6 October 2020: 27 days, Mom and Dad, the gray area

It feels as if we’ve all lived another year since RBG died, which was, in fact, just a few weeks ago. Since then, we have learned, conclusively, that the “president avoided paying federal income tax in 10 of the 15 years preceding his election. In 2016, he paid $750 in federal income tax, less than one night’s stay in a suite at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.” And yet he also received a $72+ million refund.

We watched, not ten days after RBG died, as the GOP, too many of whom are classless power-grabbers, printed “Notorious ACB” shirts as if Handmaiden Amy Coney Barrett could possibly, in any way, deserve that moniker.

We watched as her nomination party turned into the grotesque superspreader spectacle it was in that person after person has since tested positive for COVID-19, including trump, melania, kellyanne, kayleigh, stephen, thom, mike, and ron, paragons of honesty and class every one.

We watched as the US reached the 215,000+ dead mark but trump flew Marine One back to the White House after just three days at Walter Reed Hospital on our dime, and in care of an osteopath who sounds like a complete and scripted fool, to demean every death and every struggle by saying that Covid is just not that bad. Man up, and you’ll be fine. The dismissive cruelty and privilege in that is stunning.

Meanwhile, I returned south to help my parents with more of their move, to celebrate my dad’s 70th, to try and keep some ship steady somewhere. Masked up, staying distant, hugging few, and feeling so far away from normal, I realized it has been more than 30 weeks since life changed so dramatically yet again. For the most part, the rest of the world is moving on, but here? Americans are all at home, those of us following the rules at the shitty mercy of idiot anti-maskers, disinformation, and, above all, the deranged man-child who will kill us all in his single-minded, selfish quest for power.

Our children are lonely, their educations at best a fraction of what they should be. We are all stressed to the nines in the best of circumstances; those facing illness, eviction, joblessness, hunger, and those in need and deserving of all form of insurance and support are in crisis mode. And, winter is coming.

The years since the 2016 election have felt like an eternity. A daily slog of exhaustion and stress and ugliness. It is taking a toll. The gray areas of nuance seem to be slipping into the far reaches of sparring corners. I see it on our neighborhood listserv as people yell back and forth in fairly anonymous screeds about leaf blowers, safety cameras, and the like. I see it in southerners who boast about their communal spirit and who do go above and beyond to help those who look like they do but then rage in blanket, dismissive disgust about all who don’t. I see it in parent communities all.the.time. In those who feel competitive and in those who don’t, in those who grasp for a majority of the pie while stepping on others as they reach greedily forward. I feel it in myself and my anger and lack of reserve.

I know that none of this is new, but shit. Can’t we just take responsibility, appreciate fact, be kind, and go forth? Can we stop lying, cheating, and throwing others under the bus?

Tom and I just rewatched the Chernobyl series. If you haven’t yet seen it, I can not recommend it more. Tough? Yes. Important? Crucial.

“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid…What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we will mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that, if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories? In these stories, it doesn’t matter who the heroes are. All we want to know is who is to blame.”

27 days. Vote!

11 September 2020: Back home

This is the first time I’ve had an ounce of enough mental and emotional bandwidth to sit here since I last wrote. It seems, in some way, oddly appropriate that it’s 9/11 which was, of course, a day of such destruction and loss. So much of Lake Charles looked or was so destroyed after Hurricane Laura; it was much worse than I expected, both at my parents’ home and throughout the city.

The tree loss was stunning. Live oaks that have survived countless storms were uprooted and split. Huge pines were keeled over everywhere with their root balls and still-attached circles of earth standing forlornly at attention. Mom and Dad lost all but 3 trees, including the stunning, 30+-year-old Live oak that my grandparents gave them before the house was even built. While Tom and I were in Lake Charles, there was no electricity, minimal cell service, and water was (and remains) boil-only. With the heat index, it was well over 100 every day; four people, that I knew of, died of heat exhaustion during my week in LC. None of us working to pack up and clear out the house ever peed during the day, despite guzzling gallons of water and Gatorade on a nearly-constant basis.

Some power and cellular service has been restored, but you still can’t drink the water and schools remain closed. Can you imagine trying to communicate and deal with insurance claims with only sporadic mobile access and on tiny phone screens while kids are hot, bored, and losing out on the educations they need and deserve and you or your loved ones may have lost everything?

I saw people living in tents along the roads. Mom and dad’s neighbors to the right had significant damage to their beautiful home, and after working for a full week to save, repair, and guard against further damage, their generator caught fire one morning and burned the house to the point that I don’t know if it’s salvageable. Loss upon loss upon loss. I am beyond thankful that the firemen thought to look in the garage and got the MANY full gas cans out in time. 

