Well, I am too tired to write anything especially inspiring. This is a hodge-podge of some of the thoughts running through my head. Though I have wanted this blog to be a place where I could keep up my spirits, it seems weird and artificial to make no mention of Katrina, the hurricane of mega-impact, and the heartbreak and horror of what is really going on.

This is not a re-hash of what I know only from news accounts and opinions. I cannot imagine, I refuse to imagine, how it would feel not to know where my child, my mother or father, my friend, my cat was in the aftermath of that storm. I have been thinking, though, what would it be like, to lose everything material in my life? My father's paintings, my mother's quilts (i.e., the grandmother's and great-grandmother's.) What would it be to lose the books, the letters, the photographs?

I remember my Mother telling me that HER father (Grandpa T.J.) told her , "Better a fire than a flood." It was cleaner!

After my aunt died, my Mother worried that we girls would feel that certain things might have been unfair, how things were divided up. She worried that after she died that the same thing might happen. I think that my sister and I both felt that we were very fortunate that have good, solid, loving memories. So many do not have that! Material things are prompts to memories, but they are not the thing themselves. (I suddenly think of what I wrote about Haiku.)

So many of the physical, material things I value are actually more "of the spirit." Like Dad's paintings. But still... how devastating would it be to lose everything? I don't know. It is something to ponder.

Well, I know what it is like to lose someone incredibly dear. But The Dear One is not lost, not in a profound sense. That is something different.

The other thing is... those things that I have treasured as part of my heritage, that I would weep to lose - are they not lost already? Do my children know why they are significant? Would they have any inkling why this dish or that cup is important? I have already lost several layers of meaning in the "stuff" that I have kept.... is there any meaning left for my children????

Ho boy - I need some comments to redeem this sad posting, to restore it to Hope.