NOLA Then and Now

I'm off to New Orleans for the ALA convention and look forward to seeing a different city than the one I last saw in 2006. Here is what I wrote to the child_lit list serve after coming back:

I got back early this AM and I cannot write about the convention

without first writing about New Orleans, a city I'd know before as a

tourist and convention-attendee. A place I know now as so sad, so

harrowing, so disturbing, and so full of the most remarkable and

courageous people I've ever met.

People like Pat Austin of the University of New Orleans who spent

three days after Katrina in a Baton Rouge motel parking lot in a tiny

Toyota with her sister and eleven cats. Pat who lost her house to a

levee breach, but who is totally and utterly and passionately

committed to her home — New Orleans. Pat, who wanting me to bear

witness, spend most of yesterday touring me in that same Toyota

through her beloved city. 9/11 made a New Yorker out of me just as

Katrina has made Pat more devoted to her hometown than ever.

Pat had shown me photos when I saw her at NCTE in November and again

when she stayed with me in March, but I have to say they and news

coverage had not prepare me for the magnitude of what I saw yesterday.

I think it is not possible to appreciate it unless one is in it. The

unsettled feeling I had around the convention center and the Quarter

(with so many places still closed and boarded up) was nothing compared

to the feeling I had yesterday on my tour with Pat.

She began by pointing out to me the miles and miles of destroyed cars

under the highway we drove along. They were being brought there from

all over, a dreadful Katrina automobile graveyard. I'd probably seen

them on my way in from the airport, but hadn't known what I was

looking at.

She next took me through the Lower Ninth Ward and the adjoining

neighborhoods. Pat had taught there years ago and had been there many

times since Katrina and so was able to point out specific landmarks

to me. We drove around there for hours. The only analogy I could come

up with was being at Nazi concentration camps — that is, how the

vastness of the devastation really hits home when you are physically

seeing it rather than experiencing it in photos or film or in words.

And seeing, so many months later, lace curtains in a window of a

collapsed home, a tricycle atop of pile of destroyed home stuff, the

official markings (which Pat translate for me) indicating the death of

people and pets, the ironic communications ("Baghdad") and the

heartrending pleading ones ("donations needed for rebuilding"), the

signs (for lawyers doing claims, for people needing evidence, for

businesses specializing in demolition and rebuilding), the workers

(say a group having a lunch break in a playground), empty businesses

with signs as if they were open (strips of fast food places and other

familiar businesses) — all destroyed.

Worst of all was the horrible eeriness of emptiness. The sense of the

thousands who lived there, the ghosts of a vibrant and busy community,

of people who had worked to buy these homes, now uninhabitable. Mile

after mile after mile after desolate mile.

We then went to Pat's neighborhood, to her house. She'd shown me the

photos back in November, but again there is no comparison to the

experience of being there. Of standing in her living room and seeing

the remains of her library stuck on the floor. Seeing the beautiful

chandelier which feels like the only thing the water missed as it

stopped a foot or so short of the ceiling. The sodden scratching

post. The waterlogged copy of Pat's own children's book (THE CAT WHO

LOVED MOZART) placed by her in the newspaper holder in front to remind

those who came of those who lived there.

After that inexpressibly sad experience Pat took me to her new home.

What a joy to see that she has a lovely new place that she is making

beautiful with new and old. (For example, she showed me a photo of a

plush toy Babar in the midst of her old home's destruction and then

showed me a washed Babar on the new bookshelf next to his book.)

But I'm not done for then she took me to the wealthy areas near the

lake that were as destroyed as those in the poorer communities we'd

already been to. She took me by the infamous levee break, by the

university run out of trailers, by homes being raised on pilings as

now required by the local government, by churches being restored, by

well tended gardens in front of gutted houses, by a remarkable

Vietnamese temple all bright and restored among desolation, by FEMA

trailers and storage units in front of elegantly expensive homes, and

by more and more and more. She explained, she pointed things out, she

kept apologizing for overwhelming me. Yes, I was overwhelmed, but it

was important that I saw. I still feel that I don't have the right

words to express all of what I saw.

As for the convention itself, it was sad too. As much as everyone

wanted it to be normal, it wasn't. The exhibitions were quiet, much

more than other times. Maybe it was just me, but there was a subdued

quality to many of the events and receptions. Remembering New Orleans

before, it was hard for me not to notice the difference and so walking

from place to place, to event or reception, it was difficult to forget

what had happened there only months before.

Yes, there were happy moments, of course. Watching Shannon Hale in a

red dress dance in bare feet up to the dais to receive her Newbery

Honor was joyous as was Chris Raschka's homage to Karen Breen as was

Lynne Rae Perkins' beaming face. Oh, and Chris's duet with Norton

Juster was great fun too. I (usually a curmudgeon about this sort of

thing) proudly wore my "I LIKE MIMI" button (done in the style of the

old "I LIKE IKE" button) to honor Mimi Kayden who received a life-time

achievement award. Bill Joyce had to rescind his invitation to enjoy

absinthe (evidently the W Hotel wasn't willing to host something still

illegal), but the mint juleps weren't bad.

But what I'm coming home with and still processing clearly is not the

ALA convention, but New Orleans. I sure hope they can come back; I

really really really really do.

And from all I hear they have.  Can't wait to witness it for myself!