We await the river's decision

Yes we now wait. Many of us have gone to the river bank this week and looked at its level and worried and wondered. We also think of our neighbors west of us who know that they will receive up to 15 feet of water in order to save Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
We also hear the river will close to traffic on Monday for the duration. How odd it will seem to not have the ships and the ferries. But all we can do is to talk and keep checking.

Last night, I went for drinks and dinner with a friend to Domenica, one of John Besh's newer restaurants. This one is in the Roosevelt Hotel, our most famous hotel since the 1920s which took almost 4 years to rebuild itself after levee destruction. Great food and drink, lovely place, good conversation. A welcome respite from a stressful few weeks.

We toasted our city and my new found freedom from employment, starting in early June. We talked about her sales at JazzFest, (www.kabukihats.com), her next show at Lincoln Center, my travels with the work that I have lined up over the summer.

Many good things may be coming to us individually but looming environmental issues also are coming closer. We now live with the knowledge that we are in an even more fragile place in a politically charged time. What will happen to the people of the Delta? To the farmers west and north? The fisheries? The small cities that surround the larger ones? What about the levee leakages some are seeing? And the pollution now added to our river where we get our drinking water? What happens to the levees when the water starts to drop?

I woke up today with a feeling of great weight in my heart: I rode to the levee and looked at the river again and silently asked it to stay in its agreed path, and to spare what it could.

And then I went home and made red beans and settled in for more wait.