A Home, A Heart…
October 20, 2006

I received a phone call yesterday from the director of the non-profit that I worked for all summer bearing some news that has been burdening me ever since. She called and shared with me that one of the house that we gutted had been torn down. Now, those words are so simple, all eleven of them. But it’s what has transpired within those words that ached last night.
The house that we worked on (gutted) belonged to a woman named Julie. Julie is a single mother of three children; she works at a local casino and is a homeowner. The house was a two bedroom ranch style with blue siding, with a carport/shed thing beside it. Now, when I say gutted, I mean that we went into the house for at least 7 days and worked from about 7am until between noon and 2 depending on the heat of the day. And we were decked out from head to toe in gear to protect us from the lead, asbestos and 3 types of mold that had been growing since Katrina-almost a year prior. Ty-vek suits, goggles, steel-toed boots, latex gloves, work gloves, ear-plugs, a hard hat and a respirator mask-that’s what we wore every single day. I can’t be sure of the temperature inside of the Ty-vek suits when we were inside the houses, but what I do know is that within about 30 minutes the clothes worn beneath were soaked. Yeah, like ‘I’ve just crawled out of a pool’ soaked.
The thing is, is that’s not what bothers me the most. We gutted about 11 houses while I was in New Orleans (I think). There are a few things that bother me worse that the selfish idea that I spent so much time in that house working so hard. Julie was the first on the list of houses to move into the rebuilding process with our organization. She was going to work with contractors, pick out a floor plan and have her house rebuilt. And the process was going to be a fast-track plan so that she would be able to be in her house relatively quickly. And now, nothing.
From my understanding, Julie isn’t sure why it was torn down, and wasn’t aware that it was going to happen. With all the work that I had put into gutting it, she had put that X 10 in order to purchase it, design it the way she wanted, live there and maintain it. It’s selfish of me to be upset about the sweat that I put into it, but what I can’t imagine is working on something so diligently and then having it literally destroyed despite the progress towards something stable again.
My heart goes out to Julie, and all of the other residents of Orleans and surrounding parishes (counties) because I might be assured to say that this isn’t the first time this has happened, and won’t honestly be the last. I get discouraged when I study for a test for three hours, take it, and find out that I didn’t do as well as I had wanted. That is nothing in comparison.
I know that I am powerless as I sit here in the comforts of my own home and agonize over the ache that she must be feeling right now. There is something disabling about not having a safe place to call home, a space to be all your own and the knowledge that work you have done has been undone. But Julie doesn’t see it that way. Neither do most of the residents down there. It’s amazing. Their resolve and passion to stay and rebuild. It seems as though when that house was being demolished, I would have lost my heart along with it. But somehow she will undoubtedly find the strength to hold on to her heart, and find a new home.

