New Orleans living - hard to know where it will take you. This time, it got me up on Signal Mountain with clean air and gaspbreaking views and fallen leaves. The trendy green grocery store in town may have spaces reserved for LEVs - low emission vehicles - but it don't fool me. The newspaper tallies how many public schools can teach Bible, and even the independently-owned used bookstore has rows and rows of Bible Studies and Christian fiction. No doubt it's God's country here, entirely opposite of the way New Orleans holds its spirits. Up on this mountain here, it's as pretty as God Himself. Folks here talk God and walk straight. New Orleans, on the other hand, is a swamped-up mess of trash smells where God wrings out his hand rags. At home, we keep our gods to ourselves but stumble in the streets full of the Holy Spirit.
My neighbor Lauren's boyfriend Trey grew up on the mountain, just outside Chattanooga, and they were headed there for Gustav, with their two trucks and numerous pets. At the last minute, I joined them. We barged out of New Orleans around 2 am last Sunday morning and driving all night through the Louisiana and Mississippi backroads. Trey brought his walkie-talkies to share between the two cars, and practiced his trucker lingo over the crackily lines. 10-10, Momma. Clearin on out. Not long before its batteries died, and we were back to cell phones. Then there was the lost-cat scare, when Trey's ex-wife's left-behind cat Babs had retreated so far into Trey's pile of stuff that he was convinced old Babs decided to try out the wilds of Poplarville. She was found, curled up under the snake's cage. Later that long morning of night, Hwy 11 vanished into the woods and we were forced to join our fellow evacuees on 59 north. I fell asleep for sunrise.
I woke up around 7, ready to drive, fueled by a chocolate moon pie and a cup of gas station coffee. As the drive wore on, I consumed two Clif energy bars, a cookie-dough Frosty with Wendy's nuggets, half a bag of jalapeno potato chips, and one of Lauren's havarti pesto sandwiches in order to stay awake. Just before the Signal Mountain exit, Trey's car ran out of gas and we had to roll downhill and wheel ourselves around to sputter to the closest gas station. That was right around when Lauren got to seeing things, but somehow, around 3 that afternoon, we made it up Signal Mountain.
It's almost a week after our departure, and we know now that New Orleans made it just fine, and even our raggedy-ass neighborhood finally got its power back. This is my second draft of my first blog entry, which I really wanted to write from this mountain. I say this because those bayou spirits know where to send us. We go to the mountain to suck on sassafras roots and wander in the wild magnolia underbrush. Bayou knows that we need the mountain's strength, that we need to remember the nature that shelters and protects, if we are to go back and defend her.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Why I Left New Orleans and Started This Blog Instead
During Hurricane Season, even New Orleanians can lose grip on our famous good life. We drink and eat our way through several months of holidays, then hunker down in the air conditioning to ride out a long, lazy summer of napping and stiff drinks with lime. Like a cat in sunlight, it would seem that nothing could rouse us.
But the daily news loves a good storm, and some years there are plenty. Cue the young, gutsy storm to sweep on stage just in time for Tragedy Anniversary. Past storms flash across the screen, which floods and floods with three-year-old-Katrina water, and next thing you know, the whole city is deserted. Only the essential personnel and the artists - your storytellers and snapshotters - remain: the former grim with duty, the latter near-giddy in the front seat.
I'd toyed with the idea of staying for the show, but it would have involved staying with a man I had dated earlier in the summer. We weren't together anymore, which was fine, but my potential host went from wild-west bravado to panicked weight-shifting within less than twenty-four hours. Before long, his plan to weather it out in the Ninth Ward got revised to getting some rest in a corporate hotel. Clearly unnecessary ballast like myself wouldn't fare well on his rocky ship.
Since the sum total of my provisions consisted of one bottle of cheap chianti and half a container of peanut butter, I considered teaming up with someone else ready for the onslaught. Sure, I could have scraped together some bandages, candles and a few joints to make it through the worst of the storm, but I'd just spent that entire day with a hangover, boarding up windows and moving all of my earthly belongings to waist-level. The nicer items got moved to the neighbor's house. For I don't need the media to tell me that when your house is nicknamed "The Dungeon" and located on a street that floods out during an average rain, you move anything you want to keep. After several hours of hauling furniture and climbing ladders, the enthusiasm it takes to buy enough canned goods and batteries for a killer storm tends to wane. Plus, I didn't have a car, nor did I know anyone I wanted to be trapped with for five days. I was stuck with the one person I did not want to be alone with - myself - so when Mr. Mayor came on decrying the "Mother of All Storms," with the business about Gustav spreading 900 miles wide, I packed my bag.
