♫ press play: (1, 2)

for all the reasons that i love being in new orleans, being a part of new orleans, i can’t quite understand why i so often want to run away from new orleans.

i think i had earlier been attempting to push myself away from this place because of my responsibilities doing relief work…dealing with other’s trauma and all the leftover bullshit from managing a relief organization. volunteers leave their baggage behind, both physical and emotional–i’m left cleaning up the mess; people make donations: vehicles, tools, shoes, clothing, money–managing this can be full time. and then what happens when the relief organization shrinks to two people and we don’t want to be a relief organization anymore? we just want to be ourselves working in the community? and be ourselves irrespective of disaster relief. i guess pushing myself to leave new orleans was like forcing myself to conclude all matters…close bank accounts, pay off debt, fix broken vehicles, finish the final building projects. but its not that simple, or it hasn’t proven to be. and then my gut starts telling me maybe new orleans is home. so then where should i live: nola or violet? what work do i do? who am i?? for two years, i’ve identified as an outsider who came into a disaster site to bring resources to residents who wanted to rebuild. i was not a new orleanian or wishing to become one. i was not here to stay.

i don’t know why it is so hard to just stay. to make a home. to fall in love for real. maybe it’s because my saturn is approaching. maybe it’s because i have too many day dreams. when once i got indecisive and excited about change every six months, now i can’t remember what i was daydreaming about yesterday. its like i am off into a new idea every new day…it’s wearing me out. i have aspirations, but complete lack of decisiveness. everything appeals. nothing repels. i’m stuck.
 
stuck in new orleans. i think i’m ok with that.
 
*   *   *

The Saturn return is a regular astronomical occurrence relevant to the practice of astrology which occurs in a person’s life at approximately 27–30 years of age…. The planet Saturn takes approximately 29.5 years to orbit the Sun; when it returns to the exact degree along the ecliptic it occupied at the time of a person’s birth this is referred to as their “Saturn Return”.

Saturn is symbolically/astrologically associated with time, challenge, fear, doubt, confusion, difficulty, seriousness, heaviness, unwanted burdens and hard lessons…

*
    when my plane landed in new orleans last night at 11:30, i had been wrapped up in conversation with the passenger sitting next to me: a disgruntled cattle farmer from maryland who recently sold all his cattle in protest of a new maryland law requiring livestock farmers with 8 or more animals to pay more fees and have a elaborate farm plan submitted to uncle sam detailing every aspect of the farm operation. his frustration was understandable, but not the irrational blame he kept placing on illegal immigrants in the united states. everything he talked about somehow lead back to how illegal immigrants are to blame. interesting man, but he wore me out.

so anyway, when we landed he pointed at the condensation coating the outside of the little oval airplane windows and asked, “so it’s pretty humid here, huh?”
“oh, you just don’t know, mister. you just don’t know.”
 

* *
    i am back in the south. i wanted to let you all know that i am safe and sound and so grateful for your hospitality and accommodations while i took a month-long vacation this may. the vacation was for my physical & mental health and it worked. i have all you to thank.

when i stepped into my house in new orleans and put my backpack down, the feeling of ‘home’ crept up into my body and filled me up. i hugged my roommates and two best friends in the living room. i looked at the 7 month-old baby sleeping in their room and i paused to take in his presence. he’s so tall now, but still so fat. i laid in my bed and read a letter i had received from an old friend. i sat on the porch while my roommates smoked cigarettes and i took in the neighborhood again.

i’m just writing to let y’all know i miss you and love you. i’ll be seeing some of you again soon. but thanks. it was a great trip.
heart.

i’d like to see myself in this place (violet/new orleans) as a maintainer and as a resource to those who work selflessly in supporting the communities here (i.e. keep-hope.org). i would also like to absorb the spirit and wisdom of this place and learn from my neighbors. it was not entirely a conscious choice to come south, but it is a conscious choice to stay.

