Learn From It

I have been trying and stopping, trying and stopping, to express my sadness about what has happened to New Orleans and her people.

Every time I start, I stop. Every time I stop, I get frustrated and start again. I know, at least second-hand, what it's like to live through a flood and all the destruction, displacement and dis-ease...back in 1972, Hurricane Agnes caused massive flooding in the Wyoming Valley of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. Family, friends and so many others ended up fleeing to higher ground. They lost almost everything under 25 feet of water.

I was to New Orleans in October, 1995, in part to escape to a mental “higher ground”: Allen had died three months prior, my Aunt “Toots” (my own Auntie Mame) two months prior, and New Orleans was the only other numinous city in America and I needed to be there.

New Orleans is magnificent—and will be again. You don't keep humanity like that down for very long, but in the mean time, how to mourn the losses?

How to express that kind of sadness, that kind of loss? It wouldn't come to me. Until today.

In writing to Richard (who is struggling mightily, sadly) just a little while ago, I said:

My heart is breaking over what's happened to your magical city.

To all of you Yats—in spirit or in residence—I think we San Franciscans may appreciate more than most what it means not only to live in a Magical City, but to lose it as well. Let us know what you need.

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