Download the article: Lessons from a Hurricane
When I evacuated on August 28, I wasn't planning on being gone more than a couple of days. The day before, I had just conducted a friendly, productive work-play morning for my Kindergarten families. There was a little chatter about the approaching storm, but the main conversation was about the children, the coming year, and budding friendships. As my assistant and I bustled about, introducing people, directing work tasks, and greeting children, we kept meeting each others' eyes with a smile. It was our third year of Kindergarten, and for the first time, we weren't moving into a new building the day before school started. We still had a week ahead of us to devote to sewing, fairytales, and the first circle. The day was balmy, the parents motivated, the children funny and beautiful.
There were other things to be thankful for this year: a school phone, a small office for the teachers, and best of all, proximity to the rest of our school. The church from whom we rented had found space for our fifth through eighth grades, so for the first time our faculty would be able to begin each day together. The year promised unity and growth.
By the end of the morning, the crayons were clean, the coloring mats completed, and the doll clothes were drying on racks. The furniture had been dusted, the floors swept, the toys put lovingly into place, and the dishes washed and placed onto shelves. As I locked up, my assistant and I briefly discussed our evacuation plans and agreed to meet back at school no later than Wednesday.
At my house, I started evacuation preparations. Into my suitcase went clothes for three days, books and games for Mikey, my six year-old, a favorite stuffed animal, snacks for the car trip to Houston, a journal, my knitting project, important records, and a few magazines I hadn't had a chance to finish reading. I took down pictures and special artwork, packed them in a box, and put them as high in the closet as I could reach. For a moment, I wondered if I should take any of my pictures or photo albums with me, but the idea of my home being destroyed was too painful to really think of, and I pushed the thought aside. After all, I'd evacuated so many times before, and New Orleans had never been struck. Besides, with a cat, a hamster, and a six-year-old boy, there wasn't room for much else in the car we would be sharing with friends.
We left New Orleans early Sunday morning and arrived in Houston at 10:00 Sunday night. We were exhausted, but safe. I got up several times that night to check the news. The next morning, it looked like New Orleans had been spared a direct hit. We gave thanks and began thinking about when it would be safe to return. I didn't find out until the next morning, August 30, that the levees had broken and New Orleans was under water. There was no way to contact friends since cell phones ceased to work. There was no way of knowing how the school fared, how my house fared. In the space of a day, life as I knew it, as I depended upon it, had forever changed.
Mikey and I flew out the next day to my parents' home in California. We had to leave the hamster with friends, but were able to take the cat with us. I tried to make the trip as fun and normal as possible for my little boy, but on the inside I was numb and terrified. In the dark days that followed, in those first few weeks when I didn't know what became of my friends, my home, or my school, and when the only news that trickled out of New Orleans was devastating, it was hard to feel courageous.
Of course, I felt tremendous gratitude for my life and for the life of my son, but there was still this keening in me, this constant steady crying for my familiar life. Who was I, stripped of my house, my school, my job, the little things I had collected throughout my life? I had kept journals for thirty years, how was I going to remember my life without them? I grieved for my photo albums, for my son's baby book, for the things I had made for my kindergarten. Night after night, I lay awake picturing my home and my classroom, wondering if I had placed things high enough to survive the flood waters, wishing I had packed more items.
I prayed for my friends and for the families of our school, trying to picture each dear face before I fell asleep. There were so many people I hadn't heard from, so many people I didn't know how to contact.
One sleepless night, I started re-reading a copy of the Spring/Summer 2005 issue of Gateways. The letter from the editor seemed to have been written just for me. In it, Stephen Spitalny writes of the importance of awakening from the enchantment of the modern world. He offers Steiner's suggestions to spend time in true observation of nature, and to consciously observe one's own responses to events that come into our lives. Spitalny adds that crises and painful situations often give us perfect opportunities to look at ourselves.
Although it felt more like a never-ending nightmare rather than an awakening from enchantment, I knew a great challenge was before me. I prayed for gratitude, and for a release from the constant fear and sorrow that filled me. At first, all I could say was "I want to be grateful. I want to be strong. I want to trust." And I would repeat that over and over, hoping that the intention would help get me there.
I enrolled my son in a little school nearby. It was a public school, but the teacher and staff were warm and welcoming. I let go of my need for it to be a Waldorf school and I decided to trust this new community. As the days passed, my gratitude to the school grew, especially as Mikey seemed so happy and safe.
It wasn't easy for me to let go of my old life. I'd never been comfortable with surprises. I liked order. I liked to know what was coming. I liked to make lists. In college, I used to turn my assignments in two weeks early! I needed to feel prepared. I hadn't been prepared for this upheaval, and yet-I realized I was surviving, with the love and care of my family and friends. I began to feel less afraid. Slowly, I understood that I had been given the perfect chance to embrace uncertainty. Could I learn to feel gratitude for this?
I began to spend more time in the woods around me. For the first time in thirteen years, I was experiencing autumn. I walked, ran, and rode my bike under golden canopies of alder leaves. Bushes blazed red. The Sierra Mountains cradled me. Tall pine trees tossed down their pine cones in generous offerings. I collected piles of them, each one so perfect. I also collected moss covered branches, dried wood, pretty leaves. I filled boxes of autumn treasures, wanting to take them back to my kindergarteners someday. Sometimes, I sat under a tree and let the tears come. How lucky I was to be in such a beautiful place as I searched for clarity.
I began to realize that gratitude didn't mean I felt happy about something, but that it meant I was less susceptible to despair, and was therefore open to what I could learn. I also learned that courage doesn't always mean you feel brave; sometimes it just means you don't give up.
As the weeks passed, I received more news from New Orleans. My home had survived, but many friends had lost theirs. Often the joy of hearing from someone was quickly followed by grief when I learned they wouldn't return to New Orleans. Little by little, I tried to find something hopeful in each loss. When I learned of students that would not be returning, I was grateful that they had been welcomed into warm schools. When I saw the pictures of my flooded classroom, I rejoiced that our upper grade classrooms were untouched on the second floor. When friends decided to move away forever from New Orleans, I was grateful that their lives were spared.
The losses to our school have almost been devastating, but we have decided to rebuild. Hope, and the desire to continue, is strong. Other Waldorf schools have begun to contact us and to pledge their support. Play groups, home school groups, parent groups, retired teachers, and even Waldorf students have begun sending prayers, encouragement, and donations in support of our school. There has been such an outpouring of strength that my grief over our torn community is beginning to fade. It's as if our sense of community has become larger. It feels as if we have friends all over the world, friends we can depend on until we get our strength back. The community encompasses all of us. And that is an empowering feeling.
I will return to New Orleans, to help rebuild the school and the city that I love. We will be in a new building, in a part of town that wasn't touched by the flooding. Many of our families will not come back, but many are just as determined to try again. We probably won't have a phone, but all the classes will be together, and once again we teachers will be grateful to gather each morning before classes begin. Dolls, puppets and gnomes that have traveled from schools around the world will greet the children when they return.
I suspect that I will be a stronger teacher as a result of the past few months. Those little inconveniences like the bread that doesn't rise, the blue paint jar that breaks, or the realization after a nature walk in the rain that no one has dry clothes in their cubbies, won't be as unsettling. I suspect that the lessons I've learned from our hurricane might even inspire me to write a few fairytales.
Our lives will be at times scary and overwhelming, but because there are many people standing beside us, keeping us in their thoughts, we will be strengthened. Hurricane Katrina astounded us all by its force and fury, but I have discovered that the forces of hope, compassion and generosity are even stronger.
Heidi Anne Porter is a kindergarten teacher at the Hill School, a Developing Waldorf school in New Orleans.