The hardest things, made simple…
September 20, 2006

I have been receiving emails the last few days from some of the amazing, wonderful people that I was fortunate enough to encounter while on my New Orleans journey. I sent out an email about some of the people that we met that are traveling the Louisiana Purchase telling the story of New Orleans, it’s importance to the existing US of A and then their own stories, as each of them was evacuated and devastated by Katrina.
It has been such a delight to see the once familiar names. They just pop up every couple hours or so, and bring me news of a new marriages, great birthday celebrations and new life experiences to grow from. I have had a hard time since I have been back from NOLA, healing my heart, figuring out what I have wanted to take from this experience, and figuring out what this experience wanted to change in me.
I have been oddly nostalgic about the whole trip lately. Wishing for just one second that I could go back to the back yard and hang clothes, that I could eat snowballs with 84 after a LONG day of work, that I could sit at Bank’s Street with Luke and talk until 4:30am, or with Sori and look at cute boys with their dogs and yes, folks sometimes even with Andrew (it’s a long story for those that don’t know, and a whole different blog…). I wish that I could spend another day with Ms. Sharon, she was a lady that we did a salvage for because her house was the first row of houses that was hit when the water rose over the levees-she had lived there for 35 years with her husband.
It seems to always go this way. You know the way, “it’s so damn difficult that you don’t think that you’ll make it while you’re there, but after time has processed it all in your head you just want to go back” way. That’s sort of where I’m at right now.
I remember sitting in a gas station parking lot one day bawling for about 45 minutes; I had to leave in order to cry because there was no privacy in the house. I remember crying while watering the flowers most mornings because the thought of home just seemed so distant, like I would never be there again. I remember watching 84 leave and head to their next gig and crying for what seemed like hours after they left, thinking that I would never be the same. And I haven’t been.
I’m not sure what makes me want to relive all of those memories again as reality. At the time, it was painful, heartbreaking and almost unbearable. But here I sit, almost a month into my fall semester, my last year of school, and just gleam when I see a once familiar name responding with heartfelt graciousness to something that I have sent them.
What does it come down to? What makes it all look pretty and rosy from where I’m sitting now? Maybe it’s because I’m not there now, so the thought of being there isn’t as bad as it actually felt when I was… Maybe it’s the fact that school is hard right now with papers, readings and class… Maybe it’s the people that I met that will always have a place inside my heart and a place to lay their heads no matter where or who I am on my journey in life… Or maybe, just maybe, it’s where I was supposed to be in that season of my life. Learning, growing, experiencing, empathizing, reacting, building, breaking, aching, cultivating, re-learning, and simply enough just living.
I have lived through some hard things in my life. Each of us have. We all have our own stories, our own things that make us, us. I guess for me, this was just one of the many. Receiving those emails, those life updates is inspiring to me. It helps me understand the impact that I was able to have on people this summer, and the drastic ways that my life was changed as a result. It has taken all the complexities of life, all the obstacles faced each day and turned them into reasons for me to be a better person, work harder at my own life and in the lives of others. It has taken the hard things, and made them simple…

My Heart: As a lonely hunter…
July 30, 2006

Today has been a day of many things for me. I woke up knowing that I only had about 2 ½ days left and could hardly stand the thought of being back in Knoxvegas with the people that love me, and are welcoming me back with open arms. My thoughts have also been plagued with the thought of not doing enough since I have been here in NOLA, and leaving its people and returning to my quote/unquote normal life. (What is that by the way)?
My heart ached today with many ideas and dreams pulling at it. I watched some movies today that got my mind working, thinking about my past, the life that I currently call my own, and the future that I have tried really hard to put into God’s Hands. My heart today felt as though it was a lonely hunter. It ached to be known, to help more than it has, for a place it currently calls home, and for a place that it has only seen a glimpse of and yearns to see more of.
What exactly does being a lonely hunter mean? I know that when I picture a hunter, I see someone sitting in a desolate place, knowing that something that the hunter wants will eventually cross its path, waiting to see what it wants, aiming and firing. Gracefully capturing what it’s been seeking and waiting for, for months. Years even. I suppose that you could call my heart a hunter, but what it’s seeking I’m not quite sure of yet.
Today my heart was looking for something to be enough. Most of you know what I mean when I say enough… Something to make me feel worth the work that I do, worth the time that I spend loving people, and worth the life that I live.
I felt alone today in the world that I live in. And as the saying goes, when you feel like the world has turned its back on you, take a second look, most likely you have turned your back on the world… and today, I did. It was more comfortable that way. Safer that way. Not that I felt better with my back turned, but I suppose that it was easier that way.
I’m not sure what I’m hunting for. A feeling? A person? A place? I really have no idea. I might guess that when I find it, that I will still question it’s reality in my life, and if it fits what I think I’m looking for. Which, again, I’m still not sure of.
What I do know for sure is that I keep hunting. I keep setting myself in places that have the ability to cultivate great captures, great trophies, if you will. It’s at times hard to hunt, a bit discouraging and sometimes leaves an empty, worthless feeling. Been there done that, am here doing that. But there are a few things that I believe that aid my heart and its lonely ache… the idea that I know God has a plan for the life that I feel hasn’t done enough, for the lives that I will encounter on my hunt towards whatever it is I’m seeking, and for my heart: as a lonely hunter.
So I’ll sit and wait. Patiently. Quietly. Waiting to see the prize that I have waited months, even years to see. I will aim and fire. And trust that in God’s time, I will see, have and hunt for what I want, need and eventually will call my own. And even then, my heart will long for more. More of what God has, more of what it doesn’t know and the dull pain that will exist until I am Home, and see-as a hunter, what my lonely heart has ached for all along.

