Election Section

Column: The View From Here: Hurricane Birthdays By P.M. PRICE

Friday September 23, 2005

My children and I all have birthdays this week, mine sandwiched between theirs, usually neglected. This year my husband wanted to do something special so he packed up the kids and took them to New York for five days. My gift was to stay home alone and as it’s turned out, it has been a real treat. 

I just called to see what time my kids’ plane arrives—9:30 a.m. (Are you sure it’s not p.m.? It’s not? Oh. Uh, Great!) Which means today is my last day of peace and quiet and luscious freedom. Of lying around all day and never getting out of my PJs. Of chocolate for breakfast and wine and chocolate for dinner. Of using the bathroom without someone banging on the door with a “Mommy, I want this,” or a “Mommy, I need that.” Of answering my own phone calls (if I choose to). And of not asking politely then yelling then screaming at the kids to turn that music/tv/radio/your vocal chords down! Down! DOWN!  

There’s a certain joy that goes with being in the house all alone. A certain magic. I can clean the sink and go back to it the next day and it’s still clean! I can clear the entry way of clutter (basketballs, jackets, backpacks, mail) and the next day and the next and the next, it’s still clutter free! I can think, write, organize, plot and plan, do or not do whatever I damn please uninterrupted! Oh my God, I’ve found Nirvana! And all I had to do was to keep my mouth shut about the extravagance of this trip and wish them well. I can do that. I did it and oh, what a reward. 

A luxury, indeed. My children are not missing. I know exactly where they are and they’re having fun. I have a roof over my head and it’s not leaking. I have electricity, heat, food, water and more. If I choose to, I can call a friend and meet for dinner or a movie. Or both. And when I return home, I’ll turn on the alarm, snuggle into a nice warm bed with a good book and sleep soundly.  

There is so much we take for granted. During my five days of going solo, I took two days off from the news and listened to jazz, harps and rock’n’roll while I cleaned out my closet and cleared my head. I needed a break from Bush, Katrina, class disparity and other malfunctions and I took it. Because I could. For those still knee-deep in toxic sludge, still missing loved ones, still camping out under the worse conditions, there is no break. 

I know what it’s like to experience tragedy. Our firstborn child died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome when she was three months old. I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed with numbing shock and unspeakable grief. It’s difficult to imagine how the world can move along as though nothing has happened while you are dying inside. But, the world does. When it’s not happening to you or right in front of you, all that grief and tragedy doesn’t seem quite real. We see it on television and we empathize but then it passes. It’s somebody else’s pain. We have children to pick up, dinner to prepare, work to do. Their world is not our world. Not right now, not in this moment. 

I just received an e-mail from a New Orleans’ cousin who got out with her family just before the storm. They’re staying in a trailer outside of Baton Rouge waiting for the Archdiocese to relocate them. One neighbor has loaned Kathy a car, another, her computer. The local church is throwing a benefit for the flood victims and Kathy is grateful and sends us love and hugs. 

And here I am, relishing this time away from my family, from my precious children whom, not too long ago, I was terrified to let out of my sight.  

My little retreat into myself has been rejuvenating. I have taken myself stripped of motherhood and matrimonial ties and have looked at myself bare, remembering who I was and how I enjoyed living my life absent all the “stuff” of life. We are not our stuff, after all. That fact really came home for me two years ago when my mother passed away from breast cancer, right in my arms. I never would have thought that I could do that; that I could hold my mother, connect with her and actually assist her in her transition from this world into the next. Sometimes, we have no clue what we are capable of until we are right in it, knee-deep and getting deeper. Then, something happens and we rise to the occasion, meet the challenge, then rise even higher, well above our fears.  

This is what our Gulf Coast neighbors are struggling to get to now: how to meet the challenge and create new lives, new ways of being in the world. Certainly our government can and should help out, providing new opportunities for education, job training and home ownership. Brand new schools with decent supplies and dedicated, well-paid teachers. This tragedy can be turned into an opportunity. (By the way, are the wealthiest 2 percent Christians? Does this mean that because they are their brothers’ keepers they are, at this very moment, knee-deep and donating?) 

Don’t blow it, Bush. Now is not the time to focus on fear or greed, mistakenly thinking that giving to someone else means there’s less for you and yours. Change. Meet the challenge and you’ll grow inside. Where it really counts..