Marching In

Four postcards, never sent.

For weeks now, I’ve been going back and forth -- time spent thinking about how to write about Hurricane Katrina, and time spent avoiding writing about it all together.

I knew eventually I would write something -- I had to.  But this was nothing to do with the need to knock out a column.  This was about needing to sort things out.

And in trying to do so, I read.  Article after article, on news and non-news websites, in newspapers and magazines and on the ticker scrolling across CNN and even ESPN, I read headlines and stories alternately devastating and inspiring, trying to make sense of it all, so I could sit down to write, and try to make sense of it all.  But instead of answers, there were only questions.

Global questions, like how could we have not been more prepared for this?  How could those people who refused to evacuate have been so foolish, and so stubborn?  How could help have been so slow to respond?  How could those people turn to looting and shooting, treating each other as enemies when what everyone needs right now are friends?

Personal questions, like how would I feel if I lost everything and found myself sleeping on a cot in a hot, crowded Superdome, hoping the roof wouldn’t drop in on me?  How is my friend Mark, and how is his family, and how far underwater is his house in the Tulane district, that house he’s invested so much of his time and life into?  How can I help?

And selfish questions, like will I ever get to go back to New Orleans?  Will there even be a New Orleans to go back to?  And what can I possibly say about Katrina that would even be of value?

And as I danced this awkward dance between reading and thinking and not thinking and not writing, I tried to both live my normal life and yet not act like nothing had happened.

Because something had happened, and it had happened close to home.  Ten hours close to home, to be precise, just a few hundred miles by car or a short plane ride away from my home in St. Louis.  This wasn’t some distant disaster in a faraway land, this was here -- and I’d just been there.

A month to the day before the hurricane hit, I was strolling the French Quarter with friends (well, maybe swerving is the more accurate verb), Pat O’Brien’s hurricane in hand.  New Orleans was as it had been every other time I’d been there -- dirty, drunken, exotic and beautiful, unlike any other city in the nation.

And then Katrina came along and turned New Orleans into a bathtub.

Seeing the images, it’s been hard to believe they’re talking about the same place.  It now sits, stagnant, sodden and mostly empty, leaving thousands hungry and homeless or worse, uncertain of their future, and their city’s.

While Katrina has brought out the worst in some people, turning frustration and desperation into anger into violence, it has simultaneously brought out the best in people -- volunteers, donors, people opening their wallets and their homes to hurricane victims they don’t even know.

The other night, I was rifling through one of the many piles on my desk, searching for a lost piece of paper, when instead I found those four postcards.  Four scenes of the French Quarter, each intended to conjure up a little of that New Orleans voodoo for a friend or family member far away.

I’d meant to send them, of course.  I’d meant to tell people what an incredible time I was having, what an incredible city New Orleans is, how every time I’m there the Big Easy still amazes me.

Evidently I was having too much fun, because I never sent the postcards.

When I found them, I felt guilty, thinking about all the things I’ve intended to do but never done.  Gifts I’ve bought but never given.  Friends I’ve put on my “To Call” list but never called.  Postcards, dozens of them over the years, I’ve bought but never sent.

The tsunami donation I absolutely planned to make to the Red Cross back in December, and never made.

Immediately, I went online and donated to the Red Cross.  It wasn’t much, but it was something.  It was action.  It was a start.

I haven’t yet decided what to do with those four New Orleans postcards.  Part of me thinks I should save them until New Orleans is back -- which I know it will be.  It won’t be the same, of course, but the voices of those who believe in New Orleans, past and future, is drowning out the naysaying of those who don’t.  The only question is when, and how.

Part of me thinks I should send them now, as a reminder of New Orleans’ greatness, and of what can be again.  But I can’t decide who to send them to.

And part of me wants to send a postcard to everybody I read about in the paper who is organizing fund raisers and clothing drives and driving down to the delta just to be there, to do whatever they can, to make a difference.

Because those people remind us all that by giving whatever gifts we have to give, we can be for New Orleans and for each other the kind of people the Crescent City has always known, but needs now more than ever:

Saints.

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My brother is a talented musician who goes by the name Fishstick.  CD Baby, the website that distributes his most recent CD, “Professional Fishstick,” has set up a program that lets artists donate all their proceeds from CD sales to the Red Cross disaster relief fund.

He’s decided to participate, so if you’d like to purchase his new album and contribute to the Red Cross, just visit:

http://www.cdbaby.com/fishstick

And if you’ve never experienced Fishstick’s unique brand of folk punk, you can listen to song samples on the website.

He also adds, “There are over 1000 other artists participating in this program . . . I think it's a pretty cool way to do something positive and help out.”

You can find all participating artists here:

http://cdbaby.com/group/redcross.