One Year Ago....

....crawfish etouffe, zydecho, beads, Abita, jazz, second lines, mold, flood water, vacant homes, hammering, sawing, caulking, sweating, sticky cups of Hurricanes, pickled watermelon, scaffolding, Drive-Thru Daquiris, Habitat, volunteering, non-profit, cajun spice, change, change, change, shift, change, grow, run.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

(photo: Uptown New Orleans, March 2010)

"The abject poverty revealed by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans exists in every urban area of the United States. It's poverty so severe that it kills people."
- Robert Edgar

"The past is always with us. Where we come from, what we go through, how we go through it; all this shit matters. Like at the end of the book, ya' know, boats and tides and all. It's like you can change up, right, you can say you're somebody new, you can give yourself a whole new story. But, what came first is who you really are and what happened before is what really happened. It don't matter that some fool say he different 'cause the things that make you different is what you really do, what you really go through."
- "D'Angelo Barksdale," The Wire, Season 2 Episode 6

My New Years' Resolution was distilled down to a bumper sticker slogan.

In grad school, I had a professor who celebrated the bumper sticker slogan school of thought. Every major theory, every complicated idea, everything that any philosopher or theorist or great thinker had ever thought of could be, somehow, distilled down to a bumper sticker slogan.

Descartes: "I think, therefore I am."

Hume: "A wise man proportions his belief to this evidence."

Hegel: "Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion."

The Life's Work of philosophers, some might say narrowed down or diluted. The details purged, the importance scoured to a sound bite.

But, in the end, the human brain will do this work anyway. We work in classifications, in categorization. Stereotypes exist because the human mind seeks to create order.

My New Years' resolution: finish what you start.

Initially, this was aimed towards creative projects and Jackal came on board as well. We made a promise to one another to practice "follow-through" in 2010. That was my entire resolution, based on the premise of "follow-through." Put your money where your mouth is.

Yesterday, I ran the Baltimore Women's Classic. My goal was simply to finish in an average time: I did better. Not only did I train, not only did I push, I set a new personal record. If you had told me, a year ago, that I would be running races, I wouldn't have believed it. I am not a runner.

Well, now I am.

I have another 5k in two weeks, and I intend to beat my new personal record.

I am signed up to run a leg of the Baltimore Marathon in October with a relay team.

Ultimately- I want to run a half-marathon. This is my ultimate goal.

And I'll do it.

And, in other news, Glitterati got a job.

A 9-5.

Yep.

Why?

Because I have to follow through.

In New Orleans, I made a promise to dedicate myself to social justice. I saw how poverty exists everywhere, and it took me flying so many thousand miles away to see it, first-hand, to realize that change starts in my own city. In my own neighborhood.

After months of job-searching, months of interviewing, I have landed a job with a non-profit that seeks to serve social justice. That provides choices and opportunities for the disadvantaged. I am returning to the 9-5 working world because I am following through on the promises I made to myself and my city to help in any way I can.

I've spent the last two years soul-searching, distilling, figuring out what is most important to me. I have held and abandoned many beliefs in that time, I have embraced and set free many ideas of who I am and who I want to be. And the only thing that sticks, like strands of finally-cooked spaghetti against a wall where I've been throwing raw ideas for two years now, is that I need to be contributing in some way to society. I chose non-profits, and I found a job in one that does significant good for the impoverished, disadvantaged, and beaten-down populations of the inner-city.

And, selfishly, I started running and lost ten pounds. The two are related in the sense of the follow-through, and I'm all for it.

New Orleans taught me a lot. About hard work, dedication, poverty, the complex issues of cities, natural disasters compounding all of this, and also a lot about my personal limits of what I can and cannot do. I was pushed. I responded. I followed through. Eventually, I ran a 5k and got a job that I hope will segue into a career.

For those of you who have stuck by this blog over the last two years, for those of you who have seen the seemingly impossible ups and downs, the "break-ups and breakthroughs," as Stephanie Klein calls them, and all of the many ridiculous moments I've had, take note: ultimate break-throughs require a great deal of personal confidence and pushing oneself very far beyond the limits of what you thought you could do. Knowing now that I can do these things is an immensely powerful thing. It opens up new questions, most notably: "Hmmm...what else can I do?" and, not to be ignored, "Hmmm...what can't I do?" The former is a bit more productive than the latter, but both are interesting perspectives to ponder.

