Cold Spaghetti

Aftermath. That’s the Photohunt theme for this week.  Do I have pictures of aftermath?  Does the Pope wear a funny hat?

I thought about just skipping the week all together.  I’m not really in the mood to think about aftermath.  But here’s one.  Of many.

Also, I’m linking to pictures, and more, of aftermath.  They just scratch the surface.

Both the ugly.

And the recovery.

This heaviness is in my heart and head.  These things (past, present, future?) and more…are things I just can’t shake.  Really, they are the kinds of things one shouldn’t shake away: we should put our faces right up to them, shine that mirror onto our natures, and teach each other better ways.  Which is why I am embarrassed that at times like these, my instinct is to grab my family and run.  My worst weaknesses, fear and sorrow.  Sometimes I just can’t find a silver lining.  Sometimes I can’t help but see the worst.

Jaded, cynical, and rational, I cannot believe in a benevolent creator that loves the people of earth, so I need to believe in a world of people who love each other.  It’s all I’ve got.  It’s all I am.

Which is maybe why, tonight, when Will picked this book to read at bedtime, I finished it with great difficulty.  Not the hormonal sensitivities of a younger woman feeling nostalgic over a cheesy movie’s surprise patriotism — but the hitching breath and breaking voice of an adult who doesn’t know how to explain how ugly things happen in a world her children are being taught to love.

This is a wonderful video clip from the fantastic PBS series “Unnatural Causes… is inequality making us sick?” One of the episodes, “Becoming American” was screened last night at the Ashe Cultural Center. I was one of the panelists that took questions about health inequalities at a community forum last night after the screening.

The website for the series is an incredible resource for anyone interested in income, race, immigration, housing, and the myriad of issues that influence our health. In particular, I liked the suggestions to how individuals can make strides in their own communities toward improving health. As a country, we showed we are ready for change… here are some suggestions on how we can start in our own backyards.

Research has shown that health is more than healthcare, behaviors, and genes—that the social
conditions in which we are born, live and work actually get under the skin as surely as germs
and viruses do. What can we do to help reframe the nation’s debate over health and to address
the root causes of our devastating socio-economic and racial health inequities?

Here are a few ideas you can use to get started and encourage others to become
involved in working towards health equity:

• Identify and connect people interested in the root causes of health inequities.
• Organize a “brown bag” screening to discuss how social conditions—where we
are born, live, work and play—impact health.
• Form a committee to identify assets, programs, or initiatives within your
organization where you can use the series to educate, organize or advocate for
health equity.
• Screen and discuss the series with PTAs, book clubs, neighborhood associations,
churches, tenants groups, racial justice groups, and trade unions.
• Identify three existing struggles in your community that can improve health equity,
e.g., land use, a living wage, paid sick leave, affordable housing mandates, toxic
clean-ups, lead paint removal, etc. How can you become a partner?
• Conduct an audit of health threats and health promoters in your neighborhood.
• Identify and build strategic partnerships with community-based organizations and
organizations in other sectors; link health outcomes to housing, education,
employment, political power and other arenas.
• Form a community-wide health equity coalition.
• Ask your public health department to conduct a Health Impact Assessment (HIA)
on proposed development projects and government initiatives and ordinances.
• Provide local media with facts and resources so they can incorporate a health
equity lens in their reporting; help them identify a message point person to provide
quotes, analysis and additional information.
• Broaden the discussion: look for opportunities to submit op ed articles, letters to
the editor, call in to radio talk shows, and form discussion groups.
• Organize a policy forum to brief officials in government agencies about the social
determinants of health inequities.

Paul came with me to the event last night (he was impressed that I managed to only use the phrase ‘epidemiologic assumption’ once) and regretted not having a video camera there. That can only mean that at some point in the evening, I picked my nose or something.

In lieu of my comments from last night, I’m listing a few of my thoughts based on the screening, the questions panelists were asked, and my comments…

— We should be very concerned about the mental health of the Latino youth in New Orleans. Statistically, their risks of mental illness far outweighs any other group in the city — and the risk factors we know to trigger illness in this group exist for them here in spades.

— What can we do, as a community, to create public, multiracial spaces?

— How can we advocate for better city transportation?

— What can be done to attract health researchers back to New Orleans?

All of these things are on the radars of the many community activists and organizations that are working to rebuild a better community here… but as anyone who works in community organizing and nonprofits understands, the strides made are more likely baby steps.  Can massive overhauling really occur?

Here is one community project that I think is great example of a fantastic step: The Hollygrove Market.  We have not been able to pick up the weekend box, but just knowing it is there for us and available in a neighborhood where food markets are scarce, makes me feel that maybe it is possible to create a healthy city in the midst of poverty and destruction?

