For those of us who returned after Hurricane Katrina to the Gulf coast, and to New Orleans, we frequently get questioned: Why did you return? How could you have returned?  We evacuated to Little Rock on Sunday.  Monday, my husband flew to Philadelphia for his job; he returned two weeks later.  I spent much of those two weeks in a stupor, worried about my future, the future of New Orleans and the entire Gulf coast area.

Monday, September 12, 2005, Little Rock, Arkansas.

As I drove to the airport to pick up CS, I was barely able to keep the tears back.  I should have been ecstatic to be seeing him after a two week break, but, I realized, a lot of my emotions had been at bay with CS not around.  Now that the one person to whom my emotions could not be concealed was returning, my emotional dam was breaking. I think he assumed my stand-offish welcome indicated that I wasn’t as happy as him to be together again.  In truth, my heart was breaking anew and if I spoke of it in detail, the tears would come.

We returned to the hotel in relative silence.  I retreated into a hot bath; CS joined me.  I lay my back on CS’s chest; he snaked his arms and legs around me and buffered me from the outside world.  And in that steamy, watery cocoon, with the overhead heater whirring us into further isolation, the angst released from me.  I wept and grieved. I wailed and convulsed.  I dissolved into the bath water and became the whirring of the heater.

*     *     *     *

One hundred and fifty years ago, ancestors on both sides of my family traveled from Europe to America with little more than the clothes on their backs and hope in their hearts.  They traveled rough seas in steerage compartments of overflowing vessels.  They landed in New Orleans and put down roots.

I never knew WHY my ancestors chose New Orleans over, say, New York or Galveston.  But I do know they never looked back.  This became their new home.  They got jobs, bought real estate, paid taxes, married, lived, and died.

Five years ago, I returned to New Orleans alone.  My husband was working long hours in Little Rock and I felt I could be of better use back home.  There was no discussion of NOT returning: our home did not flood; our jobs remained in place; our mortgage was still due.

That Thanksgiving, we traveled to Taos, NM.  We were still bruised from Katrina but brave enough to venture out.  A clerk in a store inquired where we were from.  “New Orleans?” he snarled with a sneer, “I don’t know why they are bothering to rebuild. It’s not worth my tax dollars.”

I was stunned.  Or rather, stung. I quietly placed the necklace I was about to purchase down and walked out of the store.  Other customers apologized for the clerk and hugged us.

Now, when I get that question, “Why did you return?” I find it in poor taste.  It’s akin to “Why do you (not) believe in God?”  Sure, it may be a question you are curious about, but it’s certainly a tad rude.  The question itself condemns–suggesting that the thing done is unreasonable, miscalculated, and, downright wrong.  I no longer struggle to defend my decision; my city.  I no longer rally to win over people to love New Orleans, see her even, as I do.

How many years can a mountain exist before it’s washed to the sea?  ~ Bob Dylan (1963)

Wherever one lives, there are issues of weather.  Tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, volcanoes.  And hurricanes.  I’ve lived my entire life with hurricanes.  I even admit to liking them.  There’s something spectacular about Nature making the crazy world we live in STOP and take heed.  The water; the whirring of the wind.

We humans like to pretend Earth is something we possess.  I mean, we buy and own real estate as though that entitles us to possess that very earth forever.  But it is just pretend.  The Earth, New Orleans, doesn’t have the same footprint it had one hundred and fifty years ago.  In Louisiana law schools, they teach about alluvion land — how levees naturally enlarge and reduce; how borders and edges get claimed by the wetlands or are expanded by deposit of lands brought in from the rivers.

We Louisianians have always appreciated the ephemeral quality of the land and the water.  Maybe it’s the high humidity we have.  Maybe our lungs, upon close inspection, are more similar to gills. We are hardwired differently.  And you don’t have to be born and raised here to have this hard-wiring.  Countless people I know came to New Orleans as though she called to them in their sleep.

Why come back?  Why risk a life lived in a city doomed to be reclaimed by the sea?

