THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS

Good morning America. How are you?" Then Steve Goodman and Arlo Guthrie vanished.
At first I tought that it was a song about New Orleans, but pretty soon I discovered that it was a train called The City of New Orleans leaving from Chicago and going all the way to the sea. Later, one night, in de middle of a thunderstorm, with the lightings striking around us, the plane I was flying in landed in New Orleans for a stop.
Years bygone, I checked in a thrift store of the Salvation Army in Chicago, looking for Goulamin african trade beads and for a before-the-war-japanese-tea-cup, when I read in a white cup "Cafe du Monde" and I picked it up guessing if it was from Paris, but when I read New Orleans I put it down and exit the store. Never before I knew the existence of a Cafe du Monde. This was happening in the twilight hour, after sunset. As soon as I reached home I tuned the radio for the news, and stunned I heard a reporter telling the audience: "I'm standing in the Cafe du Monde, in New Orleans. The water has risen two inches on the street..." because a hurricane whose name is lost in my memory was landing by the City of New Orleans. The next morning I went to the Salvation Army thrift store, and thanks God I found the cup and bought it. So now the Cafe du Monde and New Orleans are united with me in my brains because a synchronization, as Carl Jung named this phenomenon, had ocurred to me the night before.
Today I watched on TV the face of the building of the Cafe du Monde with no visible damage after Katrina. And my cup that I use daily shows off the Cafe du Monde with no cracks in the meantime that I am hearing the voice of Arlo Guthrie: "Good morning, America. How are you?"
What else can I say other than my anguish is shoreless ?
But I know that after a normal period of grief, the City of New Orleans like a phoenix-mermaid will surge again in the midst of the waters made Katrinas-proof.