Do you remember the time?

Just when we were starting to feel a sense of normalcy again post Katrina, BP sideswiped us again with this horrific disaster. It is so hard to post shiny happy discoveries and newly created ETSY items when the sense that our community is shifting towards some unspoken abyss is in the room.Never a one to take token media observations at their word (hey this is the house where pirate radio tried to take a choke hold on the airwaves one week after Katrina only to be scared off by the Gretna PD), I ventured down to see for myself what was going on.

Grand Isle was frighteningly quiet. Not a soul combed the streets except for news outlets and army vehicles. Fresh signs detailing holiday rentals, parties to come held deflated balloons and the sense of energy expended for naught.Like a canceled birthday party or runaway bride, the town known for its memorial day festivities had the air of impending doom as if cancer had just been declared.

The beach, usually strewn with families, hungover revelry,the feckless enjoyment of the sea sight was festooned with white tents and white suited workers, organized and prodded by olive drab butlers.It was straight outta Margaret Atwood. You would expect the sea to be birthing aliens, three headed lochness monsters, detritus of science fiction nightmares. Instead it was murky sand.

The bags looked to be filled with sandy lab experiments gone wrong, molasses spilled over burnt cornbread,the earth's tears.

I've always tended towards dramatic observations myself. Tears come to me easily as do reckonings that are lumpy and uncomfortable. This sight and the consequent thoughts remind me of a diagnosis, a waiting for the hangman, 16 hours on a highway with no clear knowledge of where we are going or what we are leaving. This place wrenches you with love and horror. It tests your faith and hope. It leaves you slack jawed and wordless-thrown into the unknown.