Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Katrina

I have been putting this off, just as I have been putting off many other things that I know I will need to deal with at some point.

The Katrina blog.

Well, you all know it's been almost a year since Katrina hit and we escaped. I never thought of myself as a "refugee," per se but I suppose I can understand how usage of that word would be apropos after fleeing something as huge as Katrina.

I actually never realized how numbed out I have been to the entire situtation and its aftermath. I need not rehash the gory details or laundry list the effects for you.

Let's just say that I never realized what we truly "lost in the hurricane" until very recently. You see, I didn't really think we lost much. Some might call that denial, but I would call that type of thinking "temporary coping/ survival thinking." For example, I thought of our loss in the sense of possessions and people. I thought of it in the way that I believe we are typically taught to think of it. I. E. "I didn't lose my house or family, therefore I haven't experienced a real loss." For the past twelve months, the previous sentence is essentially how I conceptualized the hurricane and it's aftermath. I chose to attend SMU. I chose to get a job to make ends meet. I chose to get a tiny apartment to make sure the bills would get paid. You see, by thinking this way, I chose to create hope and stability, a day to day feeling that life would go on, that this set back was just temporary.

But, that is not the complete story and I am not going to explain every nuance to you dear friends. Suffice it to say, that those previous choices were survival choices, those choices made in order to make the daily tasks or rebuilding seem smaller, doable and temporary.

Briefly returning to the concept of loss, I had never actually conceptualized loss in terms of losing a certain way of thinking, coping, acting or being. But, now I know that to lose those latter things is to lose something a lot larger and more important than people typically acknowledge. When you lose your sense of purpose, your constructive ways of coping, your sense of humor or other things, you lose a huge part of yourself that can be very difficult to get back. Honestly, I know in my heart that it is only through love and prayer that they return.

Just like people are apt to think of a disabled person as a broken person, people are apt to think of the survival-minded "refugees" as broken people, too, in some ways. But, I am here to tell you that there are very few broken people, just a lot of people in survival mode. Nothing breaks you if you don't let it break you.

In conclusion, I suspect that many people are still in survival mode, but will soon be in thriving mode, where the kindness and support experienced after the trauma gets turned into the fuel the powers the renewed hopes, dreams, and sense of purpose people create long after the pain of loss. Thus, people transition from seeing the day to day survival aspects of life-from praying just to make it through another day-to seeing themselves as part of something grander and more expansive-something beyond their daily bread.

I may have lost some things in Katrina, but the gift that she gave me was a belief in the fundamental goodness of humankind-a belief that I did not possess before she arrived- and a belief in the utterly unstoppable power of the human spirit when it has a will to thrive.

Good night and sweet dreams.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Dinner

This is the first free weekend we've had in ages and how wonderful it has been. You know the type of weekend where you can just hang out around the house, have nothing really pressing to do. So, we decided to have our first guests over.

We had some newlywed friends over last night and they were glowing with that after honeymoon aura. We talked about honeymoons, vacations, house stuff and nothing of consequence over fried chicken and sweet potatoes (which I haven't been able to spell confidently since Al Gore botched the word in the '90s). Now, I know why no one really wants to work on the weekend. After this weekend, I might not want to either! lol

Monday, August 14, 2006

We're here...

Well, here we are...all moved in and starting to unpack, arrange and otherwise de-messy-fy ourselves.

Things are feeling normal again. For example, we now have a normal-length couch, something we could never fit into our tiny 600 square foot apartment. Come over. Stretch out. I have a real sugar Dr. Pepper with your name on it and some nice cold air conditioning, too.

I finished tutoring my students. One of them already received his grades back and passed both summer sessions with a strong A and a solid B. We are still waiting to see what the other one received. Tutoring was so satisfying intellectually and it was nice to do something different after the old 9-5. It's like a hobby that pays ME instead of me paying for IT. Best deal I ever got.

Good night, sleep tight, cuidate y nos vemos.

Hasta manana.

Dani P.

Friday, August 04, 2006

I actually took today off work to be able to pack and clean. It's funny because even though I won't be at work today, I actually work so much that I only had to take 3 hours of pto. lol.

Anyhow, we are getting the truck and high tailing it outta here this weekend. Update your address books, because next week we will be living at our new place. Hooray!

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

~~~Our House~~~

ARTIST: Madness
TITLE: Our House

Father wears his Sunday best
Mother's tired she needs a rest
The kids are playing up downstairs
Sister's sighing in her sleep
Brother's got a date to keep
He can't hang around


Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, in the middle of our


Our house it has a crowd
There's always something happening
And it's usually quite loud
Our mum, she's so house-proud
Nothing ever slows her down
And a mess is not allowed


Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, in the middle of our
Something tells you that you've got to move away from it


Father gets up late for work
Mother has to iron his shirt
Then she sends the kids to school
Sees them off with a small kiss
She's the one they're going to miss
In lots of ways


I remember way back then when everything was true and when
We would have such a very good time
Such a fine time, such a happy time
And I remember how we'd play, simply waste the day away
Then we'd say nothing would come
Between us two dreamers


Our house, in the middle of our street (3X)
Our house, in the middle of our


Our house, was our castle and our keep
Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, that was where we used to sleep
Our house, in the middle of our street (3X)

Moving! (Part II)

We have been painting our little house this week before we move ourselves in. Whew! I guess I am out of shape, because I am so sore. But, the work is worth it, of course. We took my close friend Kim laF. over to see it and she gave it the thumbs up "can I crash here sometime?" approval, so I guess that means that we get to move in after all. lol.