EXCERPTS FROM MY ONLINE JOURNAL DURING AND POST-KATRINA\r\n\r\nAUG 29th, 2005\r\nSubject: alive and well.\r\nTime: 01:47 am\r\n\r\n...and staying in Houston at my mom\'s house. The boyfriend\'s with me too.\r\n\r\nI\'m nervous as hell and wishing I hadn\'t packed so hastily. Of course I couldn\'t have brought everything, and I got the important stuff-- computer, teddy bear, boyfriend... loved ones are safe. that\'s what matters. We got ourselves out. I hope all our friends did too, and those of you who didn\'t, I hope you\'re safe. Gary, I salute you and your drunken nekkidness in Metairie... don\'t die.\r\n\r\nLove to everyone, and cheers to having a home to go back to.\r\n\r\n~S.\r\n\r\n\r\nAUGUST 31, 2005\r\nSubject: In the Aftermath...\r\nTime: 12:27 am\r\n\r\n(Posted as public access so anyone who\'s wondering of my whereabouts can find me, as my phone has only sporadically been receiving calls...)\r\n\r\nI don\'t think there will be a city to go back to. Efforts to sandbag the levees have been abandoned. The pump system is expected to fail sometime tonight. At least ten more feet of water will be in the bowl that is New Orleans by mid-morning. Uptown was dry; it won\'t likely remain that way another 12 hours. My home is drowning. Its remaining citizens are at a primal, Darwinist level. People with no running water are jacking televisions from Wal-Mart. I can\'t even be disgusted with them for their behavior, as they clearly have no idea what they\'re doing or, even if they do, why.\r\n\r\nI fail to see how the city can recover from this. Its economy could barely support it in times of normalcy. How can we expect it to ride out a natural disaster of biblical proportions? Parts of New Orleans are already under 20 feet of water; by morning, it will all be under at least four or five, at most maybe 30. The streets and houses and buildings are marinating in death and raw sewage, and will stew in this filth for an indefinite amount of time, for, as mentioned earlier, the pumps will fail sometime tonight. Whatever remains in our houses will be disgusting. My second-story apartment stands a chance of having something of my former life for me to salvage-- a picture or two, maybe some clothing-- but will it have been soaking in disease-ridden water for all the time it took me to get to it? How much time will that be? A month? Two? Is it even worth going back to check? I don\'t know. Sure, some of those things are irreplaceable. But none are necessary to my existence. I will miss the photographs I should have stashed in my trunk, the artwork into which I poured my being and my time, the fabulous wardrobe I have built for myself over the years. But I can live without any of those things. I have all I need to survive and then some. I have my loved ones accounted for and/or nearby; I have a place to stay; I have food. I also have my computer, journal, and oldest/dearest worldly possession, my teddy bear Radar. I\'d say I\'m in good shape.\r\n\r\nWe all knew this would happen eventually. We all knew, for decades, that if a major hurricane ever hit New Orleans, it would be devastated to the point of utter destruction. But it still seems impossible that such a disaster has actually come to pass.\r\n\r\nI\'m numb. In shock. I haven\'t cried yet. I\'ve barely reacted at all. Just watched the news with my mouth half-open, unresponsive, unmoving. I\'ve held the boy during his tears, which haven\'t spawned even a precursory sting of my own. It hasn\'t hit me yet. It doesn\'t hit me, no matter how much news I watch or how many photos and news stories I pore over online, trying to drill into my head the grim reality of the situation. He\'s to stop watching several times, has had to stop listening to others talk about it, has expressed grief. I can\'t stop watching, and I can\'t grieve. It\'ll come eventually. For now, I\'m in practical, survival mode...\r\n\r\n...I feel strangely liberated in light of this new situation where I have no home, a bag and a backpack\'s worth of stuff, and a surplus of love and opportunity. I believe everything happens for a reason. For me, it\'s a new beginning. I hope the rest of you can find your reason too.\r\n\r\nWith all my love to my friends of a lost city,\r\n\r\n~S.\r\n\r\n\r\nSEPTEMBER 18, 2005\r\nSubject: (no subject)\r\nTime: 11:16 pm\r\n\r\nSo yeah, I haven\'t updated for a while, for many and no reasons. Sorry bout that.