How to write the final chapter of a book???
July 25, 2006

In most of the recent books that I have read the final chapter of the book tends to be kind of like a wrap-up. It tends to close the stories of most of the main characters that have been introduced in the adventures and tales that have been told on the pages prior. Bo usually realizes that he has loved Isabella for the entire duration of the book, and decides to confess his love for her, and kiss her with passion that is relentless and undying. Chase realizes that it isn’t the outlaws that have been trying to take all of his money and his cattle, that it’s one of his own, one that he raised as his own son. As the tale is told, the truth comes out in the wash.
I have been trying to figure out how to write about my final days here in NOLA. I have experienced so many different things along my adventure here that trying to put into one chapter seems to be a bit ideal. To be able to wrap-up everything that I have learned, understood and taken as a part of me in one chapter would be one lengthy chapter that would continue to be written over the course of the next 5 or so months.
I have been faced with some difficult situations here in New Orleans. Some sights that I never dreamed possible on American soil, some people that breezed in and out of my life changing most pieces of who I am, dishonesty staring me right in the face-literally, difficult people to work along side each day, and people just wanting to do something-anything to help the current situation that is just an average day in New Orleans.
There have been times when I wanted to write down every single word that has come out of his mouth, and times that the sound of her voice any more through out the day might actually make my skin crawl. There have been times of utter content, knowledge of being right where I’m suppose to be right at this time, and numerous days of wondering why I have been here all summer, and if I have actually helped do anything of great value. Times of rolling tears because of an ache in my heart that longs to be known by someone, and the same rolling tears of someone flipping through the pages of my mind’s eye and reading it with such ease. Times of cheers-ing with people about the days to come, the lives to change and the ability to let the comfort of ours(lives) be different in a way immediately unseen, but abruptly felt. There have been times of providing the kind of friendship that I give to a select few, but in an intense situation such as the destruction and resurrection of New Orleans has pulled those parts out of me, forcing me to be most of who I am every single day. It can be exhausting. And has been.
When I spoke with Mandy I was telling her that I think that I will continue to learn from this experience throughout the next few months and hopefully years of my life, and she agreed. I’m not sure that it’s humanly possible to take something of this magnitude and learn everything possible from it in approximately 8 weeks. And I’m not sure that I would want to do that anyways. I’m a firm believer that in order for change to be real (and that’s what I’m looking for here, is to be a better person after an experience such as this), it doesn’t happen over night- or in 8 weeks in my case, sounds cliché right? But seriously. Because in order for things to change, it must occur at the core, or at the belief. And after 26 years of the knowledge that I have, and as stubborn as I am, change is liable to take some time. But surprisingly enough, much change has already occurred, and I’m sure that there are changes, as I said previously, that are immediately unseen.
So as I try to write the final chapter of my New Orleans journey, I’m realizing that it won’t be a chapter at all. What I’m hoping for is a lifetime journey. I’m hoping that I will be able to look back on this experience over my entire life with growth and learning. My goal is to come down here at least once a year for about the next 10 and watch the progress of an old city become new again. Maybe that’s a selfish goal for me too.

