Be A New Orleanian Wherever You Are

The radio played Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” I started to cry waiting for the red light to change. It’s been ten years to the day since the Friday night a group of us ate dinner at G.W. Fins, drank the champagne of beers out of plastic champagne trays (Miller Hi-Life for the uninitiated) at Lucy’s Retired Surfer Bar before ending the night in the courtyard of Pat O’s. We teased our friend about having to go to the bank’s recovery center the next day. He worked in IT for the bank and always had a trip to Shreveport when there was a storm in the Gulf. 

Have I changed since then? Perhaps. Defintely. Not at all. I have a new career, a child, lived in four more places, but I still can be the same person who drove out of New Orleans on the Saturday of August 28, 2005 with three days worth of clothes, my husband, my West highland terrier –Cole  (for John Coltrane), and my wedding album in my overheating car. 

I forgot my toothbrush. It's comforting now to know that I can survive anywhere with very little. Like thousands of other people, we drove to a hotel in Houston, thinking it would only be for a few nights. Unlike thousands of others, we were among the lucky ones. Our apartment was virtually undamaged and I had a job. The bank I worked for had a place for me at work by 9:00 a.m. on Monday morning, figuring out how we should talk to our customers. We all thought we'd dodged a bullet. Then, I heard someone yell, "The levee's gone." I popped my little gopher head out of my cube and looked around. The two others from New Orleans popped up as well. This changed everything. No one was going home on Tuesday.

Because my husband and I lived just over the Parish line, we were allowed back into Jefferson Parish for one day to pick up things from our home. We stopped at the business banking center just outside the city to collect some files and my husband's car - parked three stories up for safety. We walked onto the dark floor and saw light coming from a corner office. "There's power!" I must have said.

"No. That's the sky." My husband answered.

I always go back to that moment when I underestimate life. "No. That's the sky." Life will throw at your more in a day than you could handle when you woke up. By the time you go to sleep, you're better for having had to look at whatever reality the day gave you. The sight of National Guard Tanks and troops on Clearview are my only understanding of what it must be like to live in an occupied territory. Nothing is real and nothing is yours. Everyone is afraid. Many of those men and women had families strewn across the country, lost homes themselves and yet there they were - saving their homeland. To this day, a nation owes them its gratitude. We drove back to Houston that afternoon and stayed until the end of December.

I moved away from New Orleans in June of 2006 for my husband’s schooling. It was the hardest move I’ve ever made. The last night in town, I ate dinner at Jacque’s Imo’s. Jack Leonardi came over to the table, “Ah, the last supper. We’ve had a lot of those,” he said as he scratched his beard. I choked back disappointment and regret. There isn’t a good word to describe what it feels like to leave New Orleans. People have tried. Louis Armstrong “Knows What It Means to Miss New Orleans.” Kermit Ruffins reminds us, “when you’re feeling down and out and there’s no way out, you get dropped off in New Orleans.” But how do I explain this to someone who hasn't’ lived there?

New Orleans is more than a place to me. It’s a Universe. The air in the city, that humid, muggy steam. It’s a ghost constantly touching your shoulders, sometimes suffocating you, sometimes tapping you just lightly enough to know it's there.  There’s music everywhere. It sustains you. But what’s really different about New Orleans is the people. For me, it was the first time I found people I trusted enough to let myself be myself in public. It was probably the only time. It works there because the people I met didn’t simply identify with their work or their accomplishments, they identified with what made them happy – being in a great city, eating great food, listening to great music, and being together. It didn’t matter how much money you made or what car you drove. Somehow we were all in together. 

I remember watching fireworks over the Mississippi River on New Year’s Eve 2005. We came back from Houston that morning darned if we weren’t to start the new year in the place we loved more than anywhere. With each boom, another exclamation point added itself to the rebirth of the place we’d seen take such trauma.  The last six months I spent in New Orleans were among

the happiest in my life. I knew we were leaving and I felt guilty and sad about that but I also let myself say “Yes” to everything the city offered – every festival, every restaurant, every re-opening.

Our bank was acquired by a much larger national bank. We had great laughs when our new boss from far away called to ask me if everyone had the flu? “The Jazz Fest flu.” I replied. It was the local’s Thursday of Jazz Fest. Our office was empty. He was a good man but he’d never be one of us – the ones who stayed until Bruce Springsteen closed out the first weekend – the ones who didn’t waste time arguing about how to recognize Mardi Gras in a national company (it didn’t matter. No one was coming to work that day so policy was irrelevant) – the ones who cannot abide a sazaurac made with anything but Peychaud’s bitters – the ones who think that all anyone in heaven eats is Crawfish Monica. So even though, I miss that city that care forgot, I am lucky. My life is blessed with the ability to “Be A New Orleanian Wherever You Are,” and to know exactly what that means. 

Perhaps my greatest honor, was bringing my own child back to the place I love so much. She was four and thought Mardi Gras was a party the city put on just for her. It was my birthday so I told her, "No it's a party they put on just for me. And the whole world too." Many of my friends in Northen California raised an eyebrow, "You're taking your child to... Mardi Gras?" "Yes." I replied. New Orelans and Katrina taught me not to explain. Those who need an explanation will never understand and those who don't understand already. She sat atop her father's shoulders collecting throws, she saw the white tiger at the Audobon zoo, she played with the children of my dear friends and she learned to love a place much earlier than I ever did. How lucky she is that the city picked itself up and made a path out of the flood water?