In November of 2005, CS and I discussed leaving New Orleans.  Although where else in this country we’d live, we had no idea.  We’ve traveled to many U.S. cities. None are home.  But we resolidified ourselves to this city.  We choose to walk in her steamy wet summer days, risk seasons of hurricanes, endure mosquitoes biting on ankles, and houses built on shifting sands.

Why?  Because we can.  Because we know that one day every city will be washed to the sea.  And that our city’s time of offering us her gems is limited.  There would be no peace in wasting that limited time away from her and her gifts.

In those early dark, dank days, Tide recognized what I realized that night in the tub: Cleaning cleanses. Tide Detergent pulled into New Orleans when others feared to come near. They drove their Loads of Hope van housing 32 energy-efficient washers and dryers capable of completing 300 loads of laundry a day, and began the task that says Monday in New Orleans as loud as Red Beans and Rice: washing laundry. For free. For those who had no electricity or facilities to clean for themselves. And in that act of community, healing began.

Since Katrina, Tide has not been short on disasters, natural or man-made, to keep its Loads of Hope crews busy.  Hurricanes; wildfires; floods.  The disaster may be what’s marked in the books as historical, but it’s the survival of the people, the dusting one’s self off–cleaning and cleansing–and moving forward that is truly remarkable.  Hope remains in the Gulf coast.  As does Faith.  Faith Hill.  In recognition of the Fifth Anniversary of Katrina, Faith Hill has partnered with Tide Loads of Hope to give a free concert for the city tomorrow, August 24, at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is the opening act.  Because even years later, we still need cleansing and healing.

This post was commissioned by Story Bleed as part of their *Hope Remains* carnival, sponsored by Tide Loads of Hope.

A heart is not measured by how much you love but how much you are loved by others.

~ Wizard of Oz

Love is a funny thing.  It makes us do funny things.  But in my case, it tends NOT to bring tears to my eyes.

When CS got down on bended knew in a horse-drawn carriage under the blue shooting stars in Celebration in the Oaks to ask me to marry him, it was love.  He still rolls his eyes that I didn’t shed a tear of joy.  When he and his friend returned months before our wedding after a three-week trek in Europe, the friend’s girlfriend cried as she ran to her beau’s arms.  I just sheepishly smiled and ran to CS’s arms.

Don’t get me wrong, I love deeply, and my love for CS is unending.  It’s just, that, well, I’m not a warm and fuzzy person.  For example, if you are a friend and break down in tears in front of me, I WILL hug you, but I will say “I’m going to hug you” before I do so as not to startle you.

This is true for my love of my friends, my husband, my family.  I’d do anything for anyone I love, but give a big HUG or sweet little nothings?  Just not the way I roll.

With one exception.  Sun, of course.

When I first set my eyes on her in the operating room, I wept.  And I couldn’t even see her that well because my glasses weren’t on.  But all the concern I’d had for her growing in me, all the love I’d honed for those 35 weeks of pregnancy, all the overwhelming emotion welled out of my eyes and I cried unabashedly.

But that was SO three years ago.  I now have a toddler on my hands.  One that is learning to sometimes be sassy or rude or petulant or spoiled.  But who also has that innocence that only a child can possess.

I lay with her each night in her new big full size bed.  I read stories to her; I sing to her; I show her pictures of when she was a baby.  And it never fails, never, that my heart grows a bit each night.  My heart feels like a partially deflated balloon, and each night another wrinkle is blown taut.

I know that being three, Sun is still earning love for me to put in the bank that can be drawn upon when she’s older and testing me further.  But I cannot help but feel that she is the external manifestation of my heart.  And her daddy’s too.  And I suppose all parents of toddlers feel the same way.

Children are the best hope we have in the world.  They are our future.  And to believe in them; to allow the fullness of our love for them to be recognized; to wallow in the joy of their open-eyed wonder is a most precious gift.

I had a dream over the weekend, the kind that when you wake up you are pissed at your spouse over.  You know the type, right?

I dreamed it was the day of our wedding and we were at his house getting ready.  All sorts of family and friends were roaming around.  The house was not what our house really looks like, but that damn pool we need to have dug up was in the backyard, so I *knew* it was in fact his house.  The friends were commenting about a neighbor that too had a pool that needed to be dug up.