Scrabble
July 7, 2006

I’m not exactly what I have sat down to write today. There are many things that I could say are troubling my mind. And I’m actually not sure that troubling is the word that I should use to describe those things. Difficult thoughts, thoughts of reality, thoughts of life ideas to live out, thoughts of being in the right place in my life and being comfortable in the skin that is there too, thoughts of a future, of my plans, of God’s plans for me. See, lots circling around in here. None of it overwhelming, some of it satisfying and most of it relevant and true to who I am.
I seem to experience a wave of emotions each day that I’m here. I go from feeling really great about what I’m doing down here, and being thankful to be given the chance to be part of it all, to the other extreme of wondering what the hell I’m doing, how it’s helping and how much longer I have to endure all of this that I currently call home.
When I’m working with the volunteers gutting a house or we are all sitting at dinner, I think that I’m here for the right reasons. When I meet homeowners who bring us lunch (that happened to day by the way) I’m thankful for the ability to come down here and meet them, hear their stories and start the process of helping them rebuild their lives.
When shit hits the fan at the house, and people don’t get along and money is missing and trust that once was is broken, that’s when I’m angry to be here. That all makes sense I suppose. I mean, I would say that my reactions and feelings are pretty natural.
Now I’m not sure of the exact rules of the game Scrabble, although I have played a few times in my past. It seems to be a game that is educational, kind of pushes people a bit to use their brains, to be creative and work magic on a board scoring points or perhaps a double word score. I kind of feel like I have been playing Scrabble today. Only instead of using letters trying to create words, I’m using thoughts to create plans. Does that make sense? I mean all of my thoughts are in my head, hence the bag with the letters. I get to reach in at my leisure-and by leisure I suppose that means I get to pick which thoughts and ideas to focus on- and pull out any thoughts, line them up in front of me, look at my life and decide how my life becomes better, how I become stronger and the proactive way to live a life that only God and myself have created. Kinda feels like Scrabble.
I have been fortunate in the past and have had what some would call a double word score in my own life, and I have had what some would make an attempt to look up in a dictionary and find nothing of the sort. You’ll have that. A few things that make complete sense, and others that await my creativity and then fizzle when the plans lay out in front of me.
I feel very fortunate that I have the ability to make sense of the bag of letters, with each handful that I pull out. I know that there are times that I struggle for days with a handful of letter that might make complete sense to someone else. And that’s okay with me. It’s more my style to make words that are complicated. Words that make a difference, words that are a bit dangerous, adventurous and at most times fulfilling. I’m not saying that I always win when I’m playing Scrabble, but most times I walk away from the table with what has been laid before me feeling like something was accomplished. To me that’s more important than winning the game.

Ebb and flow of the tides…
June 30, 2006

I have been moving like Lance Armstrong on speed all morning. For some of you that will be normal to imagine me that way, and for others, you’re probably laughing out loud. I’m anxious today, a bit antsy, and somewhat restless. I’m homesick. I want the comfort of the t-shirt (read previous blogs) today. I want to wear it all day.
Things are constantly changing around me, there is a steady flow of people coming in and leaving. I believe that is the hardest part right now. Watching people come, sharing this amazing experience with them, and then watching them drive away, hopefully changed and ready to tell the world what they have seen. There is something about sharing an experience such as this with people. It connects you, bonds you and provides memories to last a lifetime. It’s also grueling, painful and lonely when each of them leaves.
If I could be anywhere today, I would be sitting on a beach. I’m ready to be cleansed by the sun, by the water crashing on the shore and the calmness that the sound provides. Maybe the way that I feel today is how the shores feel on most days. There is a constant ebb and flow of the tides. There is constantly new water, constantly new footprints in the sand and new inhabitants of the beach. There is something attractive about the beach, something almost romantic about it. The same could be said about spending time in New Orleans, trying to provide people with things they need and helping the rebirth of a very old city.
I’m ready to be the person on the beach today. Ready to soak my feet in the sting of the saltwater, ready to feel the freckles coming on my nose and ready to leave my presence there when I depart.
It’s hard to watch people come and go like the ebb and flow of the tides, but each one serves a purpose, each one has a reason, each one wants to make a difference. So I’ll stand at the edge of the beach, where the tide sometimes begins and other times ends and I’ll be thankful for the fresh push of water between my toes up to my ankles, and know that with each ebb and flow of the tide come new opportunities. Chances to start fresh, chances to learn something new and most of all a chance to be really aware of what surrounds me and glad that the tides are cleansing, refreshing and I will never experience 2 ebb and flow of the tides that will be exactly the same.