i’d like to grow with this soul i’ve come to fall in love with via memories and through letters. in life, i’ve come to worry that desire for a person–desire that takes you over rivers and mountains to see them–only leads to an anxiety over the separation of person/place. what i mean is that i find myself in this not-so-new home of new orleans with a new appreciation of “place”, yet falling for a person in a different location seems to fracture my connection with that home-place. in the instance of new orleans/violet, i have continually been at odds with it’s state of “home,” even though it has rightly become one. now that i have fallen in love with someone in another place and begin daydreaming of moving to that place (even a place i thought i would never live), i suddenly start reinforcing my beliefs of why new orleans/violet shouldn’t be my home. what i’ve failed to admit is that it already is.

really, i think it is important for me to wholly admit this is home, and then to visit with this love and ponder together the prospect of making a new home. all the little details i worry so much about–material possesions: tools, vehicles, stuff…ownership, responsibility, accountability–these things will work themselves out once a reason for home is established, where ever that may be. here. or there.

It seemed so fast to think of it now breaks my heart. But in the long days of home the world went on forever. Every day was a thousand years. Electric lines hummed over quiet roads; trees whispered secrets and spoke of signs and wonders. The light of afternoon filtered through my fingers laced before my eyes to reveal the sweetness of the world below and of the world above my head. My hidden heart made words and symbols and created a sense of place that made the days stretch into a memory that long may as well be a lifetime. And the silence of the day would bear down and then the sun would sink low and my heart would be cast up into the language of evening; into the mystery of home.

out of all things, all places, i wonder where am i?
i made a mistake: i told my friends i’m leaving. i was excited, not thinking like my usual self. really, i needed to keep my thoughts to myself, take a trip, soak up my secret desire to go someplace far away between mountains and sea. i am alone, dreaming of this face. i am wondering where am i? where am i? i am here, with you.

i day dream often. i don’t take enough time to look into the river. i sleep in. i work on too many projects at once. i live carefully yet recklessly. i wander. i have trouble relating to most people. i am scared of being alone. i can’t find enough time to be alone, sometimes.
i miss home. it is right here. right there.

(first paragraph from jaci)

VIOLET, LA. 05 may 2006 - i wrote this on a scrap piece of paper in march in the back of a car heading south to the beach on the gulf coast. i found it again folded up in my wallet, and i’ll copy it down here as a record of my emotions, another piece of the timeline doing relief work here in louisiana.

when i arrived in new orleans, the sinking, horrible feeling came conciously and on the surface. now that feeling is rooting itself deeper in my subconscious. i don’t think much about the devastation now, but i am much more sad. it’s a drowning feeling coming sporadically and often causing near immobilization. i can’t feel much of anything but emptiness and despair, almost as if i’m coming to empathize with the people who survived the storm and today tell their story to those who listen…

she stepped out of her house onto the front step. the hurricane winds had calmed and she thought to herself how mild a storm that was. a few trees down, some telephone poles knocked over. something they could handle. looking out from her front step, she felt rain fall on her forehead and watched the dark sky above. she looked to her left. off in the distance, a wall of water came surging down the street, and unstoppable force of nature coming to tear down houses and drown anything in it’s path. i can’t fathom the feeling of impending death, the fear. but i’ve heard a dozen stories yet of those who felt the fear and immediatly fought back, holding onto the possibility of life, however small that chance may have been. climbing furniture as the water rose within minutes. punching through ceilings to climb onto roof tops. sitting on chimneys waiting for help and maybe rescue. swimming on driftwood to hold themselves up. having guns pointed to their faces by cops and property owners hunting for “looters.”

in february, i heard these stories with a strong interest and felt sympathetic. i could almost say i had a hunger for the oral history being told by so many survivors and those who came to help. but now, at the end of march, i’m sick to my stomach and depressed. i hear these stories and have to put my head down or look away, off into another world where i try to imagine the fear of facing either death or devastation. death means letting go; surviving means dealing with the aftermath and attempting to cope. my spirits are lifted by the survivers, those coming home, the relief volunteers, all the people working in solidarity together. but right now i’m tired and lonely, working hard amongst destructive, corrupt, oppressive systems, trying to figure out a better way.

