Dangermond.org

NYT quote of the day:
“I thought I could weather the storm, and I did — it’s the aftermath that’s killing me.”
GINA BARBE, of New Orleans.

Indeed Gina, coping mechanisms kick in and help most people endure crisis. As I lay in bed on Thursday morning last week and felt the 4.7 earthquake in San Francisco, I thought eh, are natural disasters stalking me. Later when I was served up my exact words in a painful delivery, I thought manmade disasters are definitely laying in wait for me.

Reading Douglas Brinkley’s The Great Deluge I howled about a man on a roof who Mitch Landrieu was trying to rescue. Mitch said, come down man, we’re here to help you. The guy said, No! I want to be rescued by a helicopter! I relayed this to N and she said, I love this place! Bunch of nutballs.

I walked the Bean late last night – the weather amazingly beautiful since I’ve gotten home – and passed an impromptu party on the bayou – D with her husband the biologist for the Corps (he said the bayou and the lake are the best quality they have been in decades) – they were with friends whose son was fishing – he caught a big perch while I was there and everyone screamed, titillated by a fish. When I walked away from them and got about 100 yards, I heard them scream again.

K the carpenter brought his son back from Houston – they actually live in Michigan – N is a darling boy – when I went by the LaLa after being away K took me aside to say that he doesn’t pass judgment on people and that J – the guy I called a moron – was only being held down by S and that he was behaving accordingly – I didn’t stop to tell him that was all very well if he believed that but I don’t really want a moron working on my house.

I admire altruistic behavior – I just don’t possess it. It’s why I couldn’t become a teacher. In the end, I didn’t want to undo years of bigotry and sexism and racism these kids’ parents had spoonfed them. I have had to overcome my own upbringing and am still working on it – along the way I hope I have helped people understand their own motivations by sharing my experiences – but I have done that through caring not through some higher consciousness that I feel compelled to prostelytize about – thank you K for your insights – I’ll take them into consideration when J installs the next vent so high up in the ceiling that it is a good foot and a half from the lowest rafter.

My job this week is to prepare for a monster marketing trip next week – mentally, physically, and otherwise. It’s also to prep Arlene for her first trip to the Pet Emporium – a kennel – the pokey – oh horrors! It comes highly recommended but I hate putting her in the pokey and thinking about how she might feel abandoned to strangers.

The NYT had an article about the suicide rates in New Orleans – having never contemplated suicide until the last 7 months and then many times over – I can relate – but I thought it was my only personal hell that was making death seem more attractive than life for the first time to me – from the article: “New Orleans is experiencing what appears to be a near epidemic of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders, one that mental health experts say is of an intensity rarely seen in this country. It is contributing to a suicide rate that state and local officials describe as close to triple what it was before Hurricane Katrina struck and the levees broke 10 months ago.”

And in the aftermath Gina we are left to ponder how ephemeral it all really is – and after plunging the depths of sadness we will rise up, wiser and by that, better prepared.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 at 6:29 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.