Helpers like those firefighters were incredible. World Central Kitchen set up meal service in the Walmart parking lot, churches shared meals and supplies from their lots, Oregon Products set up a free chainsaw-sharpening station, and Tide offered free laundry stations. The insurance adjuster looked shell-shocked as he wandered through the house; he graded it catastrophic and said he would do his best. And I can’t even begin to adequately thank all of our family and friends who came to help Mom and Dad.

We got most of the house packed up and shipped off to storage units in Houston and Baton Rouge by the time I left last Saturday. And soon enough it will all be heading this way.

I am not sure I’ve ever felt so depleted, and it’s unfamiliar and disconcerting, not at least in light of the fact of COVID-19 in America, everyone at home, and the most important election of our lifetimes in just 53 days. But, I am thankful Mom and Dad are safe, that Tom and I could go help, that we’ll soon all be nearer each other, and that both Jack and Ol have had great starts to their school years. Jack is so happy at his new school which is just beyond wonderful to see. It’s so clear that both schools and all the teachers over the summer put Herculean efforts into preparing for this odd year. Cheers and thanks to all of them!

28 August 2020: Daily

You are all so very kind, and I appreciate all the check-ins and love more than you know. With the heaviest of hearts, I must let you know that Mom and Dad’s house cannot be saved. Tom and I are flying down tomorrow to help salvage what can be and to say goodbye to the rest.

Many of you have asked if I grew up in the house. No, I didn’t. But the history is one of love.

Mom and Dad met as Tulane undergraduates. He was a year older and shy as could be, but he liked her legs and could, and still can, dance like a pro. She was unsure about the shyness but loved the joyful dancing, and the rest is history. He started med school in Augusta, GA, and after she graduated, they got married, and she joined him there. They did NOT love Augusta, but there they lived in the former servants’ quarters of an old manor house of sorts; the son of the owners was an architect with whom they became friends. They talked dreams, I was born, they moved to Mobile for Dad’s residency, they stayed in touch, my sister was born, they moved to Lake Charles, my dad got a job, and they saved enough to afford blueprints. Plans for the home they’d long dreamed of, designed by the architect they now called a friend.

That roll of plans stayed in a tube for years. While they saved and bought a piece of land, saved some more and built a wharf and boathouse, saved some more until finally I was 16 and a high school junior and they broke ground on the house. That was 26 years ago.

Mom was the general contractor for all intents and purposes, and while I begrudged her then, as a high school senior angsty about everything, she brought their dreams to fruition in a magical way that I now, as I try to maintain an identity beyond Mom, draw on to set limits when I need and want to work. She kept the schedule running such that we moved in the month of my senior prom and Mom and Dad hosted a dinner for a dozen of us on the back porch.

In the years after, I had my wedding reception in the backyard, brought my babies there, served as maid of honor when my sister had her wedding reception there, and have sent my boys there for memorable Big Boys Weeks almost every summer since Jack was 4. My Nanny is buried not far away, the bayou that runs behind the house is always a balm, Mr. Egret always fishes for his dinner before gliding away gracefully as we rock and rock.

It is all gone now, or will be soon. A life’s dream and work rendered largely moot in a few hours. I am devastated for my parents and for my sons. I suppose at some point it will hit me that Home is gone, that perhaps when I fly away this coming Friday, it will be for the last time.

I can’t deal with that now, so I organized because that, I can do. Look for the helpers, they always say. I am humbled to say that my family has been inundated with the most loving of helpers, and a small army will tomorrow descend on Lake Charles. Loaded with bubble wrap and bottled water, gasoline and chainsaws, packing tape and duct tape, sandwiches and sweat equity, they are coming from all over Texas and Louisiana and even Tennessee, and together, because of love, we will save what we can and try to start ushering my parents, who have given so much to so many, into their next phase. Lake Charles is without running water, electricity, gas stations, and many cell towers, and yet we will make things work with great care.

Essentially, such communion is all we have. If we paid attention to that, we’d tend the earth, disregard lies and craven political strategy, one-upmanship, bigotry. But we are human, and we are so challenged, and I guess that’s what makes the coming-together that I witnessed today and will witness this next week so very special. I will never forget all the kindness and generosity and love bestowed on my family, and I know that in part, all that is because my parents, and my grandparents, have always been helpers. It’s coming back to them when they need it most, and I am grateful.

Be well.