Anywho, I was in a spare bedroom getting dressed and went into the master bedroom.  It was familiar but not overly so.  On the far wall was a door to the master bathroom.  And near that was a door I had, yanno, never noticed before.  It was opened, and CS was in the next room.  I walked into the new room and was pleasantly surprised.  We need this space!  “What’s this room?” I asked CS.  “It will be my darkroom,” he answered.  I was pissed.  A DARKROOM?  We need space and he’s going to keep this whole room for himself? Errrg.

Then I see ANOTHER door leading to another new room from the darkroom.  I step into that room.  It is smaller, with a low ceiling near the window.  “And this room?” I asked.  CS responded, “My office.”  More of me being pissed. At CS.

*     *     *

Okay.   I was out of sorts Sunday when I woke up and tried to make sense of this dream.  But then I let it go.  Then it kept nibbling at my memory.   So last night I took out my Gayle Delaney dream materials to interpret my dream.  I had recalled she had mentioned that new rooms was a common theme in dreams.

So it went something like this.

Q. Do the rooms have a specific purpose?

A. Yes, Darkroom and office.

Q. Is there anything new going on in your life that has that purpose?

A. Dark.  Officey? Hmm.  Dark officey? Dark office. DARK OFFICE.

Me to self: ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ KIDDING ME?  Then I laughed at my psyche for being so OBVIOUS yet I couldn’t see it without SAYING IT OUT LOUD.

I started five days in the office yesterday.  And I may not be all that excited about it.  Guess you could say I may have even been a little mopey or dark about it. And maybe I wish my husband’s job was enough such that I didn’t need to work at all.  And that maybe I am feeling sort of that I may have reached the apex of my career.

YA THINK?

So what do I do with this information? What any sensible girl would do.  I took today off. Day Two.

Sigh.

(There’s actually other elements in this dream that could have more meaning, but this seemed right so I stopped.)

Looking back, the signs were there.  But when you aren’t looking, how can you see them?

So today when my period turned angry and stopped me in my tracks, I assumed it was what I’m told about ALL my new ailments: It’s yet another sign of aging.

Then the flow got really heavy.  No worries, just a desire for good meds.  Then clots appeared.  Doubt crept in. Could I have been…?  Am I now…?

My mother-in-law is staying with us, and we canceled our afternoon plans so I could wear sweat pants and suffer at home.  She also got me to call my doctor.  He asked if I was sure I wasn’t pregnant.  And then the math hit me.  I mean, it was possible, albeit improbable.  So he asked that I take a pregnancy test and if positive go to his office tomorrow to be sure “nothing’s left behind.”

I called CS at work and explained things and asked him to bring me home a pregnancy test.  And that damn thing showed “Pregnant” faster than I had time to even come close to bracing for such a result.  Stunned, I walked out of the bathroom.  My mother-in-law was walking past the door.  I tossed the stick to her.  She read it and said, “NO WAY.”  Then she brought it to CS, who was running Sun’s bath.

I then went into the bathroom where CS was (and Sun wasn’t yet).  We stared at each other.  Stunned.  Then we talked a bit.  And I realized that CS was under the mistaken impression that I was carrying a viable pregnancy.  I clarified there was NO WAY I wasn’t losing it — hadn’t already lost it.

Then I went to the den and sat down.

Stunned.

Dazed.

Relieved.

I know I’ve posted about our decision to have no more children.  To do no more fertility treatment.  We were coasting along on a “if it happens” mentality.  But when you KNOW it won’t, can’t, happen, you accept it.  And although we felt that we DID have the ability to have another child, and it WAS our decision not to, there was a nagging hint of doubt.  What if we could easily get pregnant?   Have we just decided we don’t want another because of the stress/cost/etc. of fertility treatment?  Were we just “deciding” what was already a foregone conclusion without intervention?

And before I took that pregnancy test I thought, it doesn’t matter what it reads.  Either way, I am NOT having a baby now.  It won’t MEAN anything.  We have no attachment, no expectation.

