I remember...
It's strange how memories embed themselves in a place.
I spent a *lot* of time on Galveston Island during my growing-up-in-south-Texas days.
Driving down Broadway last October, the ravages of Ike seemed surreal in contrast with those sunny childhood memories. Mountains of debris the size of respectable buildings loomed in a couple of empty lots pressed into service as emergency landfills, and more debris lay scattered here and there on streets I remembered as clean and well-kept. Parts of buildings leaned or hung at wrong angles, and I remembered them clearly as they should have been. The whole island reeked of decay, the product of powerless refrigerators and dead wildlife, when the smell of the Galveston I knew should have been salt and humidity. Driving through the mess that was the Texas Gulf coast, it seemed that my childhood itself had been battered and torn and muddied, and I nearly cried.
I still had most of a soul back then.
I've been back a few times since October-- once in January with David, once in February with Dad, and once last weekend with dubh_ceol. Each time, the memories of that recovery trip are stronger in my mind than those of my childhood. I find myself comparing the place's appearance now to the way it looked last October in the wake of the storm, noting changes and progress and cleanup, and I am proud of the area's progress. I wonder, though, if it will always be a recovering disaster zone in my mind, or if it will someday be the place I remembered before Ike.
The ferry trip over to Bolivar Peninsula is a more complex mixture of memories and reactions.
That twenty-minute crossing was always my favorite part of the trip, and I know every landmark along the way-- the Coast Guard Station, Seawolf Park, the sunken concrete ship, the Bolivar Lighthouse-- by heart, and can rattle of most of its history. As with Galveston, it was a strange feeling in October to be standing somewhere so familiar in such an incongruous context.
Every ferry trip now is another set of mental comparisons. I watch and listen to the boarding and launching procedures, and I remember how lax those procedures were when the ferry was carrying emergency personnel instead of throngs of citizens. I stand among the crowd clustered at the railing, and I remember what it felt like to be on the boat to devastated Bolivar with just my teammates, a TF-1 contingent, and some EPA representatives. I look at the ferry landing, now put back to rights, and remember when half the pilings were knocked down or tilted at crazy angles. I watch the seagulls circling in aerial hordes and remember how thrilled we were to see just half a dozen so soon after the storm. I see Seawolf Park as we pass, and I remember how the DE was listing to starboard and the sub's detached conning tower lay on its side, and I note that they've righted it all and cleaned it up now.
Somewhere in the back of my mind is always also the memory of that last trip I made with David, the week before he died. I remember the conversation we were having as we pulled onto the ferry, the seagull that almost landed on his head, and I miss him more than I can say.
The area itself is slowly returning to normal or something like it-- there's still a long way to go, but I see progress every time I return. I wonder if my memory will ever do the same.