I cannot keep writing the same thing.

I especially cannot keep writing the same thing at the same time that everyone else I know is expected to write the same thing. Behold, the widows of the Peloponnesian War! The survivors of the Titanic! The last remaining original cast member of Carrie: The Musical! Anniversaries are a curse.

I understand that rituals are important, comforting, cleansing. I also understand that they’re meaningful only when we imbue them with meaning. I’ve left plenty of rituals behind (smoking, religion), and I’ll happily add the the High NOLA Day of August 29 to the pile.

I have expressed my gratitude repeatedly. 

I have expressed my biggest regret repeatedly. 

I have documented the miracles and the mundane and the missed opportunities (too many to link). 

I don’t think I have much more to say. Just put it on a loop. I have other work to do.

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The real problem with venerating Hurricane Katrina is that our stories have long-since ossified into 60-second highlight reels. The minutiae of our everyday lives for those two, four, eight, 52, 520, 1,040 weeks after the levees caved under the water’s weight have been washed away, forgotten until someone else brings up peculiar memories of their own: “Do you remember that smell?” or “The days without power?” or “When the whole neutral ground on West End Boulevard was stacked 30 feet high with debris?” or “The water lines four feet high at one end of a house and eight feet at the other?” or “When we could only shop on Magazine Street because everything else ain’t dere no more?”

Each of those is V8 moment, which is old people slang for a lightning bolt of memory, a gobsmacking “How could I forget that?” But then those fresh memories become ossified too, a litany of their own. Or more likely, we just forget about them again. 

So, is this the last you’ll hear of it?

I wish I could say yes, but no, probably not. Not even from me. 

But it’s an old story now, and my role in it was never more than a supporting one at best, interesting to those my age and older, and there are fewer of us nowadays. I don’t even listen to old music, why should I live in the past of this one, giant, overwhelming swamp thing?

Best to let it drain away. Best to let others assess and analyze and tell the tale, others with the time and talent to tell stories in new ways.

Best to let others read it too.