We'll take any positive news we can get

The last couple of days have been so encouraging. Someone in today's posts--you Jon?--asked if New Orleans existed without us. I think it does not. I think all the longing you hear in these posts is what makes New Orleans what it is: the sum of its people. This blog has been incredibly uplifting for me. Not just the news, but the sense that others out there long for what I long for. It makes me certain that we will bring it home with us, and I look forward to that.

When I learned that Parkview Tavern--homebase for the creative writing program at UNO--was okay, I knew things were looking up. When a friend gave me the heads up that WWOZ was back on the air, I took that as an even bigger sign that we were all going to be okay. And this morning, my landlord called to report that her brother had been to see our house (corner Roosevelt and Dumaine) and gave her the news that the giant pecan tree outside my bedroom window did not actually fall on the house, that large limbs did fill our courtyard, but didn't seem to bust the house open, and that water did not go inside the bottom floor of the house, well, I found myself itching to go buy a chain saw and go to.

I wish all of us the best. I hope some of us will be at the Festival this weekend in Lafayette--home of Camp Katrina, Outpost 70119--and I can't wait to get back to the place we love and to the people who make it the place we love. Best to all.

See y'all roun' the block,
Barb Johnson