\r\n\r\nRight now I am working on finding a counselor. So is the boy. We know we need to get into counseling before the full magnitude of the situation really hits us and makes us crack. We want to be in therapy when that does happen. Cuz we know it will. Really, it\'s starting to hit. And I\'m really worried about him sometimes. I know he\'ll be okay, but he\'s starting to get really depressed and out of sorts. We\'re both pretty spacey, really. I suppose I should be worried about me too. And I am. But I can\'t worry too much because that does neither of us any good. I\'m trying instead to focus on fixing it. Temporarily and long-term. Temporarily, I take time-outs for me when I need it. Like I am doing right now... \r\n\r\n...But I know I need to get into counseling pronto...I\'m getting lonely. I miss my friends. And I know I will continue to miss them, that I can\'t go back to them, that there is no central location anymore where we\'ll congregate every now and then. The city has dispersed, broken, across this vast country. My lil tranny sis is in the Northwest; another close friend is nomadically wandering the West half of the country. Some are in Houston, which is nice. Some are in Chicago. Some are in New York. Tennessee. West Virginia. Florida. Lord knows where else. No one else is here. Just me and the boy and his family. And while I\'m unbelievably relieved that he and I are tackling this together, and that he knows people here so we\'re not completely alone, I still feel pretty alone because even though these people have adopted me, they\'re his, from way back.\r\n\r\nThis isn\'t like when I left Tulsa to move to New Orleans. This isn\'t like anything I\'ve ever done or (hopefully) will ever do again. I can\'t go back for holidays and know most of my old friends and familiar faces will be there too, and we can pass at the coffeeshop or the bookstore or the club and casually catch up and say I\'ll see you next time. I wanted to leave anyway. But not like this. I feel like my life shattered and scattered coast to coast. I wanted a gradual, prepared-for break. Closure. Just what everyone else wanted. I\'m not finding it yet. It\'s too much for me to process to be able to find closure. I\'m scared to try and process before I have a professional across from me to catch and dissect whatever comes out when I do.\r\n\r\nAnyway, I\'ve gone on long enough and have work in the morning. I\'ll try to update more often now that I\'m pirating wireless from my apt.\r\n\r\nLove to all,\r\n\r\n~S.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nOCTOBER 2, 2005\r\nSubject: Some thoughts, transcribed and (added to) from the voice recorder on my phone from my drive home.\r\nTime: 01:54 pm\r\n\r\nI always thought that I would make history, not have history make me.\r\n(Of course, I suppose this makes me realize that history makes us as much as we make it.)\r\n\r\nI can hardly imagine what doesn\'t exist anymore. It\'s not real anymore. I can\'t picture it. Even though I know what it used to be like. Even though it was mine for four years.\r\n\r\nI want it to exist. I want to be able to picture it. I know I can\'t lose it, can\'t let it fade in my memory. It\'s not fair to let that die with the city.\r\n\r\nI\'m almost afraid to go back and see if I have anything left. Because what if I do? Will that invalidate the fact that I still lost everything?\r\n\r\nThe prospect of going back and finding that I\'ve lost no material goods is just as frightening as going back and finding that I\'ve lost everything. Maybe even more so. Because what then? Will I feel guilty that I didn\'t lose absolutely everything, while others did?\r\n\r\nWhat is this luck of the draw, that my house stands untouched on high ground while others\' are 20 feet underwater?\r\n\r\n~S.\r\n\r\n\r\nNOVEMBER 5, 2005\r\nSubject: update. \r\nTime: 06:08 pm\r\n\r\nwent to New Orleans with the boy and my dad the second weekend of October. It sucked. Nothing went as expected. My house was 10x worse than expected (COVERED in mold of the green, black and fuzzy variety) and his was better than expected (minimal mold in the living areas, all of the white and dusty variety. We didn\'t even look at the basement as we knew it was awful). We got too much of my stuff that was salvageable or possibly so (most of it\'s still in bags in the outside storage closet waiting to be sanitized and dealt with. I think much of it will end up at Goodwill-- i was feeling kind of liberated with the lack of worldly items) and, as a result of this longer-than-expected trip to my place and of my dad\'s glaring insensitivity and impatience, not enough of the boy\'s sentimental items. His mom later brought up a lot of his stuff, but missed a few key items and brought a bunch of stuff he really didn\'t want. Oi.\r\n\r\n\r\nDECEMBER 25, 2005\r\nSubject: the weirdest things remind me of Katrina.\r\nTime: 01:20 am\r\n\r\n\"I had no idea you were still dealing with all that,\" she said.\r\n\r\nDaily.\r\n\r\nHourly, even.\r\n\r\nSomeone or something reminds me of things drowned or blown away.\r\n\r\nNot things like houses and trees.