Bright things among the dark scraps of what we are digging thru...

posted by jeremy on December 08, 2005

So many of my friends from New Orleans are scavenging, literally & figuratively, thru what remains of their lives... Trying desperately to chunk together something that resembles a hope or a reason. Everyone I know thinks they should-could-can-will get over what has happened to everything we knew there.... But most of us seem to agree, it's not as easy as you might think, not by a long shot.

It's been roughly three months since the greatest disaster this nation has ever seen ripped into the Gulf shore & turned it all around, tore our lives out from beneath us & as I'm beginning to learn, three months seems to also be roughly enough time for everyone else (including multiple tight-fisted government agencies) to think that maybe us long-faced refugees should get over it, get on with our day-to-day, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps & get back to the happy kitty days of yore, where work & love reigned & not manic-depressive, post-traumatic, semi-psychosis...

But I hate to say it, really I do, that just ain't yet.

I spent the other day hanging out with my friend Michelle from New Orleans . I knew her from the bars there, her bar, my bar, all the gun-shot midget-ridden spaces in-between. She moved out here to PDX maybe 8 days ago, hoping to settle down, live the 'healthy lifestyle'. But I tell you, she's having a hard time already & that is as it should be, I suppose. Adjustment period, culture shock, bring it on. But still, after a contemplative day at Forest Park, a long walk thru downtown, a night of boozing, laughter, stories of NOLA & everywhere we've went since Katrina tore in... Well, we could see no contentment on our horizion, not here, not now. We are used to higher standards, not of living... but of danger, adventure, companionship, freedom... than can be found in this city. Boredom is a vulture picking at the asses of our soul. We really talked of how we want more from life than improving ourselves, trying to live forever, wrapped in tofu & fruit smoothies, the zen of the right-thing-to-do-with-ones-life, the straightjacket of restraint. "Maybe I am meant for decadence, for fuck-all. Maybe I always was." Michelle told me as we sat there, wrapped in the hush-hush pallor of the Crowbar. We almost cried that night, thinking back on the tight crazy community that made up our adopted home...

But then, instead, we got drunk as dogs & Michelle told incredibly racist jokes to strangers & we played pool, wrestled roughly on cold wet concrete, played bad chess, watched even worse movies, slammed strong shots & kicked stupid cats (or at least she did & I yelled at her for it, trust me).

We just tried to get by, to forget or remember, I don't know which, if only for one cold rainy night in the quiet confines of this city I used to love.