So, Glitteratis, my advice to you is this: do it. Whatever it is you sort of have a vision of, do it. Tell everyone you know that you intend to do it (because making your desires public is one very sure way of putting a fire under your ass), and then follow the steps. Make a plan. Draw a calendar, and spend everyday doing one small thing toward this goal. Start by running one mile. Run it faster. Then run two. Then three. Get some new sneakers. Push yourself. When you're tired, when you're feeling beaten down, keep going. There's no room for tired here. Do the extra lap. Up your weights. Close your eyes and meditate for a moment and feel yourself doing it.

"I have an irrepressible desire to live life until I can be assured the world is a little better fo rmy having lived in it." -Abraham Lincoln

What's your bumper sticker resolution? Don't wait for a new year. Start now.

And finish what you start.

HE'S DONE IT AGAIN!!

Every year for my birthday and Christmas, Lee comes up with the most fan-freaking-tastic gift ever. Actually, he does this for all of his friends and family. He is an amazing gift giver, and every year he tops it. He chooses gifts that reflect your current state of life, he finds things that you didn't even know were important to you. Which I think is the very best kind of gift. For Christmas one year, he got me New Glitterati bumper stickers for this blog. For my birthday last year, he purchased the www.thenewglitterati.com domain name for me.

And this year?

A gift certificate to Kiva! I get to take this gift and invest in a foreign entrepreneur in a developing country. Plus, as Lee says, " Now you can say you are all grown up and investing in foreign markets." But, even better, Lee knows how important social activism has become to me, and how my drive to help make the world a little bit better in every way I can has started to shape my life and help me make the decisions and choices I need to make. I am so grateful for his support in this vision with which I'm working to align myself.

Ah-may-zing. He gets it perfect every time.

28th birthday this weekend, and I'm headed off to the beach!

The True Joy

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

Katrina @ 5

Interesting article today which I linked to through Philanthropy News Digest (thanks, Mom!!) A recent conference in New Orleans of nonprofits and foundations gathered to assess the progress of various projects and also to open discussions on the future of volunteerism geared specifically towards city restoration.

It was interesting to be a part of what I would consider to be a "movement" of good faith efforts to give back to the city of New Orleans. I've yet to find a statistical analysis on the numbers of volunteers that have traveled to the city post-Katrina but, through general assessment, I have come to a very scientific and mathematical conclusive number: a lot.

Putting all of these volunteers up has been one of the biggest challenges. (And, of course, it's also one of the reasons why not so many people are jetting off to Haiti to start helping pick through the rubble. There simply aren't funds to give volunteers safe, healthy accommodations.) In general, though, it seems that nonprofits are dedicated to continue procurement of funds for this very reason. As long as there is work to be done, and there certainly is, the belief is that someone, somewhere, wants to do it and that someone else, somewhere, wants to pay for it.

Keeping the realization of need alive is another monster to be fed. It helped that the Saints won the Superbowl. It really did. Keep New Orleans on the map, keep the discussion alive.

In my selfish quest for betterment of my own life, I can't help but feel that there might be a market here for me. Part of the presentation I'll be assisting with in a few weeks will be to explain the dire need for programs like the one I was lucky enough to attend, but that's only a drop in the bucket.

True, this blog has shifted from "Gossipy Quarter-Life Crisis Glitterati" to all Katrina/New Orleans/allthetime, and it's been a fantastic little soap box from which to preach about our experiences. What the future is has yet to be revealed.

Wonder, ask and imagine. Be curious, inquisitive and interested.

The best possibilities won't usually shout out to announce themselves. Yet those valuable possibilities can be quickly uncovered with a little curious digging.

Ask yourself why, and ask yourself why not. Think about what is, and then wonder about what if.

In life's joys, in the problems, in the pleasures and in the disappointments, there are the seeds of innovation and progress. Take the time to look and to wonder, and you'll see great new value that's waiting to be created.