And then I saw the one word. “Pregnant.”  And my hand shook a bit.  And my nerves shook a lot.

And I sat on the sofa.  Marveling at my own girly parts.  Our fertility doctor had said that if we’d wanted another baby, we’d maybe not even have to do fertility again because my hormonal dysfunction could sort of “re-set” itself after a healthy pregnancy and delivery.

And then I realized that for the past 3 or so years that I thought, no matter what that fertility doctor may have said to me, that I’ve ALWAYS been infertile and could NOT have another child without intervention, that I’d been wrong.  That yet again I’d underestimated myself, my body, and assumed the worst.  That I was just temporarily infertile!  That we really DO have a choice to have another child.  That our decision NOT to have another child is real.  And that decision is mutual.  And right for us.  So instead of tears, there was a small smile.

Tonight, I was liberated.

I CAN, DID, get pregnant without a doctor in the room!  And we really, truly, choose for me not to get pregnant, for us not to have a baby, again.  That nagging doubt?  It too flowed out of me today.  Once and for all.

We are going on vacation in a few days.  CS is a comics lover, and I love CS.  So each year, we head back to the city that married us and go to the Comic Convention in San Diego.  This year, my sister will join us to help with Sun.

I so look forward to this trip.  The beach on Coronado Island, where we were actually married, is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.  And each year, she’s just as pretty.  We were married in 2002 and did not start going to ComicCon until a few years ago, so San Diego will always mean the town where I got married, not the town that is the home to The Con.

I try not to get too excited; try not to get my hopes up to high.  Nothing worse than a disappointing holiday.  So instead, I spent the better part of today preparing.  Writing lists of things we need to bring; arranging for a house sitter that can also deal with our pets and my garden; confirming tickets and reservations; doing laundry.

I get frenetic just before a big trip with cleaning my house.  I HATE coming home from vacation to a mess.  While away, I think not of my home.  And so when I return and walk in the front door, I am always more welcomed when its neat.  An unmade bed upon my return can so undermine my time away!

So toys have been picked up; dishes cleaned and put away; a small mountain of laundry washed, dried, folded and put away.  And suitcases have been brought from the attic.  Last minute matters will be arranged tomorrow.  Then we are off to that catch that plane!  It will be Sun’s third flight in her two years!!

The San Diego Comic Con brings out the people-watcher in me.  So get ready for some pics of crazy costumes and Hollywood’s displays.  This is the 4oth anniversary for The Con and is expected to be a big year.  Okay, so maybe I am getting a little excited!

CS’s mother and step-father recently came for a visit, and over this visit, my mother-in-law made a comment that struck me. Let me back up.

CS’s father was a bad dude. He died before I came into the picture. He left his family when CS was a young boy. My MIL alludes to how bad a dude her first husband was quite readily. Further background, my MIL calls me, not CS. For some reason, she feels more comfortable with me than CS. I didn’t realize this until CS pointed it out to me recently.

Ok, back to the comment. Here’s the setting: We went out to dinner their last night in town. After we ate, my MIL went outside for a smoke. I joined her with Sun in tow.

“Is CS always that cold?” my MIL asked. Huh? I thought, cold? Why, he’s not cold… Wait. Is he cold? “No, not at all,” I say, “He’s very affectionate, especially with Sun.” “He’s a great father, no doubt,” she graciously said. “But he’s so quiet. He’s like his father with his emotions.”

How do I respond to this? I never knew the man, but even his own kin admit CS’s father was a SOB. But there must have been SOME love between the two young love birds. And, dammit, is CS cold? To me? Am I turning a blind eye? What the hell just happened?

We talked a bit more about her concerns about CS’s feelings toward her, but the issue of CS’s father dropped. But it didn’t drop out of my head. And since then, I’ve been a bit more keen to CS’s coldness, or lack thereof. And maybe because I am looking for trouble I am finding it, but I do see coldness from him. Often, it’s just him being quiet after a long day, or him not feeling well and thus a bit quiet. But all that quiet gets so loud!

