The State of Our Union
Our house hunting in New Orleans came to a rather abrupt standstill about two weeks ago. I receive the occasional new listing via e-mail from our realtor, but we have decided not to make any sudden moves. All of our latent fears and worries came rushing to the surface the night we asked a friend visiting from Boston if we were crazy to be looking at a house that had come about an inch away from flooding. It looked like a cute little Arts-and-Crafts cottage with lots of exposed woodwork. But the water lines in the neighborhood were a good foot and a half high.
Our friend, who lived in New Orleans until last summer, asked us the question that put everything into perspective. “Aren’t you afraid it could happen again?” “Well, yeah.” “Because if this city floods again, it’s all over. New Orleans won’t get a dime from the government and the businesses will all be gone for good.” He was right. If the worst happens again anytime soon, it won’t matter how high the ground is under our new house. It will be an albatross around our neck.
The clincher for my husband came with the Sunday paper. Tax assessors have devalued properties that didn’t even flood from 15-50%! But if you buy a new house, you pay taxes on the sales price, which will be well above pre-Katrina prices. So you are carrying the tax burden for a city that is on the verge of financial ruin. Meanwhile, Uptown blue bloods with homes worth 1 million dollars are getting off scott free! Business as usual is only getting worse down here. If the slate is not going to be wiped clean, why should we put up with the crazy corruption here?
So we have decided to wait and see a while longer. I’m teaching again and life is taking on its own new rhythms. There is no emergency. We can stay put for a couple more months. But it amazes me how, five months after the storm, I still feel like we are on vacation, as if we’ll be home again soon. This isn’t real life, just a vacation from it. We still have only four plates and four bowls in the cupboard. I have only two bottles of spices in the pantry, and there is no bedspread on the bed or dressers to put our clothes in. Books are piled on the floor or in bags. So many things are just on hold until we are settled again. Like when you are on vacation, just getting by with the minimum for now.
A colleague of mine and I joked yesterday about how the constant refrain in New Orleans right now is “it could be worse.” When things are this bad, all you can really say to keep going is, “it could be worse.” And one of the secretaries told me she was surprised how calm things had been at the start of the semester. Usually the main office is a madhouse for the first week of classes. But it seems that we are all taking the myriad complications in stride, as if we didn’t expect anything to run smoothly. What is a scheduling snafu to a city-leveling hurricane? What is one more inconvenience piled onto the mountain of nuisance that characterizes our post-Katrina lives?
I’m sitting in Borders and a man walking by just said, “Not after the president’s speech last night. They don’t care about us.” Ouch! The front page of the paper said about the same this morning. I hope the rest of the country recognizes the glaring absence of Katrina in the State of the Union that was otherwise so laden with talk of compassion. Where is Bush’s compassion for the victims here? 1,500 people died in the greatest natural disaster of recent memory, and he barely said a word about it. Thankfully, I just heard Newsweek’s Howard Fineman say as much on Al Franken’s radio show. Bush has rejected the Baker plan, around which politicians and citizens of all stripes united as the most promising plan for getting New Orleans back on its feet. (It would help homeowner’s pay off their loans and move to higher ground.) But he has offered no alternative. He has already done enough, he seems to be saying.
The New York Times published an amazingly sympathetic and astute editorial on Monday that points out how Bush has failed New Orleans: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/opinion/30mon1.html?th&emc=th
My freshman composition class will have a Katrina theme this semester. I am looking forward to discussing the issues with students and encouraging them to contribute to the conversation.
Our friend, who lived in New Orleans until last summer, asked us the question that put everything into perspective. “Aren’t you afraid it could happen again?” “Well, yeah.” “Because if this city floods again, it’s all over. New Orleans won’t get a dime from the government and the businesses will all be gone for good.” He was right. If the worst happens again anytime soon, it won’t matter how high the ground is under our new house. It will be an albatross around our neck.
The clincher for my husband came with the Sunday paper. Tax assessors have devalued properties that didn’t even flood from 15-50%! But if you buy a new house, you pay taxes on the sales price, which will be well above pre-Katrina prices. So you are carrying the tax burden for a city that is on the verge of financial ruin. Meanwhile, Uptown blue bloods with homes worth 1 million dollars are getting off scott free! Business as usual is only getting worse down here. If the slate is not going to be wiped clean, why should we put up with the crazy corruption here?
So we have decided to wait and see a while longer. I’m teaching again and life is taking on its own new rhythms. There is no emergency. We can stay put for a couple more months. But it amazes me how, five months after the storm, I still feel like we are on vacation, as if we’ll be home again soon. This isn’t real life, just a vacation from it. We still have only four plates and four bowls in the cupboard. I have only two bottles of spices in the pantry, and there is no bedspread on the bed or dressers to put our clothes in. Books are piled on the floor or in bags. So many things are just on hold until we are settled again. Like when you are on vacation, just getting by with the minimum for now.
A colleague of mine and I joked yesterday about how the constant refrain in New Orleans right now is “it could be worse.” When things are this bad, all you can really say to keep going is, “it could be worse.” And one of the secretaries told me she was surprised how calm things had been at the start of the semester. Usually the main office is a madhouse for the first week of classes. But it seems that we are all taking the myriad complications in stride, as if we didn’t expect anything to run smoothly. What is a scheduling snafu to a city-leveling hurricane? What is one more inconvenience piled onto the mountain of nuisance that characterizes our post-Katrina lives?
I’m sitting in Borders and a man walking by just said, “Not after the president’s speech last night. They don’t care about us.” Ouch! The front page of the paper said about the same this morning. I hope the rest of the country recognizes the glaring absence of Katrina in the State of the Union that was otherwise so laden with talk of compassion. Where is Bush’s compassion for the victims here? 1,500 people died in the greatest natural disaster of recent memory, and he barely said a word about it. Thankfully, I just heard Newsweek’s Howard Fineman say as much on Al Franken’s radio show. Bush has rejected the Baker plan, around which politicians and citizens of all stripes united as the most promising plan for getting New Orleans back on its feet. (It would help homeowner’s pay off their loans and move to higher ground.) But he has offered no alternative. He has already done enough, he seems to be saying.
The New York Times published an amazingly sympathetic and astute editorial on Monday that points out how Bush has failed New Orleans: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/opinion/30mon1.html?th&emc=th
My freshman composition class will have a Katrina theme this semester. I am looking forward to discussing the issues with students and encouraging them to contribute to the conversation.
posted by Scribbling Mama | 8:16 PM
1 Comments:
What I like about your blog is that unlike news reports, which always find the proverbial silver lining, the people who heroically survive all this, you write day to day about the struggle.
It's not over.
And what seems to be coming clear, through your blog and other honest assessments, is that it may never be "over." Like any loss, it's never over. It's about learning to live with the questions as they come up. Trying to make decisions when you realize, suddenly, there is actually no solid basis for chosing one thing over another.
Any of us could lose everything.
Like that.
Any of us.
Everything.
And then we have to keep living.
Thanks for the blog.
Bush is insane.
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