So, I got back to New Orleans yesterday. There weren’t any parades to herald my return. My house hadn’t been festooned with garlands, or even toilet paper. But the hounds were overjoyed to run in what’s left of the garden. I suppose that’s something.

Frankly, I hadn’t known what to expect. Despite my strong feelings for the city, what drew me back were the facts: I knew I wanted to continue living in New Orleans, I knew I’d been imposing on friends for many weeks, I knew my electricity was on and that water was drinkable, I knew my house wasn’t going to tidy itself. I added all those up, and logically it made sense to head home. I guess that’s how I make most decisions–I figure out what’s sensible and the emotional stuff usually follows.

Last night, the emotions followed. The wi-fi at my house wasn’t working, so I schlepped my laptop to Mimi’s to check email over a beer or two. When I arrived, the place was mostly empty (it was around 5pm, and for some reason, they’d just opened the doors), but as the sun sank lower and lower into the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen, people began filtering in. I watched from the corner of my eye as friends who hadn’t seen one another in nearly two months hugged and kissed and asked the same set of questions again and again and again. There was a palpable feeling in the place, and the only word to describe it was giddiness. We were happy to see one another, happy to see the beginnings of normalcy, and most of all, happy to see a damn good beer menu.

Of course, being the good Jew-in-Training that I am, I couldn’t watch all the goings-on without feeling a twinge of guilt–survivor’s guilt, to be precise. I knew that while people in my neighborhood were all smiles and toasts, just ten blocks away, folks didn’t have such luxuries. And as much as I’d like to shut all that out of my mind and focus on me, me, me, it ain’t gonna happen. Not just yet. As my daddy might say–and often did, over the course of last weekend–we’ve all got a long row to hoe.

I was very bolstered yesterday to receive in the mail one of those “FAITH” T-shirts the Saints started promoting back during the summer. I’m a Saints fan and have been since I was about 12 or so, but now this simple, stupid, jingoistic sports slogan has become so much more than just an emblem of supporting an injured, homeless group of overpaid athletes who are now all of 2-4 on the season.

I’ll be exploring church when we return, likely slowly at first. I have never lost my faith in God or in the divinity of Jesus Christ. But, for a long time, I lost my faith in man to interpret or otherwise define the message. I’ve learned It was a stupidly placed faith and I’d been missing the larger point — that one should lead with their heart and not their intellect.

With all that has happened over the past eight weeks, in New Orleans and within the family, I’ve found that faith is what has kept me going. Faith in how wonderful people can be, faith in overcoming difficult reality and faith in my own abilities and choices.

It all blends in together, particularly now that the brick-and-mortar work of cleanup and reassembly of a city faces us. I have no illusions about how open and raw our emotional wounds and how difficult our physical challenges are going to be.

But I have faith we can accomplish things well.

Since I got back to town I’ve found myself caught up in rollicking emotions.  More than once I have talked with people who were visibly overwrought.  Understandably, many people are not coping well.  In one sense, Katrina was a destroyer of assumptions, which is the fragile soil upon which many hopes and dreams are built.  But Katrina destroyed property too.  Over time, hopes and dreams find their way into the crevices of a home and become part of its physical structure.

Obviously, a home is not ‘an assumption.’  It’s a place where you relax in a familiar chair.  It’s a place with treasured pictures and carefully placed mementos.  It’s a place where lines are drawn on a doorway to mark the height of children at various ages, the low lines uneven because small ones refuse to stand still.  Those markings have now been replaced by the dirty but steady lines created by flood waters. 

One can’t help but notice that hope is marked unevenly.

Some people who return from surveying their houses look like their spiritual back was
broken, snapped like a twig.  You hear people say that they just can’t take anymore.  They say this as they pack their remaining belongings on their
way out of town. Some people leave quietly, almost shell-shocked. Others are flat out pissed off.

Katrina has magnified everything, especially our emotions.  This can be bad or good, depending on the emotion.  For example, any sign of optimism invokes cherished pride, much like the finger painting of a six year old child.  A simple thing like the return of mail delivery (even if it’s unpredictable and sporadic) becomes a reason to celebrate.

Yes, there has been devastation and misery, despair and ruin.  But there has also been spirited laughter.  It’s not easy to drag a large refrigerator out into the street, especially when it reeks of the worst assemblage of vile stench ever created on this planet since grotesque organisms first bubbled up from the primordial soup.   And yet, after this unpleasant labor, many people take the time to inscribe their fridge with off-beat observations.  A friend of mine told me about driving into a subdivision on the Northshore and finding a house surrounded by criss-crossed pine trees, shattered pots and plant remnants.  The homeowner had spray painted a large plywood sheet with orange lettering and laid it in front of one of the toppled trees.  The sign read: "Garden of the Month."