In even the most tedious situations, there are fascinating details. And in those details reside countless opportunities.

Find something truly fascinating about where you are. And you'll find a new, effective pathway to wherever you wish to go.

- Ralph Marston

Viva NOLA

A thousand thanks to Jaunt for the quotes.

There was- and always has been- another tradition that stretched from the days of the country's founding to the glory of the Civil Rights movement; a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.
-President Barack Obama

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
-Anna Quindelin

Wherever you are, be there.
-Emerson
(I wrote this quote on the paper beneath the siding boards that we nailed against the house, and dated it. For as long as the house stands, a little piece of me will be there.)

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
-Anne Frank

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
-Charles Dudley

The secret of success in this life is to realize that the crisis on our planet is much larger than deciding what to do with your own life. The only work that will ultimately bring any good to any of us is the work of contributing to the healing of the world.
-Marianne Williamson

Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.
-Sally Koch

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
-Robert Ingersoll

We don't accomplish anything in this world alone...and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.
-Sandra Day O'Connor

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Any change, any loss, does not make us victims. Others can shake you, surprise you, disappoint you, but they can't prevent you from acting, from taking the situation you're presented with and moving on. No matter where you are in life, no matter what your situation, you can always do something. You always have a choice and the choice can be power.
-Blaine Lee

Life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences, but rather, it's a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite sublime plan.
-Serendipity

It always seems impossible until it's done.
-Nelson Mandela

The most profound joy has more of gravity than gaiety in it.
-Michel de Montaigne

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy.
I think the purpose of life is to be USEFUL,
to be responsible,
to be compassionate.
It is above all
to MATTER,
to COUNT,
to STAND for something,
to have made some difference
that you lived at all.
-Leo Rosten

Home Again

Back in Baltimore with a lot of thoughts to process and a lot of dirty laundry. Faced with the anxiety of unpacking and getting back into the daily grind, I'm attempting to hold on to the surges of positive energy that propelled me through the last week.

I have plenty more photos to post and things to write about, so stay tuned. In the mean time, however, Real Life calls me back so immediately I almost wonder if I dreamed the past week.

Viva NOLA.

Duly Noted

Thanks to the New Orleans Ladder for linking to my post and for pointing out that much of the post-Katrina damage was due to structural weaknesses as opposed to anything that the storm actually did.

My knowledge of the logistics is, admittedly, a mere drop in the ocean. I couldn't even begin to explain all of the facts surrounding Katrina and, as they referenced it, "The Federal Flood of New Orleans." I tiptoe around these issues knowing that my ignorance of all of the facets of the shattered glass situation certainly creates a specific lens through which the situation is being viewed. I am open to "schooling myself," which is part of the reason I'm here.

The rhetoric in any situation that involves such touchy subjects is always tricky to navigate, especially because as human beings we assign so much meaning to words and how they are used. Please understand that none of my commentary about Katrina is value-laden in the sense that I openly accept my knowledge limitations on the subject.

At the same time, I would like to point out what the New Orleans Ladder blog also kindly took the time to do: this is a grateful city that welcomes volunteers and interest with open arms. Everywhere we go, we are recognizable by our paint-splattered clothes and sawdust in our hair, and everyone is happy to have us. The hospitality here has been overwhelmingly gracious, and I thank NOL for taking the time to not only comment on my blog, but point out some viewpoints and considerations new to me and also to recognize that these conversations are keeping the dialogue open and alive, as it should be.

New Orleans: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

There's so much to think about. Which, I suppose, was mostly the point of doing something like this.

I've talked to so many people over the past week and it got to the point where I started taking notes to remember all of the stories I've heard. It's like asking someone where he or she was when he or she first saw the televised images of 9-11 or heard about Kennedy being shot: everyone has a story to tell.

In my efforts to collect my thoughts, I started taking notes. Jotting down little key words to remember specific stories and incidents. And so, I'll relate them to you here with some explanations. Also, some of these stories correspond to pictures in earlier blog entries. I'm not nearly organized enough (or with the luxury of enough time) at this point to make the connections, but hopefully some logic abounds.