I don’t think my MIL was trying to plant a seed to cause us trouble. I think she thinks she gets coldness from CS. And I think she thought it was obvious and that surely I saw it. And looking closely at the two of them, honestly, I can see her point. And that bothers me most of all.

So, there’s that.

It’s wedding season here in New Orleans.  We’ve been invited to not less than six weddings in six weeks.   Some are the traditional New Orleans’ wedding: Cathedral ceremony and country club reception.  And some are less traditional: all-in-one wedding/reception at a room in a local restaurant.  And several in between: home ceremonies, French Quarter brunches, decadent escapades.

Tonight was the least frilly of them all.  After all, it’s on a Wednesday night. Now, I am not a weepy gal.  I didn’t get teary-eyed when I got engaged, when I learned I was pregnant, or at any wedding I have ever attended.

Until tonight.  Ok, I am lying.  I didn’t cry.  But I did get teary-eyed.  And that takes a lot.  So what did it?

Well, the bride was a lot like me.  She swore off marriage and kids just as I did.  Until it was undeniable.  And that raw emotion showed in her eyes.  And her unsteady hands that had to be held by her beloved during the ceremony.

And the minister was superb.  He called on us in attendance not only as witnesses to the marriage but as advocates of their marriage.  So that when one of the spouses called on us in time, as they will as our friends, facing a rough spot, that it was our duty, OUR DUTY, to vie for the marriage.  To rise against their walking out on the marriage as so many do nowadays.

Being married now, I always listen more intently at the exchanging of the vows.

Do you take this person, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and health, and to be true to in good times and in bad, and to seek no other.

Because when you are taking those vows, health and wealth and infidelity are far from your mind.

They should say, “Not if, but when, this person is sick, and you are too, and money is tight, because that day will come, and when it comes, do you still promise to forsake all others and be true to just this one?”

CS has engraved in French on his wedding band, “You and no other” for the days, and I am certain they exist, that he doubts our survival.  It’s there as a reminder to both of us.  We exchanged vows six years ago and I still feel complete devotion and commitment to those vows.

I do.  I will.

Always.

I am a “tight” knitter: my stitches are tight.  I have to remind myself to ease up on the tension of the yarn; relax my fingers and my mind.  I knit a cap for CS years ago, and it was a big hit.  It was a straight knit 4, purl 4 pattern, your typical skull cap.  Several friends wanted me to knit one for them.  I was happy to oblige.

The day I was given the (erroneous) news that I had a severe infertility problem, I boarded a plane for a weekend in New York.  That flight was delayed and we sat on the tarmac for what seemed like hours.  I was working on one of those skull caps for a friend.  My gauge was off.  Way off.  I knit several inches worth then ripped back to nothing at least four times sitting on that miserable tarmac.  All the while, my ears were plugged into my iPod listening to Bob Dylan.  And tears ran down my cheeks.  I couldn’t bother with what the 50-something business man thought sitting next to me of the mess I was.  What could I say to him to excuse my bizarre behavior?  No eye contact was the best bet.

After a few days, months, I would try that cap again and again.  My gauge was never right.  I’d check my gauge before starting, a task I loathe, and still seemed off.  I ripped out this cap another four or so times.

The yarn I had selected for my friend began to show signs of my struggle.  It was fraying, cracking, and in time, breaking.  After a year, I threw the yarn away and decided CS could knit the cap for our friend.  (He’d learned to knit Sun a blanket).

More years have passed and CS still has not knit that cap.  I am now picking that project up again.  I have a new ball of yarn.  Different colors even.

And yet.

My gauge is off again.  The size 8 needles I used so easily the first time are way too big.  Even 7s won’t do the trick.  I will be testing 6s this evening.  And as I knit 4, purl 4, I am reminded of that damn day in the plane.  And the sting of disappointment I’ve endured with this cap.

I am realizing I should have knit this cap years ago.  So now I am determined.  I will knit this cap.  I will exorcise this demon.  I will release that tension.  Once and for all.

