A Family Just Outside NOLA

I just uploaded some pictures from my point and shoot camera that these kids took of each other while I was in New Orleans, visiting outside the parish, beyond the Lower 9th ward. I ended up out this way one day looking for a cup of coffee. Sounds silly, but in the lower 9th there's not much place to buy things and I was looking for coffee to bring to Mac at the Lower 9th ward and ended up driving miles outside the parish in search of a McDonalds. I didn't have high hopes of anything fancy, but the oragne store coffee was just a little too thin and I just wanted real half and half.

This family taught me to shoot a gun, just an air gun that shoots bibi's, actually the wind blew the cans over for me, and spared me the pressure of making the shot.

They were a local family including some old timers who knew the area going way back, and some people from other parts of the country, like a Cherokee from Alabama. the kids were really fascinated with the camera and I love the shots they took of each other and their family. I hope to see them again my next trip. Joey, one of the men close to me in age, shared some of what he wrote in the time of Katrina. He remembered it so vividly, being without a place to stay, drifting. His voice carried so much emotion, I was surprised. I don't know why I am still surprised by listening to men tell their stories. Why am I surprised that they know sadness too. I've grown up hearing how men don't have feelings like women, but when I listen to people like Joey talk, I can hear it, it's in them too, the longing to be rooted to place, to have a family, and a home.

Falling Down Barn Outside Town

 The way this barn bowed out at the sides, like a animal heavy with child, made we wonder if it was getting ready to lie down or fall under the next winter's snow. It seemed, like old people do sometimes, to stand just from stubborn habit. 

In Memory of John Abel

When we went back to post pictures of John and share them with the people who would most miss him, we could not find Gretchen. We put the pictures where she wanted, next to the cross that was scratched into the concrete.

Teenagers on Fern St.

I delivered a couple of pictures today to people in the post call haze that I've claimed as my time for photography and staying connected to the world outside the hospital.

There were no new pictures of people today.  The teenagers that I came accross today on Fage street, out playing ball while the leaves finish coming down off the trees, didn't want pictures taken. They were curious, but incredulous and completely disinterested in having pictures taken.

 

So, I turned again to the sky and the light falling on buildings as my subjects. 

Nancy Had Words For Me

Nancy believes in words. They come to her from God. For me she had a few words. She told me I would make movies. She said I would help people with their costumes. There was a path for me and I was bound to reach it's end.

She asked her friend to give me words too and he said," Peace, Love, Understanding."  Her latest project is the umbrella, which she says is part of god's plan for her. She mentioned that she's missing some teeth, but doesn't want them replaced, not with those ones that all look the same, that aren't crooked. She doesn't need them, she says, not all god's people have teeth, so why should she?

I've seen her on Salina Street before. Today, I was moving slow, on only a handful of sleep, but I caught her and we had fun swapping words and stories.  Someday, I want a costume and to give people words, peace, love, and understanding.

Milkweed

Sometimes I still get out beyond the edge of the city and look at the landscape. Today, I went to Green Lakes and watches milkweed pods blowing themselves out into the future.

Flying in Memory of...

I met with several of the people who use or have in the past used the 690 underpass that John Abel called home for most of the last eight years. The plan was that I'd record their thoughts and print an obituary if one hadn't yet been written. When I showed up at 5 after the hour, I was surprised to see people waiting for me. Somehow I didn't expect that they would take me up on the offer. At the start we were four and another two came a few minutes later.  

I  met the woman who took him in during the winter months when it was too cold to live outside. They told me stories about birthdays, Christmas, random days. Why he started drinking so heavily after his lover died. How he was getting close to his family and had hopes of quitting drinking. They shared with me how he loved to dance and shook every part of his body when there was music. They shared stories of the many travelers have passed through the space they keep. Some stayed on and learned to "fly," the term used by the homeless for standing out in the traffic with a sign begging for money. One of the women I met told me she was one of only a handful of women who liked to fly. Mostly it's the men.

I was surprised to learn how many of the local businesses they have worked for and have relationships with. The most recent set of couches were donated by the U-Haul moving and storage business a couple of block away after one passer through set fire to most of the old furniture. Another business keeps them in wood to burn in the winter when they sleep up close under the highway because the rising heat from the fires they set gets trapped up there and keeps it manageable warm .