One afternoon in 2005, mowing the lawn brought me to tears.
“Does she have allergies?” You might ask.
What brought me to tears was dozens of crickets fleeing the rapidly spinning blade of the mower.
It was just days after Hurricane Katrina wreaked her havoc on New Orleans. The talking heads were already placing the blame on the ‘ignorant’ inhabitants who waited too long to try to escape the city.
Why didn’t they leave sooner?

What about the Amtrak trains that had stopped running two days earlier for fear that the company might lose engines?
What of the Greyhound buses which sat idol at a safe distance?
What about the flights from New Orleans halted because the airlines had stopped them?

Today, on the fourth anniversary of Katrina, I mowed my lawn. It was full of crickets gorging themselves on the lush foliage from the recent rains. Again, they scattered as the vibrations of the mower drew near. Most of them lost the race.
Again, I thought to myself, “Surely this is what desperation looks like.”