\r\n\r\nThings like communities and friendships and energies. Senses of home. Familiarity. The guy with the banjo on Decatur (Mad Mike). The voodoo priest, a.k.a. \"Tha Shit\", on Bourbon with his daquiri and beads, blessing innocent bystanders and then demanding payment for services rendered. The smell of St. Charles in an August rain. The thickness of the air. The mood set by the former two items plus Spanish Moss and oak trees. Those damn spiky caterpillars and their venomous fuzz. The colors. The sounds. The aura.\r\n\r\nThe smells. Good and bad. All heavy. All so much in the grey area between life and death.\r\n\r\nLike the city itself.\r\n\r\nEspecially now.\r\n\r\nThat\'s the home I lost, as I can\'t explain it to outsiders. That is what I grieve, what accounts for the hole in my heart.\r\n\r\nThat is what distracts me and frazzles me and scatters my brain. Smells. Visual reminders. Snippets of eavesdropped conversations. Casual inquiries as to my well-being...\r\n\r\n...You may say that the city is still there. But even-- perhaps especially-- those of you in it know it\'s not the same city it was four months ago. And that it never will be. It is impossible to recreate what has passed; you can only create something new. The New Orleans that is rebuilt will be a New New Orleans. Similar in some ways to the original, but inherently different. Not mine anymore. Not any of ours who have left. Maybe not ours who have stayed.\r\n\r\nGoodnight, my fallen city. May you rest in peace despite the insistence at your resurrection.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nMARCH 31, 2006\r\nSubject: On life since Katrina.\r\nTime: 10:59 am\r\nCurrent Mood: accomplished\r\n\r\nI got an email today from a dear friend, from whom I\'d not heard in at least a year and a half. Needless to say, there was much to tell in my update to him.\r\n\r\nI wrote the following paragraph toward the end, and feel a need to continue it here:\r\n\r\n\"Nothing like getting your life swept away by a hurricane to make you understand what\'s really important. On August 29, I woke up at my mom\'s\r\nhouse in Houston to learn that I had no home, no possessions, no job, no physically accessible social network, no drag show, nothing by which we\r\ntraditionally (and falsely) define ourselves. What I did have was myself, my lover, Radar [my teddy bear and oldest possession], and a picture of Catnip [my deceased kitty]-- I had love. Take away everything, and all that remains is love. This is what I learned. This is how I reconnected with my essence. And although the loss has been inhumanly difficult, I feel like a new, better, whole man. I\'ve found the knowledge I sought in so many ways, so many of them wrong. This is what I looked for on our trips and in the many grams of green. This is what I looked for in school and in quarter rats and in lovers. Who knew that in utter chaos, one could find such peace?\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nJANUARY 28, 2007\r\nSubject: Missing NOLA...\r\nTime: 02:01 pm\r\n\r\nI keep getting vivid and painful memories and cravings for New Orleans.\r\n\r\nLike, the other day, I wanted a warm ham and cheese po-boy from Trolley Stop more than anything in the world. The previous week, it was an All that Jazz from Verti Mart.\r\n\r\nAnd it\'s not just food. In fact, these were really the first food incidents in recent memory.\r\n\r\nEvery now and then-- right after it rains, when the temperature and the humidity are just right-- Dallas smells faintly of New Orleans. And it goes right through me-- takes my breath away and makes my eyes sting.\r\n\r\nSometimes the reminders are impossible to explain. There\'s a drink at Starbucks that reminds me of my last summer in New Orleans, when I was working there at Canal Place. And I\'ll walk into a Starbucks and smell that drink, or order it without thinking, and be flooded with bittersweet memories.\r\n\r\n(Flooded, I say. There\'s another thing. I get very nervous when it rains for too long and the ground stops absorbing water. But that\'s another story. This is about missing New Orleans, not about PTSD.)\r\n\r\nAnd I\'ve been saying since I left that I could never go back, that it would never be the same, that it\'s too dangerous, too dirty, too stagnated economically for me to live in. That there\'s no opportunity for me there. That it was not the healthiest place for me before Katrina, and would definitely not be now.\r\n\r\nBut today, something hit me. I don\'t really know what sparked it or why. But I realized that I can\'t stay away forever. That years from now, when it\'s cleaner and back on its feet, I may have to go back. Because while I can\'t reasonably pursue my education there, I could, after some major reforms to the school system that are, god-willing, at least in the planning stages now, be an educator there. I could teach art at any number of places there. Maybe NOCCA. Maybe privately, in my retirement. But at some point, I have to go back. I think I\'ve finally acknowledged that to myself.