Notes:
- Architecture schools from all over the US have jumped on board to design new homes, especially in areas like Brad Pitt's Make It Right project (which we walked through as part of our 9th Ward tour the other day) and Harry Connick Jr and Branford Marsalis's Musician's Village (which we also saw and is also located in the 9th Ward.) The homes are re-built with new specifications to withstand Category 5 hurricanes and floods which, in the Make It Right area meant raising the houses on stilts up to where the roof lines used to be. Additionally, aesthetics are considered as crucial as logistics, which is part of what makes these projects unique. Architecture schools have churned out creative, compelling designs (see "Completed Homes Gallery" on the Make It Right page) with interesting details, the way New Orleans architecture was meant to be. On top of all of that, many of the homes are built in eco-friendly ways with sustainable energy intake.

- The X's on the doors are a part of a city-wide audit that was done in the days and weeks immediately following the hurricane. Each quadrant corresponds to a different piece of information: the date, the unit conducting the search/audit (which began as a Search and Rescue effort but soon dematerialized into a count as few were found in later weeks), any structural hazards, and whether or not anyone was found (alive or dead.)

-Other information painted on houses: the ASPCA left notations of pets that were picked up. "Two Dogs," and "Black Cat" are clearly labelled in two of the pictures from one of my previous posts. Pets were not allowed in any of the shelters, and most people were forced to leave them behind if they could not make other arrangements. A make-shift animal shelter was set up near the public morgue and volunteers posted pictures of found pets on the Internet in the hopes that owners would be searching. As late as two years after Katrina, owners were still trickling back into the city and, joyfully, coming to reclaim pets that had been thought long dead and gone.

For all of the horrific stories about Katrina, for all of the death, poverty, and social issues, there are scattered stories of hope and love.

-One of the problems associated with the disbursement of federal aid and insurance claims is closely linked to social issues in terms of poverty, primarily the fact that often houses changed hands in the event of a death (passed from parent to surviving children, for example) with no actual legal transfer of deed. In fact, the deeds for many of the houses were lost, destroyed, or simply non-existent after years of impoverished circumstances. This was merely one tiny hiccup in the massive and painful hemmorhage of things gone wrong and the sudden visibility of all of the problems an urban area can have.

-Approximately 1,500 people perished directly from Katrina, about 100 of which were never identified or claimed. New studies have revealed that extensive stress, depression, and other post-traumatic ailments may be behind thousands of other deaths that followed in the weeks, months, and even years after the storm.

- Big plants, such as Coca Cola, in a hurry to get workers back on the job and producing would have huge installments of FEMA trailers placed on site to accomodate workers and families. In a massively counter-logical way, big businesses helped push local businesses back into existence as families would move back to the area to reclaim their jobs and need local businesses for food, gas, etc.

-The entire city was closed to residents in the weeks following Katrina and those who came back either had to have some form of legal identification that merited entrance to the city. Of the people we have spoken with, most of them created some sort of fraudulent identification and/or fabricated lie to get past the National Guard to get home to see what was left of their houses.

- The water that breached the levee in the Lower 9th Ward and up by the 17th St Canal stood until early October, ebbing with the tidal pulls of the Gulf. Houses still have clearly marked water lines, starting at the gutters and moving down, foot by foot, as the water was drained and/or pumped out. In the weeks following Katrina, the weather was at record highs. Which meant that every house full of water was also a house full of water and standing at between 80-95 degrees with high humidity. Even homes in which only the first floor was flooded needed to be completely gutted and renovated (provided the force of the water hadn't knocked the house fully off its foundation, which was common) because of mold. The mold attacked and destroyed everything; every wall, every stitch of furniture, every book, every floor board, every lamp, everything. When houses were gutted, not a thing could be saved as everything was in such a state of rot and decay by the time the waters receded.

-Things that require electricity: mortuaries and aquariums, among others. Mortuaries lost power and corpses rotted in record time. The aquarium could no longer oxygenate the water, and every living thing inside died. The tanks had to be emptied, scrubbed, and completely re-stocked. Fortunately, however, most animals in the Zoo made it safely through the storm.

