“The Recovery”

It’s been in my head for a while now and I haven’t exactly figured out how to present the notion. It’s been in there half-baked. So I think I’m just going to try it stream-of-consciousness style…

I’m sick of “the recovery.” I understand the aftermath of the flood is going to last for a long time. Maybe ten years. I understand it should be moving faster than it should. I understand some think “the recovery” is a necessary phrase. It was. I just hate hearing it now. I especially hate seeing it on signs in front of buildings that look like they are far from recovering.

I know one reason I loathe the word is because like “The War On Terror” it is used as a tool for, well, a lot. People are hurting the recovery, people are aiding the recovery, the recovery is being jump started, the recovery is being stalled. I wonder how many years are going to pass before “the recovery” becomes just the way it is.

And maybe my problem with “the recovery” is that it doesn’t imply things will be better. It just states we will be recovered and that would simply be like things were before the storm. And though it might be perceived things were fantastic then, they really weren’t.

And hey, maybe it’s because three and a half years have gone by and we are still talking about how to proceed with “the recovery.” This suggests “the recovery” hasn’t even started yet.

My ire may actually be about the signs. I think the signs are what’s really led me to hate “the recovery.” There are three up in front of Arthur Mundy up the street. One stating, “Our Recovery in Progress” and two more blank boards presumably to be completed once “the recovery” is.

Perhaps we could start calling it “the botched recovery” or “our ongoing rebirth” or “the remaining days in the Nagin administration.” Just so long as “the recovery” undergoes some sort of transmogrification.

I suppose it doesn’t help that folks lives are flourishing all around me. All the people on my block were effected by the Katrina and whether they are rich or poor, they have resumed their lives. I understand schools and hospitals are still struggling in the city and they are certainly part of “the recovery” but let’s just call that the “recovery of health care” or “the recovery of education.” This blanket term, “the recovery” seems like a poor representation of what’s going on and since no one who should be leading the recovery is actually doing so, “the recovery” sits out there like a blank canvass for anyone to use for their own means.

Some tourists approached me in the Quarter the other day asking how to get to the Ninth Ward. I put them on St. Claude sent them over the Industrial Canal. Even though I know it’s all slabs and stoops to nowhere, I told them to go check out “the recovery.” Even when applied to an area that indeed needs to recover, “the recovery” doesn’t apply.