\r\n\r\nNOLA has me by the heart. It\'s part of me. And I don\'t think I can reasonably expect never to go back. I don\'t think I could look back on my life on my deathbed and feel that I didn\'t miss something crucial by not going home at some point. I don\'t think I will ever feel really at home until I can walk down the uneven streets in the shade of great-grandfather oaks, feeling the weight of the city in the humidity on my skin, having my senses beautifully bombarded by the smells and sights that are unique to this queer outpost of eclecticism in the middle of the dirty south.\r\n\r\nAnd I can tell myself all I want that it\'ll never be the same, and I\'ll be right. But I\'ll also be making excuses. Because the truth is, some things never change. And while large chunks of it may be in ruins right now; while the whole of it has been soaked in septic water and everyone\'s been battling the Katrina cough for the last year and a half; while the crime rate has skyrocketed and some long-time residents are getting scared to go out at night; while the levees couldn\'t currently hold back a tropical storm; while the economy\'s as bad as it ever was, and the demographics have been altered, and the schools are a mess and everyone and everything is still a little shell-shocked; it won\'t always be so.\r\n\r\nIt takes time to recover from a trauma. And just like a person may not be able to get through the wounds incurred by abuse or divorce or a death enough to find a peace and completeness for years, even decades, after the occurence, so will New Orleans-- and all of us-- need a lot of time, patience, diligence, and love to heal from Katrina. And when we recover, we will not be the same as we were before. But if we do it right, we might be even better.\r\n\r\nMy hope is that once we all heal, I can go back and enjoy my city again, without fear. In a recent post, Mo alluded to New Orleans being like an old lover. How do you trust it again? Would it be the same? Well, in my case, I wouldn\'t want it to be the same. Our relationship had become unhealthy in the months before I had to leave. So much so that I was planning to leave-- just not yet. It is my hope that NOLA and those charged with her care will take this opportunity to better her-- cut her excess baggage, mend her faults, clean her up, and make her a happier and healthier being. And once this happens, I\'ll feel comfortable going back to her.\r\n\r\nUntil then, I wish her well. And I\'ll stay in touch. I\'ll pay her visits once in a while, and we can reminisce about the good old days and share our feelings about the wounds we\'ve suffered since then. We can help each other heal, but as friends. I\'ll stay active in her healng process from afar. I\'ll fight for her. I\'ll support efforts to fix her. And maybe later, when we\'re both in a better place, we can live together again.\r\n\r\nAll that said, I have to wonder if she misses me too?\r\n\r\n------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nI finally visited for the first time since the trip to go through my apartment in May of 2007. It was good and healing, but overwhelming and scary. I was glad to leave that time.\r\n\r\nI visited again in January 2008, the week before Mardi Gras. It was supposed to be a 4-day trip. My co-worker and I drove down from Tulsa, where I was living. I had a beautiful time, and felt truly at home for the first time since Katrina. A few hours before we left (which I didn\'t feel ready to do), I went into Metro Three on Magazine to get a \"Make Levees, Not War\" sticker for my car. I saw the only t-shirt that had ever put my emotions into words: \"I found my heart in New Orleans.\" I nearly cried. The shirt left with me. \r\n\r\nWe drove out near midnight. Outside of Baton Rouge, I hit a piece of debris from a fresh drunk driving accident and spun across I-10. We were fine, but my car was badly damaged on the undercarriage. My friends drove in from NOLA and picked us up. My co-worker\'s mom flew her home the next morning. I stayed with my friend in Metairie. It was supposed to take a week to fix the car. Then two more weeks. And so on, until I had been here for six weeks, during which time I was hit over the head with glaring neon signs that the city missed me and I missed her and we had much to offer each other and needed to be together again.\r\n\r\nI returned to Tulsa the first weekend of March and immediately began making plans to move back to NOLA. \r\n\r\nOn June 2, 2009, I came home to stay. I couldn\'t be happier.\r\n\r\nThat fall, I started in the Teacher Education program at UNO. I\'m in my second year now, and planning to teach in the NOPS school system when I graduate in 2012. I will be among the people making the drastic changes our schools need. I am intimately active in the city\'s healing process.\r\nAnd she is active in mine. \r\n\r\nIt\'s good to be home.