Dawnsinger

The frantic rush of work leading up to today's Katrina anniversary came to a screeching halt last night, as I received my call to jury duty. A day that was scheduled for memorials and interviews ends in the hushed murmur of a St. Tammany courtroom annex for Juror 76.

A year ago at this moment, I sat in the hurricane bunker in The Times-Picayune building, frantically posting the latest news updates and pleas for help. The bulletproof windows outside the Living department bulged in and out with the slamming gusts of Katrina. Across the central stairwell, a section of the executive office windows exploded inward, sending a firehose geyser of water into the building and pouring from floor to floor like a cascading waterfall.

 I was nauseated with fear for my daughter Sarah, who was cut off in mid-phone call three hours earlier. She was hiding in our Mandeville home, only a couple of blocks from Lake Pontchartrain, in an area where tall pines were being snapped as if by a giant lawnmower, crushing hundreds of houses. Within a few minutes, we'd get the first confirmation of the levee breaks.

Perhaps it's a metaphor for life in New Orleans: for Juror 76, this day of closure isn't meant to be. No Masses, no second lines, no laying of flowers. Just a resentment at being elsewhere as my city weeps . . . tempered with the knowledge that jury duty is a tangible sign that life is moving on. Life doesn't stop for tears.