i am home on a friday night. it’s cold outside, 39 degrees. the temperature might hit freezing tonight. niobo went home to violet to put the seedlings inside the house to save them from the cold.

if this part of the south were ever “home,” it is now. if you know me you know i have little roots and identifying the place where i am from is a long answer. thinking about new orleans as home will stress me out. wondering where i belong can cause me anxiety. but i am learning patience and how to be in the present, to be here now. and not question tomorrow.

just a little over a year ago i left this place. i didn’t decide to leave, i seemed to follow the decision made by others. we were volunteers. and outsiders. and we were supposedly burnt out. or at least ready to complete this voyage in our unchartered adventure. none of us had planned this: one week into one year; one month into a new love. still, i believe that in the depths of my gut back in february of last year i wanted to stay. but memories are always foggy and there are so many details i am forgetting to mention…. all in all, my time ended in violet for good, and chicago–for lack of any other home–was where i could find myself again. or this is what i presumed.

but i’m getting off topic. no, wait, i don’t really have a topic here. new orleans? chicago? home? hope?

if you read this journal back a few months, you know i have family here now. and if you check hope you know it’s still around, tribal as ever (don’t let the professional look fool you). and this life is about joy and tolerance and believing in each other so we can be strong for those who lose strength sometimes. or all the time.

a single new orleans day is an entire lifetime. we don’t let it slip away, no matter who, no matter how. live…

i wake.
standing in the kitchen, steam rising from a mason jar half full of tea, i think. the house is empty. it is christmas day. 54 degrees. this weather would be warm for chicago, but it is really cold for new orleans.

the saints lost their game two days ago and every new orleanian i know was in a somber mood, but today offers cheer. hope, maybe. it is yet another reason to gather and cram large families into small houses, tall pots steaming of greens and jambalaya. boxes and boxes of wrapped gifts piled high in the corner.

when i speak of new orleans right now, i speak of violet, too. the difference can be a sensitive subject depending on the topic. the weather: well it’s all the same in the gulf, from houston to florida. wet. wet-cold, wet-hot. i think most folks ten miles down river in violet would consider themselves “new orleans” in most situations. but then it’s true that many people have moved away or stayed away from the streets of new orleans because of just that: the streets. before the storm, violet could be rough, but new orleans was always rougher. violet is country, really. quiet. that’s what people like about it. but then the storm winds blew in. and the water rose up and up and up. people in violet tell of a “wall of water” that came through the marshland to the north-east, over the dirt levees, and on top of the houses. 25,000 homes: destroyed.

when the lights camera action lit up the crecent city, only half devastated, violet was lost in the shadows. a whole parish wiped out and the only attention violet got a woman serving rice and beans and hot dogs in a red cross truck. then the difference between “new orleans” and violet meant much more because what the city got, violet didn’t.

in february 2006, i drove down the road. i needed a place to sleep and common ground was all filled up. someone named isabelle and suncere had set up cots in a empty church they cleaned out. the steeple lay in the dirt next to the building. piles of wood were organized in the parking lot. a white tent was set up housing canned food and clothing. i turned off the ignition to my truck and the door opened up. “hey, we security. you guys volunteer?” he was already taking our bags out of the truck. he spoke with a thick vietnemese accent a carried a huge mag light, the kind with like fifteen D batteries. in the dark, he sounded really tough, but as he walked away his silouette from a outdoor light revealed a scrawny little body in boxer shorts and a winter coat. phong was his name, i learned.

this was HOPE, the first relief operation this far down the road that i know of. a little crew came down with a pickup truck one day and found a few residents living in tents behind their houses, gutting their own muddy, moldy houses day by day. by the time i arrived a month later, HOPE had wheelbarrows, shovels, boots, gloves, tyvek suits, respirators, and duct tape. volunteers were going out daily to clean out houses and residents were showing up equally as fast to sign up and take food and supplies. families lived in tents, vehicles, trailers. coordination couldn’t happen fast enough. there was so much to do.