If you want to make money in New Orleans open a restaurant. And don’t worry about coming up with a name.  All you need is a sign that says "Now Open", or one that says when you will be opening (this can be something you just spray paint on your boarded-up windows). Many restaurants would like to open but can’t because of a lack of waiters and cooks. Food shortages are leading restaurants to serve limited menus, and many will only take cash (because the phone lines used to verify credit transactions are down).  But none of this is keeping people from streaming into whatever eateries are open.

One reason that people are so eager to eat out is they want to get out and socialize with their neighbors while pumping money into the local economy.  Another reason is people are tired of eating MRE’s.  I haven’t eaten any yet, but I’ve got some in my cabinet that I got from some friends.  It’s really interesting to hear people talk about the MREs.  Everyone has their favorite MRE (the spaghetti & meatballs is quite popular) and almost everyone I’ve talked to is surprised at how good they taste.  The meals come with a heating pack that you just add water to and put under the meal.  You have to love the instruction about placing the heat pack under a ‘rock or something.’

If you want to keep up with the latest restaurant openings be sure to check out this website by noted local food critic Tom Fitzmorris.  And if you have any Beef Stew MREs that you don’t want send them along to me.

I was watching the Millions More Movement deal on Saturday. Farrakhan spoke for quite a while and among his more interesting comments regarding New Orleans were:

“We charge America with criminal neglect.” Speaking of the delay in assistance after Katrina.

“We want to know what happened to the levees; we don’t want to guess about it and we don’t want to be guilty of following rumors.” This is only interesting because it implies that something other than a Category 5 Hurricane hitting a Category 3 designed hurricane levee caused the breeches. Maybe he means besides the nearly 30 ft storm surge and the 200 mph winds. I can�t be certain. It was less severe than some of his outright speculations on the subject in the last few weeks.

I�ve always been interested in Rev. Farrakhan and I try to see his speeches whenever I can. He�s an interesting figure in contemporary culture. I�ve never found him to be a particularly eloquent speaker and I certainly don�t agree with much of what he stands for. But then he isn�t speaking to me at all and his message isn�t for me. He does have some ideas that I think are worth listening to � these ideas are scattered in with the deservedness of reparations for slavery and his disestablishment rants. For instance, he called again for a unified nation of Africa which I think is a fine idea. Logistically and culturally difficult, and I don�t expect to see it in my lifetime, but it is still a great idea and I�m glad someone is putting it out there. He also called for the government to formally apologize to Native Americans. I�m not sure what that would do, exactly, but I do think it would be a nice gesture. Such an apology could, however, be used as leverage in the litigation process if my understanding of the law is accurate. He denounced George II and the War in Iraq but I�m not going to give him too much credit for that since that�s an easy one.
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I’ve been back in the city for 7 days now and I’ve wanted to blog about it. Somehow I couldn’t. Things are good, at least Uptown. In Lakeview they’re bad. Soul-wrentchingly depressing. In New Orleans East, Chalmette and St. Bernard it’s gritty dusty scene from an ‘end of the world’ science-fiction movie.

There is no longer any fiction in New Orleans; there is only truth. And the truth is different for everyone, and it is the same. Everyone who lived in this city faces the truth that the city has been crippled. It was put in a strange-dimensional washing machine for 12 hours when Katrina hit. Followed then by a chaotic rinse cycle of rumors and half-baked notions (people shooting at rescue workers, people eating their young to survive). Now we are at the end of the spin cycle. Life is becoming familiar again. At least for some of us, those who can return to their homes and live within the part of the city that is still able to sustain communal life.

I went jogging this morning in Audubon Park for the first time since the Sunday before Katrina hit. The jogging path is much different now. Tree limbs are everywhere. And the trees look like Godzilla came through and smashed the tops off. No, the jog through Audubon Park is not quite the same. No more dappled sunlight.

If the sunlight represents the truth of this city’s state of being then it is fitting that the sunlight be intense and unfiltered. When I finished jogging my friend Vincent asked me how the jog was. I told him it was sad. He then asked what I meant by that. I thought about it and replied that perhaps ’sad’ was the wrong word.

He asked what the ‘right’ word was. I thought some more and realized that there was no ‘right word.’ The best I could come up with was an image. The city now is like one of those friendly three-legged dogs you see in an unfamiliar street. It’s not sad exactly because the dog is happy and coping and you know that it is making its way the best that it can. But, it’s, well… you know: not cheerful, either.

I plan to write more about New Orleans in the next days. I have the material written out, but I need to figure out what I really want to say. There is a lot to say about this city and the people who are here now. Mostly, it’s good. People are eager to rebuild and to make the city vibrant. But not everyone who wants to be here can be. Many people have lost their homes, their jobs, or their will to return.

