The title of this blog post comes from a song by Elton John (music) and Bernie Taupin (lyrics) called “Where to now St. Peter”. It is on the Tumbleweed Connection album recorded in 1970 and released the same year as Elton’s self titled album which included the hit, “Your Song”. Tumbleweed Connection is a very unique album in the EJ collection, with a mix of bluesy and country themed tracks, and this song has always haunted me. The words of the title are sung halfway through the 2nd verse and describes, I think, the change in the character’s life as he faces eternity and asks St. Peter, “where to now? Show me the road I am on”.
This song, and especially those words, “Dirty was the daybreak, sudden was the change”, always pops into my mind when thinking about our Katrina experience (by the way for a really detailed look at our experience on the ground, my wife, Jennifer Forrester Knight, offers on her Facebook page some excellent descriptions of what we went through, we being the people of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.
I am not the first person by any means to quote the saying, “the body knows”. It is like muscle memory, a smell, a sound, a song, a picture, bring it all crashing back. Every time a storm brews in the Gulf it happens. On anniversaries, it happens. When even reminiscing about some of the wonderful people who we met along the way, especially the volunteers from all over the world, seeing their hard work and smiling faces can still trigger that deep, ugly feeling in my gut.
Dirty was the daybreak. Although it was near dusk when the storm finished her job on the coast of Mississippi, the sky was weird. Clouds and gusts of wind still played around the rubble as we scrambled to chainsaw our way out of the driveway of the home we had stayed in, about 5 miles north of our own which was one mile from the beach. I had arthroscopic knee surgery for a meniscus tear just a few days before the storm, so climbing over debris became my physical therapy. For many days in late August and September we had no rain (until Hurricane Rita sent some our way), it was like Katrina had absorbed all the moisture in the universe and dumped it on us and many others to our north, west, and east. We were left with bright sunshine and brutally hot and humid days, with no air conditioning or fans of course. Those day breaks didn’t look dirty, until the light of the new day shone on destruction and devastation as far as you could imagine.
Yep, Sudden was the change.
There are no words to truly describe those early day breaks, other than, perhaps, dirty and sudden. So I will close with a great thanks be to God for all those who helped, who came, who sent money and goods, and who prayed. Twenty years seems like a 100 and like 2 at different times. We as a nation have learned a lot about how to respond to disasters like Katrina, I hope we continue to support each other in the better ways we have learned since then. For Katrina there is no doubt faith communities saved us, but they cannot sustain that level of help forever. Jennifer and I were very blessed to meet so many wonderful people, many good friends to this day. Every hand that reached out in any way, was a blessing. My prayers are with all the people of the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts on this terrible anniversary day. May your day breaks be clean and changes bring blessing.