Home Sick Once More...

In about a week it will have been six months since I was last in The Crescent City. At the time that I left in June I expected to only be gone for a month. After that it became impossible to return for a while and I reluctantly settled into the idea that I would have to be away from home for three months or so. At the end of summer it was still obvious that I had no way to return and no place to go once I got there, so I simply sucked it up and put my head into the wind ahead of me, seeking a way to move somewhere without really knowing where that where was.

Now we are coming toward the end of the year once more. A year ago I was in a thoroughly devastated New Orleans with very few resources but with a sense of purpose and a hope for the future. I attended one of the annual Peace Stories concerts with my friend who had only just returned from exile in Houston (the first concert this year is Wednesday night, and I won't be there... but I hope she'll go for me). Last December I spent a lot of time with people who had nothing but hope and a dream, along with a fair amount of anger at the government, to sustain them. Yet, we were making it; we knew things could only get better… Hell, they couldn’t get worse.

But in some sense that is exactly what they did.

Now, a year later, there are far fewer people who have returned to New Orleans than anyone expected, the promised money has yet to be distributed to the people who need it, people who thought they could rebuild are still waiting for neighborhood plans, and insurance companies, and FEMA; many who simply can’t wait have already given up. Harry Anderson, who ran a magic shop and a nightclub in the French Quarter, has packed his bags and left town, my friend who ran the Irish Shop on Toulouse has left for Ireland, another friend is house hunting amid the frustration of little progress and less help, and when I was in Ohio a month ago I heard the story of a woman who had just accepted $30,000 for her house (about 15% of what it was worth) because she simply couldn’t hold out any longer. You can bet that someone with the resources to wait things out is going to make a boatload of cash on that deal!

Mardi Gras season starts in just over a month (when the 12th Night Revelers celebrate on January 5th) and it seems to me that this year’s Mardi Gras is going to be far less festive than the one – so controversial in its own right – last year. Despite what many people thought, last year there was a reason to celebrate, if for no other reason than the fact that we had survived. Like it says in Randy Newman’s song of that other great flood, they had TRIED to wash us away but we were still hangin’ on. Right now it’s looking like that sentiment might have been a mite premature. Any way you cut it, the road back is going to be a lot longer (and a lot rougher) than any of us first imagined. In fact that road seems to be getting longer and rougher by the day… even the street signs are screwed up.

There are, of course, people in New Orleans sticking it out, fighting it out, pulling it together and holding on to hope, but (and for me this is the most difficult part) I am not one of them.

I miss it… I pine for it… I want to help with the work and join in the celebrations. Despite every bit of progress and every moment of hope, every day I find another piece missing from my heart.

I want to go HOME for Christmas.