Continuity

It's an emotional morning. Like most of us, I find myself replaying personal memories from two years ago today. I woke up on the floor of a gym in Alabama where I watched Katrina come on shore on a big TV. It missed us. I saw it happen. I started to get an inkling of how bad things might be in the middle of the day when I heard about the damage to the Superdome. It wasn't until that evening.. and really on into the next day.. that the severity of the levee breaches became clear.

On the drive up to Nashville I had no idea how long I would be away.. that when I got back home it would be a home without Consuela.. that when I got back to work it would be without Daisy... without the building I worked in...

All of this plays in my mind as though it were yesterday. Maybe if I had been obsessively counting the days, I would have a less warped sense of the passage of time since the flood. Maybe not. Two years later life continues to stand still as it happens. Maybe some of the more talented writers on your NOLA blogroll can explain why that is. Just know that the events of that day are so tied to the events of every day here that.. it can sometimes seem like one... really ... long.. day.

This puts me in mind of the discussion last weekend during the RT2 writer's panel. It was generally agreed that while writing in and about New Orleans today it is difficult to avoid the fact of the Federal Flood, the writers on the panel took pains to make it clear that we are not "defined" by it. I took this to mean that since life in this "part of the world" did not begin with the flood, it's not a very good starting point from which to write.. particularly fiction.. about us. I imagine this is part of the reason why titling a cop drama about New Orleans, "K-ville" strikes a discordant note with many of us.

In truth, the matter is more complex. The fact of the event influences every aspect of our lives today, but those lives were shaped and defined long before the event happened. The way it affects us is more a function of who we were to begin with. In a sense, this flood, and its never-ending stream of accompanying storylines is perhaps more defined by us than we are by it.

As someone who reads and writes primarily about politics, I find this to be especially true. While the flood and its after-effects are THE issue locally, the politics itself is still driven by the same rules, trends, alliances, prejudices, and influences that existed before. Maybe not enough has changed to placate the reformers, but I manage to see this as a dismal comfort of sorts.

I imagine that observers of everyday life in New Orleans perceive similar patterns of continuity. We are not so different than we were prior to 8/29/05. For example, the last thing I wrote here before the flood was a post titled, "I Must Be Hungover". If that doesn't tell you how little has changed, I don't know what does. It is this continuity that reminds us that while we are still listing on a sea of warped time, we are still in possession of the means to regain our bearings... such as they are.

Maybe we are not OK.. but then maybe we never were. At least we are here wherever or whenever that might be.