-Other thing that requires electricity: refrigerators. There was a massive shortage of refrigerators available for purchase in the New Orleans area for up to a year later, because residents were unable to return to their homes for weeks after Katrina and, when they did, found bio-hazards residing where their cold cuts had been. Most residents did not bother opening the refrigerator door ("I had just gone fishing," one man joked) but duct-taped it shut and simply put it out on the corner for bulk pick-up. One family finally purchased a refrigerator in Baton Rouge online, rented a U-Haul, and drove up to get it. Even in the movement of the refrigerators, "juice still leaked out." I am told that I cannot imagine the stench, the disgust of it all. I had some visualization that, eventually (because in homes that were gutted, refrigerators remained untouched for 6 months to a year post-Katrina) the food would simply rot to a point of non-existence but, apparently, this is an uninformed viewpoint. The food is still there, a year later, unrefrigerated. Vomit.

-There is much talk of Hurricane Katrina being an "equal-opportunity flood," meaning it wiped out poor and rich homes alike with no thought to socio-economic circumstances. However, this completely perverted term is highly contraversial and, in many cases, offensive. Yes, a storm surge that breaks down a levee wall is just as apt to wipe out a multi-million dollar mansion as it is a shot-gun house, but who do you think has insurance to rebuild? Who do you think has enough money in savings to temporarily re-locate while contractors can rebuild? Many who lost their homes in New Orleans simply had no where else to go, no options, no money, and nothing left without the collateral of a house.

"Why didn't they evacuate? What, were they going to leave bed-ridden Grandma, climb into the family car with money and food, and go stay in a Best Western?" someone noted. An evacuation requires a back-up plan, something that is considered a luxury.

Additionally, Hurricane Katrina occurred towards the end of the month when many welfare families are stretching out the dregs of that month's check. The last few dimes and dollars rattled around as meteorologists urged people to leave, and the subsequent storm caused a major red tape earthquake and long delays in issuing checks and other forms of government help.

-There is, and perhaps always will be, a major debate over public housing. To re-build or not to re-build being the central question, and yet another tiny sliver of the massively-complicated latticework of post-Katrina problems. To be fair, however, public housing is a major debate in any urban city, its very existence bringing with it a host of questions and problems. As of yet, and this is only according to my sources so I could be wrong, none of the public housing that was destroyed in Katrina has been rebuilt. Neighboring cities, such as Houston, have absorbed many of the displaced and are now seeing social issues arise because of this.

My knowledge of Katrina was limited to the rhetoric issued mainly by the Associated Press and other news outlets, but the drama continues and is far more complicated than I had previously understood. It seems that under every rock there is another issue, another problem, another facet of the vastly complex underpinnings of this particular national disaster. Although Katrina was certainly not the first or last hurricane to devastate any area of the US, it has certainly become one of the most hotly debated for the sheer fact that it unearthed a seemingly-unsurmountable number of problems with urban areas in general. A severe gap in the population between the haves and have-nots, an immediate call to address issues that this city (and it is in no way unique in this fashion, because most-if-not-all cities suffer from the same sort of helplessness when it comes to some of these problems) had, for years, swept in layers under forgotten rugs.

Although I'm coming a bit late to the party, and although my understanding of the situation is changing by the day (if not by the minute/hour), I am slowly attempting to grasp the complexity of everything and try to make some sense of it.

And it's not all bad, certainly. Crime rates are down, the spirit of the city is infectious, and volunteering is at an all-time high. Where local and federal governments have failed, again and again, to provide aid for citizens, private and indepedent groups have stepped in. This is a great time for guerilla volunteering, for community, for working to re-build a city with a past as spicy and sweet as its delicacies. There is endless culture here, and Katrina has fueled creativity for a new generation of artists working to make sense of the catastrophe through art, music, and literature. There is hope here, certainly, and a belief that the problems are not insurmountable, the damage not permanant, and spirit still alive and well.

And, of course, there are drive-through daiquiris, and bowling alleys with live zydeco music, and po'boys, and red beans and rice, and pralines, and palm trees. There are those things too.