Missed opportunities...

I always wanted to visit New Orleans, as it was the setting for my favorite series of novels, The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. But old New Orleans is gone this morning and the disasterous image that rises up in its fallen shadow is such a horrifying snapshot of the human condition that it seems impossible anything will ever go back to normal.
There is a large part of me that wants to go down there, to join in the clean-up, but I realize that my skills are largely considered useless in a time like this. I could cook, I guess, for the workers who rebuild the city. I'm a good cook. And I could paint. But no one needs a writer in times like this, instead, you become a nuisance, a target for the bullet of a person desperate to release the anguish and anger brought on by such trauma.
If an opportunity arises, and I really can go down there, I'll do it without a second thought.
For now, much luck and peace will be in my prayers for the ghost of that beautiful, violent, luscious city.