I’ve been thinking through the summer of 2005 a lot lately. Not just because of Katrina 10 hype — though that’s a huge part of it — but also because of the quality of this summer’s heat; the varying kinds of emotional energy that have been flowing through both my life and the lives of people I love; my frequent visits to Sisters in Christ, which has an ambiance that is, to me, reminiscent of pre-Katrina New Orleans (must be all the early 2000s emo); and, most significantly, because I recently dredged up some old emails from the weeks surrounding the storm, which help me to reconstruct small pieces of my Katrina experience.
I started journaling many of these thoughts, memories, mental moments, reconstructions, and after-images. Most are my own personal memories; but some are the experiences of others that have haunted me or otherwise hidden themselves in my mind. They may find a home in a zine at some point, but for now, I’m sharing a few of them below…