New Orleans will never be the same. And yet, at the same time, it will always be the same. Is that a contradiction? Probably, but then so is this city. If you lived here and you understood the city then you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t lived here and want to understand then come see what’s going on. It’s pretty amazing, but unfortunately I don’t even have an image to describe it. All I can say is that it’s worth being close to.

New Orleans is coming back to life. Have you ever witnessed the rebirth of a city? Creation of any kind is very hard to explain, especially when it happens to an entire community. So I won’t try. But if you are interested you should come here and see what’s going on. If you stand perfectly still and close your eyes you can feel the magic flowing in and saturating everything from the deepest soil to the tallest limbs.

Reading the T-P this morning, it appears the only thing normal about New Orleans nowadays is the lack of normalcy (except for the Saints now being 2-4). One example is the appearance of gridlock on I-10 and other major roads at odd times as truck convoys move through or other problems crop up. Certainly understandable, given the situation, and it’s something all of us are just going to have to get used to for a while. Besides, traffic has always been likely to suck between the airport and the Orleans Parish line anyway.

Many of us love New Orleans for this very reason. The sand seems to shift underfoot on nearly a daily basis, given impromptu parades, broken sewer work or other changes. We find other ways to get around or do business. In going back home from Dallas, we’ll likely head down to Highway 90 through Lafayette and Morgan City, then come over to the CCC and into downtown. This would normally be a longer route, but now I’m not so sure, given all the back-and-forth around Baton Rouge. Besides, it’ll provide a chance to go by that excellent BBQ joint near Des Allemands.

How’d Baumer Foods (Crystal sauce) fare in all this? Do we need to buy up what we can to last a while? I note the shelves here have been a little sparse.

It looks like Cox has given me a rare window of opportunity to post something on here, seeing as the internet is somehow working all of the sudden, as if by some stroke of magic. Not sure how long it will last, so I’m typing as fast as I can.

Haven’t posted on here for a while, but the city has sprung back to life in the past week or so. Sav-A-Center and Winn Dixie are open uptown, as are many restaurants and bars. The curfew has been pushed back to 2 a.m. People are returning- some to clean out their places and leave, some to stay. Even my neighborhood is alive with the sounds of people putting everything they owned out on the curbs. I’ve found a place to stay uptown for a few months. Things sure ain’t normal, but the conveniences are coming back more every day. Now that I have internet I feel complete.

So come on back. If you’re looking for a free refrigerator, you’ll be in heaven.

….to a wonderful group who helped us out today. Despite our continued frustration with official channels, we’ve been surprised and amazed over and over by the big-hearted assistance from friends and family. Thank you, YYs, for your love and support.

For those who think I’ve sounded ungrateful at times — you’ve missed the point. We’re plenty grateful, particularly to the many who simply showed up without being asked. It’s been tremendously humbling. But if the official system doesn’t work as advertised, I’m going to say something about it. Just accepting quietly isn’t in my nature, and those who find themselves in a similar situation need to know how things work. Or don’t work, depending.

Richard’s post about going back to New Orleans and saying goodbye to folks who’ve been so wonderful is very well stated. Dallas is a much bigger-hearted city than I remembered and, thankfully, I’ve had the time to begin learning about it all over again.

An Open Letter to the Citizens of Everyplace But New Orleans

Please, don’t hate us.

You see, for nearly seven weeks, we New Orleanians have been dealing with issues of betrayal. At first we felt betrayed by the feds and the governor and our hometown officials. Now, as we begin moving home, we feel betrayed again, only this time the hurt is much deeper, much closer to our hearts, because it’s being caused by our friends and neighbors who have chosen to move on.

Sure, we understand that many people lost everything. We understand that many people weren’t having such a great time before the storm and should’ve left long ago. We proclaim loudly and at every opportunity, “I don’t blame anyone who wants to relocate.” But the fact of the matter is that New Orleans, like any city, is its people, and when people abandon a city, those left behind feel betrayed somehow. It’s made even worse in New Orleans, a city that doesn’t ask for fidelity, but lures you into it anyway.

Today, however, we find ourselves on the other end of the stick. Over the past weeks, you’ve all been overwhelmingly kind. You’ve opened your doors, shared your roads, and although our accents aren’t quite right, you’ve made us feel completely at home. Today, as many of us pack up and move back to our deeply scarred, beloved city, we suddenly feel as if we’re the ones who are doing the betraying. We’re leaving you, our hosts, after we’ve spent weeks getting to know you. Most of us knew the relationship would be temporary, but we’re still sorry to have to break it off.

So please, don’t hate us for abandoning ship. We can’t help ourselves. Besides, we’ll just be a few miles down the road. We’ll write and visit often, I promise. We’ll always think of you like we think of our favorite aunt: we don’t get to see her everyday, but when we do, she makes us feel like we’re family. Like we’re home.

Thank you. For everything.

Sincerely,
Richard