The vulnerability of nature
Last night, my friend who is a pizza master held a house party to raise funds for the people who lost their homes in the L.A. wildfires. Nearly everyone at the gathering is a seasoned survivor of natural disaster.
You don’t survive unscathed; we all have PTSD from Katrina that was not addressed then, or a decade later, and now, twenty years later, has still not been integrated into an understanding of the psyche of a people who witnessed widespread devastation, employment loss, home displacement, loss of community and even a culture. The complex effects of this loss on us took its toll by unlocking disease – on my block in Bayou St. John, it was diagnoses of cervical cancer, Parkinson’s, Hashimoto’s, breast cancer – all in rapid succession. We thought we survived, but the maladies triggered in our bodies told us differently.
Now, I am writing from my home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This was ground zero for the brutality of Katrina (aka the 2005 Federal Flood). A snowstorm is blanketing the country, and now the weather is whipping up winds in Los Angeles and they are bracing themselves for yet more wildfires. Those who have lost their homes and communities will be processing this loss for a long time.
In 2005, we were not afforded space. I was already working remotely so I had the “good fortune” of being able to continue working throughout the horror. Only I shouldn’t have. My mind and spirit had snapped. I was unable to focus, I was unable to integrate into normal life, I was unable to feel grounded in my marriage, and the demands to do so were loud and wrong.
I drank and smoked and cheated on my husband.
There were no heroes in the aftermath of Katrina – just the walking wounded. On August 29, 2025, the 20th anniversary of an event that changed the course of our lives will be noted and commemorated. Who we were was left for dead. While the 20th anniversary of Katrina plays out against the aftermath of the wildfires in Los Angeles, I know profoundly how vulnerable we all are to the whim of nature.
