08/29/2025
I wrote this 10 years ago on the anniversary of Katrina. I found myself on your dirty streets alternately perfumed by the stench of rotting garbage, jasmine and sweet olive. My soul was blessed at the age of 19 baptized in the muddy water of the Mississippi.
I left you for a while thinking there was something greater than the sweaty embrace of your August evenings. Then returned again, falling back into things like I never had gone. I knew there had been storms before but in my youth, they were only an excuse for parties lit by candles and lanterns. Ten years ago, it was different though and I was one of the lucky ones. My fences blew over, the roof peeled back slightly but those dark waters never made it to my floorboards.
We came back almost immediately; barbed wire was strewn in our streets like tumble w**d, which we swept aside. There was no power, and at night the stars shone like the ones I had seen in the New Mexico desert. I can still remember the lanky silhouette of my neighbor’s stepson patrolling our street. Arms akimbo, rifle over his shoulder poking up in the dark stillness, it felt like the Wild West.
We shared what we had, the smell of barbeque mixing with the bloated stench that emanated from the refrigerators and spawning trash. The National Guard troops told us that New Orleans looked worse than Iraq. I wondered if anyone would ever come back.
There were hopeful moments as well. I can still see that immaculately dressed drag queen regally negotiating the piles of trash in stilettos, will she ever know how much that meant to me, I almost wept at the sight of her. I decorated the house for every holiday that year, gave out candy to the National Guard troops on Halloween, but there were no children.
I cried every day for 9 months and got pregnant with my first child. I cried every time I heard a brass band for five years. I suppose that I do have a few tears left for today.
I love this city like a woman nearly three hundred and yet sometimes she can pass for thirty. When she is sweet to you it is better than anything, but she can break your heart as well. I am just so happy that her streets are not empty.
