Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Packing up the Past

(The bench in Sam's apartment where Danielle slept for a month after the storm.)

My older daughter graduated from LSU this last weekend, so I’ve been spending the past few days up in Baton Rouge helping her pack and get ready to move out of her apartment. It seems hard to believe it’s been four years since Sam and I drove up to Baton Rouge for New Student Orientation. She was just sixteen, starting college a year early, and I was so worried about whether or not I was doing the right thing. LSU has a well-earned reputation as a party school, and I know the collective opinion of my various aunts, uncles, and cousins was that I was crazy to let her go. But she proved them all wrong, graduating summa cum laude; next fall she’ll be heading off to an Ivy League law school.

I can’t say I enjoyed being in her apartment. It’s where we stayed for six weeks after Katrina, and being there brought those dark days back to me with more clarity than I found comfortable. Everyone down here is looking at the calendar, uncomfortably aware that in less than a week, hurricane season will be upon us again. If someone had told me last August that I still wouldn’t be back in my house by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, I wouldn’t have believed it.

What I'm reading...

ORIGINAL SIN, by PD James. No one writes good, slow mysteries like the English.

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