by Cassandra Caverhill
It’s like a tornado that lasts for hours, he says, tracking Ida’s landfall on Twitter. He watches grainy cell phone videos coming in from those who didn’t evacuate, and I can’t stomach the scenes given how much he’s endured. Watching this way is easier than living through it. His mom picked him up at Loyola freshman year when Ivan was set to hit: they got stuck for sixteen hours trying to drive to San Antonio—eight hours on an unmoving interstate and eight more to arrive at their destination. Years later, he returned home from Ole Miss a week after Katrina’s mayhem and there were no landmarks to guide him anymore. Their house was just fucking gone. They kept making mortgage payments for months afterward, on a bungalow that didn’t even exist. He’s worried about everyone down there, even though he doesn’t really know anyone living down there anymore. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, he rationalizes: roofs can be fixed, power can be restored, the streets can be drained. But his family never rebuilt. Ida’s already reversed the flow of the Mississippi, impelling water from the Gulf into the river, inundating the floodplain. At thirty past midnight, his phone vibrates with an incoming call, a name flushed from his past, someone he hasn’t talked to since college. And while he figures it was only a butt-dial, the caller could’ve been reaching out to all their contacts from the area to see if he, too, was surviving.
Cassandra Caverhill is the author of the chapbook Mayflies (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her work has most recently appeared, or is forthcoming in, The Malahat Review, Pictura Journal, Propagate: Fruits from the Garden Anthology, and Short Reads. She is a graduate of Bowling Green State University’s MFA program in poetry. More at casssandracaverhill.com.
Originally from Cheraw, SC, Bridada studied visual arts at Clemson University, concentrating in film photography. Her journey with film photography began with a 35mm film camera gifted by her parents in 2012 for her first photography course, the camera she continues to use for all her film photographs today. Growing up in a military family and frequently traveling, Bridada developed a deep appreciation for the world’s varied landscapes, while her upbringing in a small southern town grounded her in the beauty of southern life. This balance between movement and rootedness is reflected in her work, capturing both nature’s healing power and life’s complexities. For Bridada, the darkroom became a space for introspection, where developing prints created a reflective dialogue with the world around her. Her art invites viewers to see beyond the surface, offering glimpses into perspectives that might otherwise be missed. In addition to being a professional artist, Bridada is a mental health professional and art therapist in training, blending creativity with therapeutic practice.
The Petigru Review 