Some people in New Orleans party before a storm starts or even after it begins. Young voices hollered and whooped down the street last night, kids running through the rain with bottles in their hands. In the meantime, I stood on the porch as the wind started to pick up. Waiting.

Luckily, I made sure to charge up all my laptops before the power went out. In the dark, I sit in front of a rectangular glowing screen, a reminder that my separation from technology is only temporary until someone comes and repairs the lines. Soon, I'll be connected to the world again. For now, I send texts from time to time, just to make sure others are OK, to let them know I am thinking of them as we sit in the darkness listening to the world outside.

Some might describe the feeling that comes with waiting for a hurricane to arrive as fear, anxiety or anger. To me, it's not quite any of those things. It's closer to surrender.

Growing up, my grandmother told me stories of Hurricane Betsy that engraved themselves on my memory. In their home on Desire Street in the Ninth Ward, they stayed put when they heard that weather was coming, with none of the advanced ways to communicate about the threat of a storm that we have now.

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