Bleak economy, bright life
A friend told me that on a recent visit to New York, the shops had less holiday decorations, there were few people on the streets, and that overall the Big Apple looked bleak. I was walking this particularly beautiful morning along the entrance to City Park. The street that leads to New Orleans Museum of Art or NOMA (if we might be so hip to call it) and I was looking at the stands of crepe myrtles and oaks that are barely out of buggy whip stage. The huge oak canopy of trees that used to line the street were all felled by Katrina – the true mother lode of storms.
Now the grand entrance looks a little barren but not bleak – when I walk down it, I just think to myself that in a decade or so, these trees will grow to be grand and produce branches that form again a canopy that is enviable.
But, I guess I am a little nervous about the economy and what this means. A friend sent me a note that she must have had her head in the sand because it seems like in the last six weeks everything went to hell – my response, “uh duh.” But I said, I think because we went through Katrina, even the end of the economy as we know it doesn’t seem to be insurmountable.
We rose from the ashes once, certainly we can muster the strength to weather a prolonged downturn in the economy or am I overly optimistic and my head is in the sand? Why is it that despite everything I know that is happening, all I noticed this morning was that certain quality of fall, pre-storm, light that was sneaking through thick cloud cover. Sunshine on a rainy day.