(to be continued…)

this is the first street elise and i drove down when we arrived in new orleans on february 2006. this photo doesn’t speak much to most people, but it’s reminds me of the place i arrived to then, and how far we’ve all come since.

i live in new orleans now, in the upper ninth ward. i drive to st. bernard parish every day to work, fixing plumbing on houses being rebuilt by a new non-profit giving grants to homeowners to rebuild. i enjoy my work and am fulfilled by the purpose. i can’t really imagine doing anything else right now.

i have a family, we eat together every night and watch out for each other’s needs. it works. there’s a little baby, almost four weeks old now, birthed in our bathroom. there is love that ties us together. something about family…

Pledge of Resistance in Defense of the Right to Housing in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
www.peopleshurricane.org

A major human rights crisis exists in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It is a crisis that denies the basic rights to life, equality under the law, and social equity to Black, Indigenous, migrant, and working class communities in the region. While this crisis was in existence long before Hurricane Katrina, the policies and actions of the US government and finance capital (i.e. banking, credit, insurance, and development industries) following the Hurricane have seriously exacerbated the crisis.  

One of the clearest examples of this crisis is the denial of the right to housing in New Orleans, particularly in the public housing sector. Since the Hurricane, the US government through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has denied the vast majority of the residents of public housing the right to return to their homes. Unlike the vast majority of the housing stock in New Orleans, the majority of the public housing units received little to no flood or wind damage from the Hurricane. Yet, as of October 2007 only one-fourth of the public housing units have been reopened and reoccupied. The Bush government refuses to reopen the public housing units in New Orleans because it appears intent on destroying the public housing system, demolishing the existing structures, and turning over the properties to private real-estate developers to make profits.  

Based on the discriminatory Federal Court ruling issued on Monday, September 10th, all of the major public housing units in New Orleans are now subject to immediate demolition (the latest report from Monday, November 5th is that HUD will attempt to start the demolition on Monday, November 19th. However, this is being challenged by various legal advocates and will be delayed until at least Wednesday, November 28th pending a Federal court hearing). The first site on the schedule for demolition is the Lafitte housing project. Lafitte therefore, is the line in the sand that must be drawn by all peoples in support of the human right to housing.  

Pledge:

• I believe in the fundamental human right to housing.

• I will not be a witness to the denial of this right to the peoples of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

• I therefore pledge myself to resist the denial of this right by all civil and humanitarian means available, including civil disobedience.

• I pledge to stand ready to take action against this imminent threat and to put myself on the line, either directly in New Orleans or in strategic locales throughout the US, in support of the demands and leadership of the peoples of New Orleans and their organizations in the struggle for housing and human rights.  

Have you ever received training in civil disobedience? 

We ask that all those interested in coming to New Orleans to contact us before making the journey. We need to ensure that everyone coming is registered, properly orientated and trained in order to partake in this act of resistance in the manner determined by the local leaders and residents.
Please contact us via email at action@peopleshurricane.org 

today is january first.

two thousand seven. i am still here in violet. still ticking. my travels north and north-east were perfect meditation, but i returned home to louisiana and found unstable ground. this seems to be the pattern in my life over the last couple years.

here’s some words from a letter i wrote someone, just to save myself some time typing.

so i’ll be leaving in janaury. i’m burnt out from dealing with so much trauma. there is some intense trauma among residents here, and i’m mostly talking about the poor and working class. there are some struggles i can’t really deal with anymore, and my life has been pretty unstable concerning money and living space. i’d like to stabilize those things. so i’ll leave. i don’t know where yet. probably somewhere new, somewhere rural. i’d like to work on a farm… work with food and farm maintenence and live the slower life. fall in love. we’ll see. no date or location for now until i leave. i’ve got some projects to focus on here in Violet before i leave: electrical wiring and hanging drywall in a house i’ve been living in since april (running water was the only working utility). it was a space donated by a woman who didn’t know when she wanted to move back, but now she’s eager to move back into this neighborhood, a place that is finally coming back to life over a year after the storm. i’d also like to re-shingle the home of a man who taught me how to do roofing. i think it would be a decent trade.

i know that i will really miss this town. i already do.