January 2012: it’s the start of a new year and a time to look forward to something new.
In the first week of a new year, we each have certain hopes for the future. We anticipate that our lives will be somehow better than last year. We make resolutions, plan for self-improvement, or focus on developing skills, talents, and abilities by setting goals we aim to meet.
At the start of this new year, I, too, think about the ways in which I can change to become a better person. Today, my thoughts about changes are shaped memories of a particular experience from my holiday vacation. In the days between the Christmas and New Years holidays, I visited New Orleans.
New Orleans isn’t a place I’ve spent much time in the past. On this trip, I enjoyed great food and outstanding music. Among my adventures was an afternoon trip to the lower Ninth Ward – the area most heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
It will soon be seven years since Katrina came to shore on the Gulf Coast. Throughout the city, signs of damage remain. While many homes have been rebuilt in the lower Ninth Ward, the devastation remains very apparent today. Many homes are left standing as vacant shells. Others have been demolished leaving empty lots with broken chunks of concrete. Others have been renovated and restored to a state much like they were before the flooding. In other places, new homes now stand built to withstand a future flood.
Since that trip, I’ve thought about how the present condition of the lower Ninth Ward provides a visual illustration of the way people approach change in their lives. Not all of us respond the same way to change. But when change is thrust upon us, we need to do something about it.
The houses that remain empty, some boarded up and others collapsing, remind me that some people are simply unable to rebuild themselves in the face of change. In this case, for whatever reasons, the only change they could manage was to leave the Ninth Ward. This probably meant leaving memories and close ties to create a new identity and way of life.
Many others appear to have returned. Their response was to re-build and restore homes to something close to what they were before the floods. In a way, it’s like claiming “This is who I was and this is who I will continue to be.” In the face of change, they remain strong and anchored.
Some lots are now vacant presumably because homes were damaged beyond repair. The change meant wiping away what was, erasing the memory to move on. In the emptiness of where homes once stood, it’s as though the former life is cleared away and forgotten.
In other places, new homes have been built. These new hopes aren’t like the old ones. They are built to survive the next flood. Equipped with solar panels, they will produce their own electricity and sustain the residents even in the midst of crisis. This is a symbol of our ability to adapt and try something new based on experience. In a sense, this is change for the better.
Our New Year’s resolutions and plans to change in personal ways are no different from what has occurred for those living in the Ninth Ward. While for them, catastrophic change was thrust upon them, for us we can choose to change and be better people in much the same ways. Some of us approach the new year carrying familiar pieces with us from the past while trying to start again in new ways. Others of us stay firmly planted in our identity and make very few changes, no matter how different our circumstances may be. Still others of us distance ourselves from what we view as past mistakes and bury the memories so they aren’t easy to find. I think too few of us take the time to reflect and learn to build in new ways based on what we’ve learned to build something new that will adapt to our present and future lives.
People in the lower Ninth Ward had change thrust upon them and have coped as best they could with little help. But in terms of starting a new year, we’re in a privileged position. We can step back to reflect on what we’ve learned, so that we can build in new ways, ways that will much better adapt to our present and future lives. As we strive to be better people, do we cling to the past, or avoid the past, or run from the past? Or is our past the foundation we use to find new ways to adapt to the future? How we grow into the new year is really up to us.