To the left are the two homes that I lived in while in New Orleans. The first is in New Orleans' Mid City neighborhood. Our house flooded to a depth of eight feet. The landlord had the double shotgun remodeled shortly after the storm. This house was the only house occupied on the block the entire year that we lived there. All of the other houses were in various states of decay; some had been gutted to the studs, some were gutted to a height of four or five feet from the ground; some were falling over, and some hadn't (and weren't the entire time we lived there) even been entered since before the storm. We worked very had on the house when we first moved in. There was sludge covering almost every flat surface outside, we hosed, raked and scraped until it was all gone. We planted flowers, made it look pretty. Eventually, things fell a part; there was no reward for living in the empty neighborhood except the occasional prowler or missing garden tool. I was very tired of looking at FEMA trailers, dirty streets, flooded out cars, and plain old loneliness. Once this started to happen I gave up; I didn't have the energy to make our house pretty any more. No one else cared so why should I? Such a bad attitude to have but the neighborhood's emptiness certainly fostered it.
The second house was in a much better neighborhood; situated between the French Quarter and the Marigny. It was a beautiful house that received absolutely no damage from the hurricanes (why? because people knew where to safely build houses when the city was founded). The interior of our part of the house had been redone in the theme of a sailing ship; beautiful wood everywhere. It was absolutely charming; lying in bed at night I could hear the midnight carriage tour as it passed our house: "This is Farbourg Marigny..." But this loveliness carried a hefty price, one that we simply couldn't afford. But it was a last chance play for happiness in one of the saddest cities of all. We just couldn't take it there any longer. I couldn't, you couldn't, we couldn't. Our bedroom is behind the left window and false door; I think the rooms in the front of this house used to be a pair of formal, double parlors when the house was young. We didn't have anyone break into this house, as we did the other, probably because revelers wandered past the house at all hours; it wasn't uncommon to be woken by couples drunkenly cuddling outside our window at four in the morning. Sometimes we would find the unmistakable scent of urine outside our gate; people are animals sometimes.
Ben still lives in the second house, for now anyway; I doubt he will for much longer. It is too hard. And I live in a motorhome in Idaho. Oh the changes a few months will bring!
