For a split second I felt every inch of water that crept into my building on State Street, saw the windows of the Delachaise shatter, saw the water line, breathed that horrible death smell, stared at my perfect pink bike twisted and gnarled against my house, wondered if the heavy oak that was left leaning against our roof would break through my bedroom, picked up the stacks of poems and stories destroyed by the window I left open, threw out the molded furniture, dry heaved on side steps as we cleaned out the freezer, walked along a street-a million streets-where noone lives anymore, saw the houses, all those pretty houses, wondered how many were dead in each attic.

It was just a moment. But it made me want to hold New Orleans in my hand, sing her to sleep, smile at her and how far she has come. To be so bruised, so destroyed, and to have regained so much...I was proud to have known her, pre-Katrina, as she knew me. And I am proud that we both emerged from that deluge, shaky but assuredly standing.