bell

we are home, again. home, settled into an apartment. at first i hated it. the first day. living among someone else's stuff. where do you fit in? but it's knowing where you will be, not for a night or two, but for almost three whole months. and that is nice. weekends i will be in another city, visiting my family, but they need that. and i guess i do too. it was hard to leave bell. harder than it even was at the camp. and she said over and over through the weekend, can i come with you? she is something. she looked over my shoulder at the pictures of the garden, before the hurricane, remnants on a memory card, and she said, that's my home, when it was good. that baby has been through so much change in her short life than many people have ever. certainly more than we all had until a few months ago. but she is a survivor, i knew that from birth. she has already known hardship, heartache but she will be better for it i think.

spanish for home

here i am again, home at last, in the newly acquired sense of the word. meaning i'm back at the same hotel for the fourth time in three weeks, lights off tucked into my kingsized bed while my boyfriend spends some qt with his kids. i'm not sure if i like these days holed away by myself, eating burgers and shakes from whattaburger for lunch and dinner. i don't dislike being by myself. but it all seems to feel a little, i don't know, pathetic? plus, nothing is good on tv or the internet. he'll call my room to go outside and smoke a cigarette, but then one of his kids will open the door and i'll feel so out of place, so separate, that i decide next time i'll say no. but then next time i go again. and i'm bored, too. not just with texas, with the whole bit. i've done this long enough. i've read three novels in the last two weeks. i'm ready for life to begin again. ready to salvage what i can and move on with it. enough already.

normalcy

I am back at work in Houston. It's for a week, I can leave friday. can you believe it? they're talking about living back in New orleans in a week. can you believe that? i'm not sure what i think. good old st. bernard is gone. but maybe, just maybe, my little apartment survived. maybe my boyfriend's apartment, where i mostly lived anyway let's be honest, survived. it's weird to even think about going back. i don't want to. this is a great time to change. that's what i think. maybe life is going to go back to normal, i'm not sure if i can stand that. i was thinking maybe san fransisco, maybe boston, maybe new york city. maybe, maybe, everything open, and now it's depressing to think it's just going to be more of the same. but not the same. how can i stand it anymore, seeing everything change and not like it should be at all? funny how my family wants to go back and can't and i don't want to and we'll have lights on by monday. ironic? how is life working out like this, it's crazy. i'm not doing this again.

no one is looking for me

i remember doing this after september 11. after the towers fell. looking through post after post. people missing their loved ones, wanting to know if anyone had seen or heard from them. desprately trying to connect. i wanted to feel something. wanted to make it real.

it's different this time. posts that just bring up questions. my high school boyfriend, his mom trying to find him. my date to the eighth grade dance, his wife wanting to know if anybody's seen him. my own grandma, her cousin wanting to know where she is. and dozen's more people i knew once upon a time. people i can see in my mind. names i have heard all of my life. missing mostly, or searching. haven't even started to think about all the people that were part of my everyday life, neighbors, co-workers, waiters at my favorite restaurants, people i'll likely never see again. maybe i'll never even know if they are alive or dead.

that's the thing about all this, worry and sadness, happiness to i guess. it comes in layers. first my mom, sister, brother, neice. two days to hear from them. then my dad, he was the worst. essential personnell. that first phone call. i went to bed feeling like i was floating on air. alive. then i could start worrying about him getting out ok. the crime started. i could hear in his voice he wasn't sure he would make it. that first message, because of course our phones didn't work. somehow he could leave messages at night. then i could start worrying about my very best friends. then regular friends. the worry came in layers. it took me a week to worry about pets and apartments and houses. that's the thing about all of this. there really are no regrets because every time you turn on the television or the internet you are forced to remember how lucky you are. how much worse it is for so many people, my own family and friends. i can't complain. everything's relative, isn't that the rule of the world?

tomorrow to houston. another hotel for a week and then who knows what. i'm ready to know. i'm ready to see my family. just to hug them. see my nieice. remind her how much i love her.

shannon

tomorrow is one of my best friend's birthday. all i want is for something good to come on tv so that i can forget about all the sadness in the world. pathetic. red-eyed. she took the day off of work for her birthday and watched the news all day. how can you be happy about a day that caused so much pain to so many people, even now, still causing pain. let's roll. that's what the sign we passed on the lawn in said. let's roll. the last thing he said before he hung up the cell phone. funny i never heard that before.

i've been trying not to think. i've been eating donuts and chips and trying not to think, but it's not working. i finished reading the secret life of bees. it didn't help. just made me feel like everyone else is sad too.

everything i own fits into a little duffle bag. i keep thinking will i try to replace my books? cds? movies? whenever i was depressed at home, i watched clueless or amelie. over and over. for some reason it helped. or read the same books, looked at over and over. i keep thinking how much i miss my books. then i get scared i won't even remember which ones i had there on the shelves. and how can you say you miss something when you can't even think of it? can't put your finger on it? i feel like i need to make a list, quickly, before i forget everything. then i feel bad for even thinking something so stupid. i think i am lonely.

homesick

these are the things that i miss. i miss being around my family. i miss knowing where i'm going to be tomorrow, next week, a month from now. i miss brushing my teeth at night, walking to the cd player to turn on mazzy star. i miss driving. i miss escaping to my apartment. i miss the pictures on the walls, me and rachel at the st. patrick's day parade, baby isabel, florence. i miss my sister. i miss my books, my journals, the pink chinese one especially and the black leather one with tiny lines. my photo albums. i miss the theater. rehearsals. i miss my auquamarine birthday necklace and my orange coat. i miss going downstairs to smoke and following him to work in the mornings. i miss our little life, that is what i miss the most.

day 15

the truth? i've always hated chalmette. always. but i never thought it would cease to be there. always thought it would remain, a godforsaken marker of where i come from. a reminder. who's from a place that no longer exists? it's ridiculous. i always thought that i would leave, but i never thought that there would be nothing to go back to.

without your past you are nothing. that's what i feel like. i see these people on tv. i'm lost, he said. it's heartbreaking. we are throwaway people, the girl said. the forgotten parishes, cnn said. i have to remind myself that they are talking about me too.