School was canceled Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week because Hurricane Isaac may or may not be assaulting our shores. Look, after the disaster of Katrina, I understand the impulse to be "better safe than sorry." But, I can't help but feel that just as politics (who, Brownie!?) played a role in the handling of that last mega-disaster that nearly wiped a city off our maps, politics rear their ugly heads again. Rumors are swirling that Alabama Governor Bentley called a state of emergency (for a tropical storm--Isaac is, at press time, still not a hurricane--that is going to strike 2 whole states away) so as to garner himself some attention while skipping the RNC. Regardless of whether is he was being proactive or paranoid, my inner cynic doesn't think he was really considering my personal safety when he made his announcements. Clearly, school needed to be canceled this far in advance. I mean, LOOK AT THIS WEATHER (menacing, no?):
Which brings me back to pop science. We have lived in Mobile nearly 6 years. And, according to Elsabeth Kubler-Ross' 1969 model of grieving, I have passed through 4 stages of mourning this relocation:
1. Denial: I CANNOT live in Alabama. Alabama is for mouth breathers and rednecks. Alabama is the "Heart of Dixie," home to racial injustice, Governor Wallace, meth labs, the Civil Rights Movement, cotton, hicks, and good ol' boys. This is no place for a girl who grew up in Orange County, California (the birthplace of the John Birch Society, John Wayne, the Crystal Cathedral, Disneyland, and assorted other meaningful contributions to society). This is not where I am going to live. I am not 'from' here. I'm like Hemingway and Stein and Fitzgerald--a disillusioned ex-pat momentarily caught in another country, another world. This is NOT going to be permanent.
2. Anger: Towards husband: "HOW COULD YOU BRING US HERE?!?!" Towards bumper stickers: "You miss REAGAN? Funny, he missed himself too, in that second term." "NOBAMA? You're so right! Clearly, you've been living the high life, and you've got a 1980s beater truck, diabetes, and no teeth to show for it." Towards the SEC, towards the Jesuits (they do run M's college), towards every one who could possibly wear it. Even if you didn't think you were wearing my rage, you probably did at one point.
3. Bargaining: I will work 2 jobs We can run away to another country in the middle of the night, we can forfeit our citizenship and run off to a South American country that is more developed than Alabama. We can ask M to change careers. He could go to law school, or medical school, or HELL, trade school. We could get on a raft and go to Cuba. We could sell our children. We could flee to Canada. We could become Mormon Missionaries and go to West Africa. ANYTHING is better than Alabama.
4. Depression: Um, yeah. Well, I would elaborate on this except it's too obvious.
So, after struggling through these four steps of grief, and hovering over, but unable to move on to the final step (Acceptance), my mourning encounters another obstacle: the hurricane (or its less menacing sibling, the tropical storm) and all ensuing ridiculousness.
Just when I think I will be able to transition through the final steps of mourning, Alabama does something so annoying that I have this setback. Back to Step 2.
How infuriating is it that school was canceled yesterday, at least 36 hours ahead of a storm that as it turns out, is not going to directly hit us? How infuriating is it that the Mobile School Destruct (spelling mine) now can't decide how these missed days are to be made up? (Some suggestions include Saturdays, adding 15 minutes of class per day, every day, for the next 22 weeks, and the least popular solution, adding 3 days on to the end of the school year). Because, we all know that at 49th in the Union, Alabama really needs to sabotage its education system further. All of this because The Powers that Be in my state--the ones that advocate small government and states' rights, and local control over local regions--had a meeting of the state legislature and told my School Destruct when school had to start and stop. All of this because, we couldn't possibly schedule 181 days of school so that we would have a cushion of one day in case of--you know, HURRICANE. All of this because a state of emergency allows the state access to federal funds from the very federal government that everyone here abhors. Funds that our citizens don't feel they should have to pay into with their taxes. Funds that come from that socialist president of ours and his fascist socialist organizations like FEMA.
All of this to make me absolutely insanely angry about living here again.
Step 5, Acceptance, is elusive, and by all psychological accounts, not obtained by everyone grappling with loss. Six years. And here I am.
Recovery is nothing if not a series of small steps. I will reconcile myself to the hysteria caused by this tropical storm. I will appreciate that yesterday, my kids didn't have to go to school on what was, quite possibly, the most beautiful day of summer. I will consider myself lucky that they are safe and snug in my house when (if) it ever starts to rain today. Until then, I will continue to sit by the pool, sipping my coffee, and watching the kids play in the sparkling water. I will remind myself that even though The Fine State of Alabama, its State Representatives, and the Mobile County School Destruct don't seem to value education, I still do; my kids, at least, will not be dumber for these lost days. I will relish this beautiful breeze as long as it lasts, or until it becomes a ferocious howl. I will move into Acceptance, dammit.
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