we live our lives with a strong faith in home, that place where we rest our heads and keep our memories. when my roommate, marlo, was clearing the food out of our kitchen cabinets, we took a moment to pause and breathe in the midst of packing up to evacuate new orleans. she looked around the kitchen and said, ” i finally had given up and started calling this home.” four of us have been living together in this shotgun house since october: marlo, william, me, and the baby, cylis. the house has fostered us, the neighborhood has inspired us. we have become a family.

now, six hundred miles from home, i am struck with the unfathomable dread of losing home. i didn’t think i’d get attached; i’ve always been transient. just the moment you let up your guard, nature threatens to take away your man-made security, striking blows against human civilization. we cannot get attached to the material things in life. and we cannot create systems to wall out nature; it will only be our downfall. the saddest thing about our existence is the suffering that we have created for ourselves.

i am not scared. i am not hopeless. i am just worried about losing our human “stuff”–tools, buildings, jobs. some of the minor things that connect us as humans. i am in awe of nature right now. i have no control. i want others to surrender to this fact so as not to suffer from the losses that may come…

there is a lot of hype on the news as we are just a day away from gustav making landfall. i am trying not to succumb to the whirlwind of worry. but this storm has made a serious threat; i fear, through our own destruction of nature & its safeguards, we may lose the roots of the culture of southern louisiana.

i boarded up the windows today.
moved some things to higher ground (which means little in the path of a hurricane).
met with friends a third or fourth time to go over plans. prepared vehicles for their trips. packed up valuables.

the most striking thing for me was looking at the house all boarded up, wondering what i will return to. of course i hope for nothing…everything will be in it’s place when we get back next week, fingers crossed. all of our stuff packed high on shelves, books moved up to the top shelf, computers backed on top of closets, refrigerator emptied and turned off. but will our house still have a roof when we return? will the boards over the glass have done any good? will our more stubborn neighbors be under piles of rubble or swept out in the current? the hardest part is knowing we all will be coming home soon, next week probably, but what will we come home to? this is all so uncertain.

so it is.

i am more annoyed than nervous. on the contrary, my friend had a nervous breakdown upon hearing the news of hurricane gustav heading towards the gulf of mexico. she is from new orleans and evacuated for katrina; august 2005 i was from chicago and was hitchhiking south to georgia, care-free. now i’m annoyed that i have to pack up valuables, move tools, vehicles, and trailers to high ground.

today, i told my significant other that if she wasn’t here and planning to evacuate, i would stay in new orleans if gustav hit. i’d help others evacuate or find shelter. i’d camp out on the third floor of my friends’ warehouse. but her, like my other friend who had the nervous breakdown, is from new orleans and also suffered the disaster and displacement caused by katrina. they have good reason not to mess with storms. but me, i don’t know what’s coming–i just know the stories and the aftermath. the help that is needed. the importance of immediate relief.

let’s hope this is all just a false alarm.

i have not enjoyed myself much or felt very happy since i left home, for happiness depends on contentment, and that has not fell to my lot, and it seems to me never will…merry little birds make one wish he were as happy as all around him; but that cannot be; as this earth is not a heaven for man; for we at the happiest day feel a burden of sorrow which we cannot throw off here.

words by william clarke quantrill.