19 Years Later

Next year there will be a glut of remembrances, so I'll sneak this in on the 19th-ish. Katrina really was "the big one" for me. Ordinarily I would talk about it from the perspective of a late-blooming son of unique parents, being the baby of the family that was sort of programmed to stay close in case of emergency. Not that I was all that useful in emergencies, mind you. Just being there was it, as if I'm just that precious a human commodity. I'm older now, and realize a lot of a misapprehensions, so the way I would describe my experience is greatly humbled. Alfred Sr. and Lynn had inculcated wanderlust and creative ambition in all their kids, and we were all diasporized to varying degrees. I, however, was least of all inclined among my siblings to forge a completely independent, orthogonal path in life. I loved where I came from, and I had long reconciled and conceded that my birth position was somewhat deterministic of what my role should be. It mattered of course whether Mère (the economically scrupulous grandma) and Mom (the grand strategist) approved of where I was and what I was doing, and they did. I was able to be, at minimum, a reliable and devoted support staff member. And so, in coming back to my birthplace in 2000, it seemed like the right thing to do on every level. (Annnnd...it had gotten a bit stale to say I was from New Orleans, but really never lived there.) La Mère Rita made it possible for me to finish a degree, at the school I should have gone to in the first place. University of Florida was not an especially more competitive academic scene than University of New Orleans, but the scale mattered. Class size and campus intensity turned out to be directly proportional to my ability and desire to learn and perform. And so ultimately I was able to graduate with the plaudits that were expected of me, it had just taken too long. From '04 to summer '05, I was plotting my return to academia. Rita had bequeathed me graduate school money, though it was supposed to be for medical school when first arranged in 1996. Medical school, they insisted, and I was reluctantly efforting towards that...but in 2004 I had just graduated with honors and demonstrable skill in technical philosophy (hahahaha!) and that's where I had wind at my back. The department chair said I was destined to go professional! (Which tbh at the time sounded like a curse/subtle insult. UNO faculty actually did a good job of advising that philosophy was not a career choice.) This milieu created a dilemma...the nearest graduate programs that fit were not close, and were too expensive. So I was taking some post-bacc classes, firming up my sciences, focused on GRE, MCAT, LSAT. Only managed to take the first, and I did great, got a few offers just from scores and transcript. I was still exulting in a suddenly casual, happy life the summer of '05, postponing the next thing. I'd finally gotten over the last relationship break-up to the point of blind dating fearlessly, and had become something of a French Quarter laze-about. I really thought I would live in there, and be that guy. Struggling trombonist with family obligations and itinerant work, reading and writing for however long it took to be a Dr. Wild of some kind, sort of supported but also not really, and therefore who cares the pace of it? So the hurricane was a wake-up call. Mom and Dad were mentally acute, all of our opportunities were at peak. And I was partying. Summer '05 was practically a Summer of Love for me, though I should spare the details. Literally just the prior weekend I was at a State Palace event with friends that went on all night, and then the next day I was luxuriating in a jacuzzi, and then the next day sleeping the fun off with no consequences. And then the next day...high speed powerful hurricane heading for Florida and rather unambiguouly for the Gulf coast. Evacuating the NOLA Wilds of Lark Street was no small affair. Mom and I had become a little too enthusiastic about keeping pets in the prior yeats. Fish tanks, turtle pond, guinea pigs, parakeets. And always poochies. We imagined a few days away, but it would be months.