A Not-So-Perfect Circle

June 28, 2006

So I’m pretty sure that it’s needless to say that we have been working really hard, gutting houses, fixing yards and housing volunteers. Not to mention that it’s been 94 degrees each day, plus at least 30 in our Tyvek suits. We currently have our hands in many different projects, working towards a common goal, providing people with the things that they need and somehow haven’t been given. A few days ago I was working on the yard of an elderly woman whom we have adopted in our neighborhood of Mid-City, her name is Miss Marjorie. She is charactered; with her pinned up gray hair, her strong glasses and her willingness to feed us Coke floats each time we are there. We had made it a goal to make her house look habited, because people had looted her while she was there, thinking that no one lived there.
These times of working so diligently leave time for thinking, for processing, for learning. As we were raking, I was thinking that the edges of her sidewalk needed to be edged. The organization that I’m with “doesn’t have an edger” I was told. I’m not so sure what an actual edger looks like, my knowledge encompasses it being a shovel. I’m immediately taken back to Fremont Road, where I have called home for almost 10 years now. I vividly remember standing in the driveway with my mother and watching her edge our driveway with a shovel. In my mind, at the time, I had no idea or interest in what she was doing. But somehow learned the trick of the trade as I was able to edge Miss Marjorie’s sidewalk. I called my mom as soon as I could after that to tell her of my new found passion for yard work and edging sidewalks. She didn’t have much to say about it, only lots of laughing and asking me if I was thankful that we spent so much “quality time” together when I was younger.
The physical labor that I’m doing right now it exhausting. It’s some of the hardest work that I have done in a really long time. We did similar work in January when I was here before, but that was because we had limited time. I have limited time this visit, but not only 3 days as before. I must admit that my body is just plain pooped out. In my mind I would love to swing a sledge hammer today, but know that as soon as I picked it up I would barely be able to swing it over my head. The more tired I get, the more vulnerable I become and the more I reflect on my life, where I have been, where I am now, and where I desire to go.
When I was a teenager, I lived on a farm. We use to run fences, dig trenches, bale hay, raise pigs, ride horses and three-wheelers, mow lawns the size of small fields and plant 1,500 pine trees by hand. Now that might sound like a whole hell of a lot, and well, it was. It was hard, I use to cry about it to my mom, wondering if most teenagers worked like my step-brother and I did. Come to find out, they didn’t. At least not most of them. Many of the things that we did while living on that farm were fun for me at the time, and in the end, my heart broke when my mom and I left. For the longest time, I hated the thought of doing all those things again, running fences and digging trenches. Because they re-ignited some of the hurt that came along with the whole situation.
As I’m faced with similar tasks right now, as far as the physical labor and working really hard goes, I have learned a few more things from my past that work for my life right now. The first day that we were working on Miss Marjorie’s yard, I was looking back on those times at the farm with such fondness. I was thinking about all of the laughing that came with running the fence, and all the gratification that came out of digging a 4 ft deep trench that ran about 100 ft (with a shovel), and the knowledge that came with planting all of those trees by hand.
My heart has healed of the hurt that had previously accompanied those memories. My heart has become stronger as a result of those things. I can look back and say that since my heart has healed, I can see the light beyond the darkness. I started to think about that in all areas of my life and realized how true it is. As my heart has healed each time that it has been broken, not just from romance, but from the daily living that slowly can wear away at the jubilance of a heart such as mine, as it heals, the memories become vibrant and full of color and life, full of learning and remembered with joy and thankfulness.
Raking in Miss Marjorie’s yard has brought things full circle for me. Or a not so perfect circle. It seems as though life might be easier or more gentle if we could learn things, not from heartache but from great experiences and not stumble or fall so hard. I’m not so sure that’s possible, or if I would even want to learn that way. There is something to be said about stumbling, falling and then picking yourself up and moving forward. I’m not going to take credit for picking myself up, I have great family, friends and Jesus to aid me and be my rock when I’m ready to crumble. But I will say that as life has shown me the not-so-perfect circle that it is, I’m thankful for the stumbles, the falls and the burning desire to keep moving forward.
I won’t ever forget the place that I have come from, the experiences of my past or the life that I have been designed to live. I am amazed that as I live each day that my life has come almost full circle. And as I continue to live it will continue to be a not-so-perfect circle. What’s so great about perfect anyway?