It's a slow night, so I hope you all don't mind a diary along more personal lines.
If you absolutely must be political, consider this a portrait of a person who straddles the line between conservative and liberal, the type of person the Democratic Party really needs to reach out to but may be unable to communicate with.
At any rate, I've been mulling over this all day, so I apologize, but I wanted to get it off my chest.
My grandmother is a woman of infinite contradictions, and I mean that in the most loving way. But I've never understood her as a person, and in many ways her contradictions mirror some of the contradictions I see in the South in general.
On one hand, she's her own woman. She managed a family-owned garden center for years, belonged to a local professional women's organization, and was well-known throughout the community. In private, she was amazingly patient and far more liberal than my parents about a lot of issues - I remember sitting in her living room once as she was watching the coverage of the Matthew Shepard story. "It's horrible what they do to these people," she said, not knowing that I was one of those people. My father and grandfather were openly homophobic, and my mom... is just timid. My grandmother was the only person who'd speak her mind on issues like this.
But despite all this free-thinking (for a Southern woman), she considers herself fully subservient to my grandfather - and although he has never mistreated her, his stubbornness has blocked her from doing all the things she's wanted to with her life. His schedule is rigid, and she follows it without complaint - without even the notion that she could or should complain. She's interested in the world; he refuses to travel, so he doesn't allow her. When I wanted to come out to my extended family, my mother pleaded with me not to tell her, because even though she'd likely not have a problem, she'd "have to tell your grandfather, and can't you just let the man die happy?"
It was a nice thought, I suppose, but he never got the chance anyway. For the past forty years or so, my grandparents lived in Chalmette, one of the towns just east of New Orleans that found itself under some ten feet of water. Like many people in that town, they had weathered through some of the worst storms in the region, and when Katrina came, they almost didn't leave. The water in their area covered all but the top of their roof. They would have drowned.
Instead, they spent the next few weeks living with my mom, dad, brother, cousin, her husband, and her two daughters in the cousin's home in Tampa. They'd left New Orleans with only two or three days' worth of clothes and a few important documents. They didn't expect to lose everything.
My grandmother spent the time as best she could, trying to keep my father and grandfather from obsessing over the 24 hour cable news coverage, which had turned the house into a dynamite keg. Some neighbors donated clothes and household items, and my friends here in Ann Arbor were kind enough to donate clothes as well. A long period of waiting followed.
I was with her when she got her first look at her home, in November. The waters had ripped through the house, and a busted water line kept the kitchen and dining room in a perpetual, god-awful-smelling muck. She didn't speak much, but she helped us rummage through the home looking for a few important items that they'd forgotten to take with them. My grandfather started developing a cough that he has still not quite shaken.
This was my home, too: I grew up in this house while my grandparents managed the little garden center next door.
My grandmother didn't say anything until we drove further down the road, to scout out my aunt's home in Violet. After listening to horror story after horror story by a neighbor who'd returned to clean out his home, my grandmother said something I'll never forget, out of earshot to all but my brother and me, and bitterly, between clenched teeth: "They abandoned us," she said. "The government abandoned us." Looking around at the ruined, empty streets - an entire town gone - I couldn't disagree. It's the only time I've ever heard her mention the government about anything. I was floored.
Incidentally, the gay thing was a breeze after that. Plus, my boyfriend helped gut and clean their home so they could put the property up for sale - that made everything go down much easier.
But a lot of things have changed around the home, some for the better, some for the worse. My mother's job transferred permanently to Houston, and my father's is keeping him in New Orleans. My grandparents and brother moved in with my father, but the nightly marathons of Fox News are turning my father and grandfather into hateful, hateful bigots (what was unspoken racism before has become active and vocal racism), and my brother is becoming increasingly fed up, but with no other option for housing (his apartment was destroyed, too). Through it all, my grandmother sits thoughtfully and patiently - the only woman in a house full of angry, angst-filled men. Well, the only woman if you don't count our dog - a 17 year old Yorkie that's gone nearly blind and deaf, and can hardly walk due to arthritis.
My grandparents will be moving to Houston in a few months to be with my mom. Neither has ever lived anywhere but New Orleans, and my grandfather has only left the city a handful of times in his 70 years. They're excited, but worried. They're a bit old for this sort of thing.
This morning, my grandmother woke up early to put the dog out - it was raining, so she left the dog on the porch and went back inside to put on some hot water on for coffee. When she went back outside, she found the dog dead, lying near the gutter by the porch. She thinks it's her fault.
She's been relatively lucky through these past six months: she's alive, she's not stuck in a FEMA trailer, she's not alone in the world. But more than anyone in my family, I think my grandmother could have a nice, long chat commiserating with Job. The poor woman needs a break.
I guess I don't have much of a point to this diary, but it was a slow night, and this has been on my mind all day. Consider this a meditation on a few interlocking themes without a definite thesis. And please: call your grandmother, if she's still around, just to let her know that it's really not her fault.