Back on-line from hurricane.

I am going to ramble a bit so be patient.

It is 5:29, Wednesday, August 31, 2005. i just got my power back on 2 hours ago. I am in Mobile Alabama and have lived through Hurricane Katrina.

The storm didn't seem that bad here, but I slept through a bit of it. But then I saw the pictures of the shrimp boats pushed hundreds of yards on land, the Island is almost gone and I can't even comprehend what is happening to my New Orleans.

My heart is broken over Louisiana. I lived in New orleans when I was 17 until I was 21 or so, I lived there after running away from an abusive home life and she embraced me with no judgement. She sustained me, nurtured me, grew me up. She taught me some of the most valuable lessons I will ever know in my life and she loved me. I loved her back. I cannot tell you what that city meant to me at that time in my life. It was such a turning point, and I will never forget the nights in the bayous, sitting at porclean kitchen tables playing cards and drinking. No noise, just quiet sounds of bayou creatures, the slamming of a screen door when a friend or relative came in, the creak of boards in the floor, laughter and cajun accents.

I didn't realize when I was there what it would mean to me later in life, or how many times I would think of those times. I have traveled the Quarter a thousand times, have cried by the Mississippi River at night over some stupid boy, crept through the bayous with the leave of those kind people by the way of their friends who were also mine. I have learned the ways of times past from their old people who lived off the land. I as taken in by these people, when I was broken and lost and kept alive by their watchfulness and love. I took on their lives and was one of their own. And I loved every moment of it, bare-foot and scratching mosqito bites. tanned and too skinny. The days running thru the Quarter, tipping back in chairs while the sun set, drinking and betting. The hot nights, and the damp cold of the winters there, with fires in fireplaces and old tales told over chicory coffee.I never knew what I had till I moved back to Mobile.

The people in New Orleans, the people who have lived there for years and generations are not the people you usually see on T>v, or in some elegant hotel. They are the heart and soul of the place, the breath and blood. I can't tell you how much I love the city and the surrounding parishes, the Irish Channel, Grand Isle, Algiers, the good and the bad. I can't believe what has happened there. I will have to let it sink in for a while, to realize that my grandchild will not have the chance to know the New Orleans I knew, to go back with me to the bayous and quiet, mossy wet places and let me teach her what I was taught. She'll never see the old churches, the ancient houses, or know the calm and content of the Quarter and the surrounding marshy places. She'll never know the mystery and the taboo-ness of the knowledge of things that can only be learned from it being handed down to you.

My heart is broken forLouisiana tonight. And it will be for a very long time