School starts tomorrow. I spent the last two days frantically plowing through Q and E's rooms - picture a comic strip with a blur of rotating arms throwing piles of trash and outgrown clothes and toys into various piles, all amidst a flurry of dust. That was pretty much the picture. Now the kids both have tidy rooms and desks with (gasp) enough space to do homework on. They both have clothes to wear until winter, at which point we'll go shopping again. They both have their school supplies either stored away at school in their cubbies or in their packs to take tomorrow. I have lunch supplies stocked in the pantry and fridge. They have their piles of forms filled out and signed (DH's contribution). Do you know he actually made Q read the use of computer rules? He's got to be the only 4th grader in the state who has made his way through that legalese. Me: "Hey sweetie, how's it going with that?" Q: "My head hurts!!! This doesn't make much sense!!" Ha. No kidding.
And the whole time I'm walking around with a pit in my stomach that is New Orleans. I want to throw up. I want to go to sleep and pretend it's not true. Nope. Not possible. You cannot wipe out an entire city of the U.S. in a matter of a day. It cannot be possible that my fellow citizens have been living in a cesspool of toxic, foul water, surrounded by feces and decaying dead bodies. Not possible. Not here. Not today. Not possible that although we have known for years and years that this would happen that we were so surprised by it that recovery efforts were for the most part non-existant for several days. (Several days that meant death for a lot of those folks). We're not this stupid really, are we?
And then we get into the whole blue/red, Republican/Democrat, you/me, finger pointing, it's your fault thing. I'm mad - just like everyone else with any compassion at all. I'm mad and lashing out and because I'm a raving liberal, it's easy for me to find things that the reviled Bush administration has done wrong. I will spout off about it to just about anyone because I am SO MAD. But what makes me even more mad (or maybe just sad is the more appropriate word) is the lack of communication - the failure to find any common ground...the missed opportunity to focus on what is wrong and fix it. No one will TALK to me about this!! I want to know why this isn't the fault of the federal government. TELL ME why this should have been the domain of local and state governments, where they failed. Stop telling me that I'm a typical blue dot in a red state with a big chip on my shoulder. TELL ME who could have done what better. I'm not pretending to understand all this. I actually really care that so many people have died a horrific death because of this hurricane, and I honestly want to know who screwed up. It's not like this scenario was a surprise. National Geographic wrote a story a year ago that eerily describes what happened. WHO WASN'T READY???!!
I belong to a 10 year old parenting email list that is somewhat diverse politically and religiously and even we can't talk about this. We have dissolved into name-calling and nah-nah's and "I'm not going to talk to you anymore" before any real communication has taken place. Before telling me I am wrong, tell me *why* I am wrong. I desperately want someone to look me in the eye and say calmly, "but have you thought about why..." When did we become so divided here in America that communication has stopped? Why are we "us" and "them"? I despise Bush and his energy-loving, money-loving cronies, make no mistake about that. But even more than that, I despise that we have forgotten that the goal is to make things work. We've made the goal to win. And even in the face of this horrific tragedy, we are tallying up who has won more points.
Has it always been this way? When did the media finally succeeded in making our lives here a big made-for-TV movie, a big superbowl game? Do you think the rescue helicopters are going to start showing up with corporate logos blazened across them?
I don't know what's going to happen, but it's going to be ugly ugly ugly. America is feeling very generous and loving right now. But what about...oh say, 2 years from now when a lot of these 100,000+ families STILL do not have permanent housing. Will we be as generous then, or will they become welfare cases and an ugly thorn in our sides? You know, Hurricane Isabel hit this area 2 years ago and a few families are still trying to rebuild now. That was such a tiny disaster compared to Katrina. The recovery from Katrina will be going on for a very long time and will likely outlast the compassion of most people. What an ugly blot this is already becoming on our history.
And yet, life goes on. I throw open my windows at night and turn off the air-conditioning to let in the cool newly-coming fall nighttime air and the sounds of crickets. I poor a glass of red wine and sip it while splayed out on my couch watching a movie. I throw out piles of left over dinner that my kids didn't eat. They each take baths in tubs full of good, clean water, and come out smelling sweet and clean and are comfy in their t-shirts and slicked back freshly-shampooed hair. I get hugs goodnight and kisses and then clean the dinner dishes and plan for my errands tomorrow. And all the time, the pit in my stomach reminds me that not all that far away, about half a million of my neighbors are feeling lucky to be alive, are wondering where their sisters are, and are starting to realize that despite the utter exhaustion and the feeling that this can't be real life, they are going to have to start over tomorrow and figure out their lives all over again. Everything they have ever known is gone. Gone. And meanwhile the country is busy name-calling and watching hour-long TV specials that ask why black people are described as looting while whites are described as finding food. We are a mess. I thought we had come farther than this., Tragedies like this have a way of exposing your unhealed scars, don't they?
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