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I lived in New Orleans for two months. I almost moved there a couple of years ago, but decided instead to come home to Los Angeles. I love the city so much, and this is so, so heartbreaking. So many people’s lives lost or irrevocably changed. So much stunning architecture and history, erased. Even for those not left homeless, their livelihoods are likely gone.
I feel grateful to have been a part of the city for a brief time. And that I’ve had the opportunity to visit there since. I often dream about the city, and have always thought about moving back, because there's just something so magical about it (in addition to it also being very often crime-ridden and filthy). I cannot imagine, my residence being so brief, how people who have lived there for many years, or their whole lives, must be feeling. Or even how my good friend, Alli, must feel. Two years ago she moved there, met her husband there, had her first child there, and fortunately moved away to Baton Rouge a few months before this disaster.
A sacked sculpture, a sacked building, these things happen from time to time. Poltical unrest. Terrorist attacks. Protests. But, goodness, a natural disaster sacks an entire city and so much is lost. Not even thinking about the economical ramifications, New Orleans is a treasure for so many reasons. There’s something different about that city’s energy, something so uniquely its own. The idea that it could really all be lost? You can rebuild a city, of course, but….so much of that almost unearthly quality about the place will very likely be gone forever. I hope not, but man. Man!
It must be so weird to have lived in a place that has been waiting for something like to happen. The city has been almost waiting to become the next Atlantis for years. But even confronted with this possibility, it always just seemed unlikely. Like, how bad could it really be?
Bad, apparently.
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