An Apology To My Grieving Mother on Mother’s Day

Dear Mommy,

I finally realized that we grew up with a similar but different struggle – I without a father from the age of eight and you without a mother from that same age. You go through every Mother’s Day not only as my mother, but also as a daughter looking out on the horizon wondering about your own.  The word unfair is insufficient. While I was busy missing Daddy, you endured missing him without your own mother. It seems safe to guess that my own loneliness, overwhelming at times, is nothing compared to yours.

A couple of days ago, I called you for help with a parenting problem. That’s not true; I called to whine. My own daughter checkmated me when she used scotch tape to create a human-sized spider web during a time-out in her room. You spared me whatever judgment I deserved and just listened. That’s not something I’ve been very good at doing for you. Who did you call when I had a tantrum?

For over 35 years, you protected the bond between us even when I fought against it with ever fiber of my being. I want you to know that I understand why you hold on so tightly. I am sorry that you had to endure my pushing away from you like all children do when so many others left your life too early.

Perhaps I finally grew up the day you took me to Brooklyn. You showed me the house where your mother grew up, her family’s shop, and her high school. It is not lost on me that it’s the same one where you were a student teacher.  At Holy Cross cemetery, as my feet crushed pure snow on my walk to our family plot, I expected to feel some intense emotion related to my own life. All I felt was sad for you and embarrassed for me. Sad because I never thought of you as being sad, but you must have been. Embarrassed because I never thought of how we share not only the hurt of losing Daddy but of being without a parent for most of our lives.  I saw your strength but not your pain.

When you told me about the day your mother died, you said, “I remember sitting in a chair in the living room. The doctor walked out the front door. Our house was silent and dark. No one told the children. I knew my mother was dead. It was another time and adults behaved differently toward children.” You were alone with that knowledge. If I could change anything about your life it would be to go back to the moment and tell you that you will be loved in your life. You are loved.

I contrast that with that February morning the phone rang in our apartment.  New York Hospital called to say that Daddy died. You hung up the phone, looked me in the eye, and said only the truth, “Daddy died. Now that it’s just you and me, that means that you are the person in the world I love more than anyone else.” After that, we laid in your bed for what seemed like hours. We respected each other’s silence, but we did it together.

I think of the many days we drove along the beach, together but silent. My favorite day was when I was in middle school. Somehow I managed to suspend being a thirteen-year-old girl and return to a semi-human state for an entire Sunday in early spring. You parked the blue Volvo at the deserted public beach.


When we reached the top of the stairs, it started to rain. We stood on benches under the partial cover of a wooden lookout tower. After a few minutes, we stepped out into the rain, looked at the grey ocean,  and let the rain and sea spray wash our ancient hurts.

Yesterday, it rained during my own daughter’s softball practice. Like you and I, all those years ago on the beach, she looked up at the sky, closed her eyes and let the water wash over her. When I felt the rain on my skin, I missed that day. I hope she'll never have the kind of pain I've known but if she doesn't she'll also never know the bond that such pain creates.

“My favorite smell is rain-air,” she said.

“Me too.” I said.

So after all this time I’ve spent thinking about the smells that remind me of Daddy, I didn’t realize who my favorite smell reminds me of. The smell of the air just as it starts to rain is the smell of my connection to you. It will always be my favorite. Happy Mother’s Day. I love you.

Love,
Kate

Did I Just Teach My Daughter to Blame the Victim?

I love the expression, “It floored me.” That’s probably because parenting floors me. All the time. One moment my daughter floors me by saying the wisest thing I can imagine. The next she floors me again by following it with a stunningly childish refusal to eat (anything, ever). Or so it seems.

A few months ago, she floored me when she responded exactly as I imagine my father would have. She reminds me of the sense of right and fairness my father taught me. I have long since buried that sense under a cynical brand of pragmatism that doubles as a shield to any blow the world hands me.

About a boy in her class she said, “He pinches me when we line up and I don’t like that.”

“So what can you do about it? What choices do you have?”

“None.”

“None? You could step out of line. You can tell him to stop. Use your words.”

“Mommy, I tried using words. He doesn’t stop.”

“Why do you stand near him?”

“Well, I like to be at the front of the line. So does he.” A very clear picture of The US Congress immediately comes across my mind.

“Is being at the front of the line worth getting pinched? You could stand somewhere else.” When I was a child, this solution would have been obvious to me. The front is a battle not worth fighting.

“Mommy, that’s not fair. I should be allowed to stand anywhere in line without worrying about being pinched.” In her words, I heard echoes of my father, for whom the time and place for for justice were always right now and right here. At first, I worried that she will never manage in a world constantly demanding compromise.

What message am I sending her?

Should a woman have to worry about what she wears when she goes out, lest she ask to be raped? Should a woman endure catcalls on the sidewalk simply for walking? Should a woman fear walking under a street light with a blown bulb? Should a girl walk through a high school hallway wearing a backpack so her bra strap isn’t snapped? Should a child hand over her lunch money to a bully?

Anyone should be allowed to wear what they want to, when they want to, wherever they want to. Moreover, no woman should worry that someone will blame her if some harm befalls her when she does.

At five, Ellie knows that her safety in the world is a basic human right and expectation. I hope I never teach her that the victim should have or could have anticipated their treatment. What’s more terrifying is that I think I almost did.