Lower 9th

After finishing up at the Tire Shop with some pictures of Gladdy and her grandson, I made a short visit to the lower ninth ward to see how things were at the Lower 9th Ward Village.  Mac has continued to draw volunteer groups from all over the country.  He's painted his message and vision out on the front of the place.  He still envisions bringing more of the former neighborhood residents home from all the places they have scattered.  I talked to people who were just getting their insurance settlements and getting ready to rebuild. Many houses remain boarded up. There's still not much more than the orange store and a gas station on the main street, although some people are growing vegetables and keeping chickens for eggs and such like.  The gaps that need filling are still bigger than I can get my  head or heart around.   With characters like these, though it's hard to lose hope.

Barber Shop

I got invited to take pictures at a barber shop on Gentilly near the race track. Curious. I had tried to take pictures at a barber shop in Syracuse and was declined by the owner a few years ago. That was a bigger place. This was a smaller operation and the people working there were open to letting me hang out. Watching men touch each other with such gentleness while performing this seemingly mundane task of giving a hair cut was profoundly moving.  There were a few good laughs too.

Hopes, Fears, Dreams, Connection

Back in New Orleans for the first time in a year, I found being alone on the streets talking to people got me out of the stress of life as a resident at the hospital. It was good to be away from the cold academic sphere, to hear unpredictable bursts of music from every street corner and restaurant. I visited Joe Peters and got one of the young men working there to take our picture together. Mr Peters always inspires me with his commentary on life, relationships, kids, dogs, work, place, community. I talked to him about having a show someday at the tire shop and he surprised me by saying he would be agreeable to such a venture. Sometimes, I still think of walking away from the stress of medical training, but I know that I there is something that I get out of the demands of my professional training that keeps me going even though it squeezes me until I feel I'm going to pop. It gives me something to fight against. Don't we all need a good fight?

Back in New Orleans

Just preparing to visit and reviewed last pictures only to have my hard drive crash, so I'll be going back empty handed. Zen. Let go. Here is a picture form the visit before the last. It was stored elsewhere. Everyone has something. No one has everything.

Back in the Neighborhood Labor Day Weekend

I went back to visit Horace and Christine and deliver pictures to them and their neighbors. Some pictures got delivered to friends and neighbors because I knew I didn't have time to keep looking. I also posted poems with pictures on the laundromat wall and talked to Xai about doing that  more in the future. She was open to it and her kids helped me put some of them up.

In the park I took some pictures of kids playing in a fountain and doing cartwheels down the street. I had the usual problem whey they approached me and asked me to take pictures.

"I need to talk to your parents first and make sure they are o.k. with it."

We walked a block down the street to get permission. Then they swarmed me with "me first, now me, take my picture, I want to be a model."
I had a hard time with wanting to keep them happy while also wanting them to take turns. At some point one cried and I felt rediculous.

Then another parent came over and asked me who I was, said she watched over all the kids in the neighborhood and wanted to know who I was. It was strange to say that I lived in Iowa now, made me wonder why I was back in Syracuse. I still feel connected, but having to verbalize the reality of the distance and say it would be some time before I could deliver pictures was hard.

"Maybe by Holloween I will be back."
Sometimes even when I lived in Syracuse the hospital swallowed my time and I had trouble getting things delivered in a timely manner. Sometimes the surprise of getting them later is o.k. and sometimes I lose people.

Masterworks of Ming

Kay Ryan

Ming, Ming

such a lovely

thing blue

and white

bowls and

basins glow

in museum

light

they would

be lovely

filled with

rice or

water

so nice

adjunt

to dinner

or washing

a daughter

a small

daugher

of course

since it’s

a small basin

first you

would put

one then

the other

end in. 

Poetry is Not a Luxury

The title of an essay by Audre Lourde published in Sister Outsider I read twenty years ago in college. I still remember the astonishment I felt at reading just the title. The idea that something as refined as poetry was essential struck a chord in me that reverberates still. The essential experience of beauty or joy in the expressive power of words.

Today I went in search of poems to post on the wall of the Laundromat. Thinking of all the children I watch walk home from school through the neighborhood, I wonder what awaits them from tender love to rough and tumble. This poem by Gwendolyn Brooks I thought should be among them.

 After School

Not all of the children
come home to cookies and cocoa.
Some come to crack cocaine.
Some come to be used in various manners.
One will be shot on his way home to warmth, wit and
                   wisdom.

One teacher mutter "My God, they are gone."
One is ripe to report Ten People to the Principal.
One muses "How have I served or disturbed today?"
One whispers "The little Black Bastards."
One sees all children as clothing: the blue blouse --
the green dress -- the tight-fitting T-shirt.

One will take home for homework each of the
twenty, the thirty, the forty one.


from In Montgomery and Other Poems 2003.