Luck

As a New Orleanian who lost very little in the hurricanes last year, living in New Orleans is a lot like living in a snow globe that some chubby little kid just can't get enough of shaking. I keep thinking my life is turned all upsidedown, and then seeing that things are in place. Everything feels lost, then I look around and everything is there. My basic storm story shakes out like this: I thought we'd evacuate and come home again a few days later, like always. Then I thought we'd lost everything and that tens of thousands of people died. It turned out not as bad as all that. It was pretty bad, just not as all that. After a while, I knew our house was fine, though my car was with the fishes, and I had lost my job. Then a kind and generous uncle gave us his old Mazda. Then we drove back home, and within 2 weeks I was rehired at my old job. Things went back to normal. I am, officially, not allowed to talk about how weird this feels. People ask me every day, "Did you have any losses?" or "How do you fare?" It would be so much worse if I had a different answer to that question, but to answer, "We were so lucky," feels like a lie. My neighbor put it so well the other day, saying, "I didn't lose much, but my heart sure is broken for my city." I guess that's it, or the closest anyone's come to words for this feeling. I am tethered now, more than ever, to the watery earth of this town. I feel duty-bound to live here -- it rarely occurs to me that I could, in point of fact, live somewhere else. I wasn't born here. My people are spread out around the country. Any other place could just as easily be turned into home. What it would be like to live somewhere where people aren't so busy trying to figure out where their mail is, or at what time of day the lines at the grocery are the shortest, or when the garbage truck will show up next? The thought alone brings with it a wave of comfort. Not because waiting for food, or spotty mail-delivery and garbage service are great tragedies, but because they are constant, throbbing reminders of great tragedies. So it feels, all the time, like something really bad happened. Which it did, of course. But not to me. But it did. But it didn't. And so it goes, back and forth. Shaken. Steady. Shaken. Steady.