Over time, I've shared some of my trials and tribulations connected with New Orleans and Columbus Street after the levee collapse. I've worked very hard to move on and make the most of very difficult times. I've discovered that pain is never far below the surface. Recently friends and family resurrected that pain during phone conversations. Today, I discovered painful pieces going through papers for taxes. The following Letter to the Editor of the Times Picayune in New Orleans was never sent. When I wrote that letter on April 2, 2006, I had no way of knowing how much more fallout laid ahead for me on so many levels. For some reason, it feels important to share it with you here:
Dear Editor: The refrain from most of the many who have been passing through New Orleans to help us is that: "The rest of the country doesn't understand that there are 'people like you' who live in New Orleans." By that I assume they mean people who live here, work here, have homes here, have families here, and love our city the way they do theirs.
WE are what make New Orleans special. To dismiss a single one of US, or for us to dismiss each other is to dismiss New Orleans.
Many of us have been in New Orleans since (or before) we knew we could come back. We are among the people who love this City, who truly want to be here, but above all were able to come home. Whether we are in New Orleans fighting the good fight or in some other state or country fighting the good fight, we are all important, we all have something in common. We are New Orleans. Once we recognize that we are proud to be New Orleanians, maybe we can come together to communicate ourselves, our love, and our City to the rest of the nation in a way that can carry us beyond Bourbon Street to the rest of the City that I love.
But here I sit, seven months post-Katrina. Decisions are difficult to make when you are still living in the rubble with no phone, no internet, sporadic mail service, irregular everything and it takes ten steps to get one. I sat in my bombed out back yard with a friend while we gazed at the debris pile in the triangle that was taller than my truck and longed for the good old days. I'm speaking of the good old days when we first got back to New Orleans...the days when we had hope.
Oh Jeff, if I did that I'd hear from all those people who consider me a traitor because I left or they believed I'd abandoned or walked away from our "friendship". I think this did what I needed it to do for me. Thanks for your "from the heart"-Moi
Posted by: Laury Bourgeois | February 22, 2011 at 03:47 PM
Probably should have sent that letter as writing from the heart almost always nees to be shared. Why not write them another letter, perhaps about Hope being "exiled" to paradise in France.
Posted by: Jeffrey Penn May | February 22, 2011 at 03:12 PM
I think it's a heavy sigh for us...always.
Posted by: Laury Bourgeois | February 21, 2011 at 01:24 PM
sigh...
Posted by: Kate Gundersen | February 21, 2011 at 01:15 PM