After Katrina

My baby was 6 weeks old as I absentmindedly turned on the news for a little company while I got us dressed and out of the house.  It was a resplendent day, as only September can be in my part of the world, impossibly blue sky, air so clear it makes your lungs feel bigger.  And so it was I watched live as a plane drove into the big blocky building I’d been in so many times.  Close enough to see from the bridge near my house, nonetheless I watched in horror on the television, thinking, “Poor people, what an awful accident,” only to have the grim realization sink in over the next several hours that this was much, much worse than I could have ever imagined at first and certainly no accident.  After a few days, when the wind shifted, you could smell the burning pit from my house.  After a week in horror and grief, and much more CNN than is good for the heart, I gave up watching television news since that week after September 11th.

And so I was slow on the uptake when Hurricane Katrina hit.  I saw the newspaper headlines… New Orleans dodges the bullet.  Only through glimpses upon Instant Messenger log-in and passing comments did that sickening and somewhat familiar realization begin to sink in… this is so much worse than I imagined.  Ironically, the air in my New York City suburb is crisp and clean again (it being that same time of year), making it easy to remember that awful September day and what it feels like to know that, incongruous to the beauty and crispness, people are dying by the thousands and grieving by the millions. 

New York has been the object of my affection all of my life.  It was the scene of my first forays into independence as I snuck in to the Village on the Path train to look at wacky shoes and smell life, pungent, intense and sweet, all around me.  While not a hometown haunt, New Orleans was always on my list of “places I most want to visit” until this spring when the CV conference finally took me there.  It captivated my imagination immediately, its meandering streets, the shamelessly touristy quality of the French Quarter, the vast river reminding me of my own beloved Hudson, its magic shops where a jar of bath salts could cure a lovesick heart, its laid back and friendly people. 

My work kept me in the hotel for the most part.  Much like I’d done with Windows on the World (the World Trade Center restaurant) years before, I made a mental note that “one day” I’d return and tour the city properly.  Just 3 weeks ago I priced the airfare.  But the timing was off.  And now, of course, hesitation has bred impossibility – New Orleans as I wanted to enjoy it will never exist again.

What rises in its place is largely in ours to create.  Just as a nation came together to throw arms around my beleaguered city when those buildings crumbled to dust and flesh and toxic fire, so it is ours now to drain the killing waters and build again… smarter perhaps, with more sound engineering and better urban planning, but build again. 

And we are banding together.  Every newsletter I get, every website I visit invites me to donate to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath.  I know many brave and wonderful people, some coaches, some not, are doing what they can to send diapers and sanitary pads, blankets, food and money.  In every great adversity there is an opportunity to shine, to rise stronger, to show our mettle and our capacity for compassion and love. 

So I could exhort you to donate (you should) and pray (you must) but mostly I want to leave you with this thought.  We are one.  These are our children living on overpasses and having stale food when they’re lucky enough to have any at all. 

This is not about us at all, not a commentary about CoachVille or coaching, not an opportunity for hand-wringing about whether “coaches” are doing the right thing (can you even paint us all with one brush anyway?).  It’s about one person – you – reaching in your heart and finding what is there.  I'm not a fan of school-marmish guilt-trips that bully people into perfunctory donations to allay their consciences.  It's not about doing what looks good, or even what's required.  It harkens back to a rule much older than most... treat the victims of Katrina as you would have others treat you.

We talk a lot about the coaching profession changing the world, and that’s an easy conversation sitting around hotel lounges with a hip drink and a conference hand-out on our laps.  Never mind about the world watching... these are the moments that define who we are, not just as coaches but as human beings. 

So… who are we?