Don't get me wrong. I wanted to stay and take the opportunity to describe the sound of hurricane-force winds, to walk through streets of sewage, to interview French Quarter drunks. I lived with the Katrina regret that I wasted away the most newsworthy event in my life in front of a television 90 miles away. And this time, I didn't have to think about protecting a car, or a dog, or catering to a worried boyfriend. Gustav would be my storm.
But here's the thing, and listen close: something odd is afoot. True, I was jealous to hear of another writer friend staying to blog through the storm, but when it was suggested to me that I should evacuate because people were tired of hurricane writing anyway, I felt the tingle of relief. I could relax, stay centered, and leave the drama for someone else. After 11 years of living the slow life, practicing yoga asanas, and reading self-help books, I finally let go of the drama. Who would have thought.
Like all cravings, my drama-lust will come again. Don't think I didn't chuckle to myself at the irony: I finally decide I can let the drama alone, and what happens? Nothing. From what I hear, Gustav only took out a few branches and a window or two, at least in New Orleans. People lined up to see a show that cancelled itself.
And so it seems that the most natural thing for a New Orleanian to do is savor the vacation, suck down some cocktails and get caught up on sleep. Live the good life, get some thoughts together, make a statement on the beauty of doing nothing.
But the daily news loves a good storm, and some years there are plenty. Cue the young, gutsy storm to sweep on stage just in time for Tragedy Anniversary. Past storms flash across the screen, which floods and floods with three-year-old-Katrina water, and next thing you know, the whole city is deserted. Only the essential personnel and the artists - your storytellers and snapshotters - remain: the former grim with duty, the latter near-giddy in the front seat.
I'd toyed with the idea of staying for the show, but it would have involved staying with a man I had dated earlier in the summer. We weren't together anymore, which was fine, but my potential host went from wild-west bravado to panicked weight-shifting within less than twenty-four hours. Before long, his plan to weather it out in the Ninth Ward got revised to getting some rest in a corporate hotel. Clearly unnecessary ballast like myself wouldn't fare well on his rocky ship.
Since the sum total of my provisions consisted of one bottle of cheap chianti and half a container of peanut butter, I considered teaming up with someone else ready for the onslaught. Sure, I could have scraped together some bandages, candles and a few joints to make it through the worst of the storm, but I'd just spent that entire day with a hangover, boarding up windows and moving all of my earthly belongings to waist-level. The nicer items got moved to the neighbor's house. For I don't need the media to tell me that when your house is nicknamed "The Dungeon" and located on a street that floods out during an average rain, you move anything you want to keep. After several hours of hauling furniture and climbing ladders, the enthusiasm it takes to buy enough canned goods and batteries for a killer storm tends to wane. Plus, I didn't have a car, nor did I know anyone I wanted to be trapped with for five days. I was stuck with the one person I did not want to be alone with - myself - so when Mr. Mayor came on decrying the "Mother of All Storms," with the business about Gustav spreading 900 miles wide, I packed my bag.
Don't get me wrong. I wanted to stay and take the opportunity to describe the sound of hurricane-force winds, to walk through streets of sewage, to interview French Quarter drunks. I lived with the Katrina regret that I wasted away the most newsworthy event in my life in front of a television 90 miles away. And this time, I didn't have to think about protecting a car, or a dog, or catering to a worried boyfriend. Gustav would be my storm.
But here's the thing, and listen close: something odd is afoot. True, I was jealous to hear of another writer friend staying to blog through the storm, but when it was suggested to me that I should evacuate because people were tired of hurricane writing anyway, I felt the tingle of relief. I could relax, stay centered, and leave the drama for someone else. After 11 years of living the slow life, practicing yoga asanas, and reading self-help books, I finally let go of the drama. Who would have thought.
Like all cravings, my drama-lust will come again. Don't think I didn't chuckle to myself at the irony: I finally decide I can let the drama alone, and what happens? Nothing. From what I hear, Gustav only took out a few branches and a window or two, at least in New Orleans. People lined up to see a show that cancelled itself.
And so it seems that the most natural thing for a New Orleanian to do is savor the vacation, suck down some cocktails and get caught up on sleep. Live the good life, get some thoughts together, make a statement on the beauty of doing nothing.
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