Captain Sarcastic and I own a small business.  He runs it.  It opens at 10am everyday.  Every morning CS goes to the business, he leaves around 8:30am.  Occasionally, something would come up between 8:30 and 10 and I’d call him.  There’d be no answer at the business and he’d not answer his cell.  This didn’t happen every time, just occasionally.  What’s a girl to think?

I hate to admit I can be jealous.  I am confident in myself and my marriage.  But I am not naive, and I know people cheat.  I have asked CS time and again if he’s got a sweetie that he meets in the mornings.  I tease that if he does, God Bless, because I HATE mornings.  He assures me he’s just catching a bite to eat and doing work.  No lady on the side.

I believe him.

Mostly.

Tuesday morning, I was running errands with Sun and called CS to give him some news.  He didn’t answer my call.  Being close to the business, I made a snap decision to drive by.  And as I switched to the turn lane, my blood ran cold.  If he were cheating and lying, did I really want to know?  Wasn’t I happy and if it were a lie then so be it?  What would I do with Sun in my car if I broke down and lost it?  Where would my entire life be?  DRIVE STRAIGHT, YOU IDIOT, I thought.  But I knew then I couldn’t.  I needed to know the truth.  For better or worse.

Clenching the steering wheel, I passed the shop.  His car was not there.  I prepared myself that it may not be there but at the diner he claimed to eat at on the mornings he works.  I drove the short distance to the restaurant.  While making a U-turn, I saw him.  He was sitting at an outdoor table.  Alone.

Alone.

Happily alone.

I called him and told him I could see him.  He looked up and waved to me.  I confessed my expedition.  He asked if now I’d let the topic of him cheating on me drop.  I asked if his girlfriend was just inside getting a coke, only half joking.

Then I drove on.  My doubts quealled at last.  Back to my life of calm domesticity.

Sun is napping.  CS and Pete are at lunch with Katie and Daisy.  The TV is off; the dishwasher just shut down.  Hear that?  Nothing sounds sooo good.

So why am I enjoying the quiet?  Allow me to recap.

Thursday night: Krewe of Babylon and Knights of Chaos.  Left before Muses.  Loved Babylon and Chaos.  Great representation of the traditional and satirical parade, respectively.

Friday night: Krewes of Hermes and D’Etat. Left during Morpheus.  No Sun.  Got to see two old friends riding in Hermes.  Even texted each other during the parade so we’d not miss each other.  What a world!  Again, excellent presentations of the traditional and the satirical parade.  Fave of the night, hands down, Krewe D’Etat’s Dancing Darlings, the Papal Police poking fun at the mishandling and injustice of the closing of local Catholic Churches.

Saturday: Krewe of Endymion at a private party.  Ahhhh.  Fave of the night?  Grilled oysters of the half shell.  The parade was just a backdrop to a very nice party.

Sunday: Krewe of Bacchus at my favorite family spot.  Sun and CS stayed home.  For about a decade now, I have been watching the parades that start at Tipitina’s pretty much right at the start.  I won’t say too much how awesome the spot is because one of the things that make it awesome is that it’s a much thinner crowd.  And we like it that way.  So if you are drunk and college-aged, stay on St. Charles.  Or better yet, in the Quarter.  Don’t mess with the family area on Napoleon Avenue.  My distant family has a home on the route and I have a house just off the route.  So this spot to catch parades is just home for me.  And it will be for Sun, too, in the years that come.

My neighbor rides in Orpheus tonight.  He’s in his 70s.  His wife is manning the 2 ten-top tables they have at the Orpheuscapade.  She says her daughter is the ringleader to such a big showing at the Ball.  Her daughter tells her that she blames her, my neighbor, her mother, for her love of Carnival because, my neighbor told me, “I dragged her to parades since before she was Sun’s age!”  I told my neighbor there were worse habits to have than a love of Mardi Gras.  She readily agreed with me.  I also mentioned this was Sun’s second Mardi Gras, and I could only hope that as an adult she loves it as much as her daughter does.

And tonight, Krewes of Proteus and Orpheus.  With Sun.  And her newly-painted ladder.  At our beloved family spot.  With Katie and Slappy and Pete and Daisy and CS too.  Oh, my.