Despite the 30 minutes spent on the twinspan while an accident was cleared (our best guess), we made it home in a little over 3 hours.  At 4pm, our street looked good, piles of debris in front of those who’d already been industrious enough to clean up a bit.   The plan is to clean up our parts of the street tomorrow… but no new or replacement planting.  Paul went out and took a few photos, but they came out blurry…

We took off the board covering the front door but are not unlatching any of the shudders or removing any of the boards from the other windows.  We are not re-hanging the porch swing or putting up the fern baskets, which are baking in the backyard.  We are not bringing back any of the pots to the stairs.  Inside, the walls of the house are bare because we left the pictures and paintings at my parents house.

All of this non-reparation is because we are concerned that sometime in the next few days we will be headed out again.  IKE, you suck.

Paul turned back on the water heater and gas.  All was fine until we moved to the a/c.  One unit perked right up.  The other… nothing.  Paul crawled around roof and attic, searching for problems until he found that the blower wasn’t spinning up.  We called a repair place and spoke to the technician, who agreed with Paul’s hunting work and said he’d try to come by tomorrow — the fee just for showing up is $99 and it goes up from there.  This could hurt.

Until then, the front of the house is relatively cool and the back is not.  We are all sleeping above the covers and trying to keep things as dark as possible. It’s not like we’ve lived without a/c before; as long as the kids are not whiny over it, we’re totally fine with the heat.  (No, we can’t open the windows… they are sealed shut.)

One perk: since we’d emptied the fridge before we left, I decided to clean it before putting things back inside. I have a special affinity for this machine, since it is a bit of a dinosaur in this town… it’s a PRE-KATRINA fridge.  (I had a bad feeling about Katrina and cleaned out our fridge before we left.)  Behold, our sparkling pre-K and now post-G fridge. 

It is highly unlikely anything in our lives will look so new and shiny for awhile.  We are run-down and beat-up right now, doing our best to keep an eye on the news without tuning in to any turned on weather folk.  Going on what happened last time, I’m surprised that the Governor hasn’t already issued a State of Emergency and started mandatory evacuations.  All that hyper-vigilance over Gustav could really come ’round to bite us all, much sooner than expected…?

Three years plus 2 days ago, I rushed to New Orleans in the dawn of a Saturday morning in my parents truck.  Paul and I loaded it up with our precious things: paintings and figurines made by our grandmothers, our wedding album, photographs taken out of their frames and packed in envelopes, the paint-your-own plate Will had pressed with his then 18-month old hand.  At the time, our preparations were seen as extreme; neighbors strolled over to joke and insist on a drink.  But I had a bad feeling.  We returned to New Orleans almost 3 months later and our lives were forever changed.

The things I packed yesterday, on the 3-year memorial of the day Katrina came to New Orleans, were much the same as they were three years ago.  I took the same things from my house, with a little variation.  One less cat.  One additional child.  Same paintings, same figurines, same family photos wedding album.  We took care to back-up our photos, movies, and important papers.  I carefully covered all the paintings we couldn’t take in plastic bags and stored them in closets, took down pictures off the walls, placed vases and boxes inside drawers.  Paul secured the outside.  He had to use leftover pieces of wood from our renovations to cover our front door because the piece he’d used during Katrina is now the base of the Mardi Gras float we made for the Krewe of Abeona parade earlier this year.   That is the spirit of New Orleans: live life to the fullest and enjoy each moment, because you don’t know if you’ll be around for the next party.

For all the loss of innocence, disappointment, frustration, sorrow, and tragedy we felt from Katrina, we gained something, too.  Katrina kept us in New Orleans.  It taught us what it means to love a place, a space, and a community.  It taught us that a group of people with purpose can change each other’s lives and create a better place right in our own backyards.  It taught me, as a health professional who is trained to work in other communities, what it is like to be that ‘other community’.  The destruction of our city highlighted new needs and compelled us to stay and live our lives in this wounded, wonderful place.

What we learn from this coming storm?  Will it miss New Orleans completely, creating an enormous ‘cry wolf’ mentality at future threats?  Will it approach the city and challenge a whole different set of weaknesses not identified during Katrina?  Is history doomed to repeat, or just re-teach the lesson that no amount of planning can fix the vulnerabilities of poverty?

Mostly, I am anxious over the city’s newest population, those whose fears of leaving are much greater than the fears of staying.

As a child, I loved the stories of the old Testament.  There was something epic about the stories of escape, whole populations migrating to live better lives.  Such bravery in the face of threatening enemies and gaping uncertainty struck me as heroic.  Perhaps this is a reason why I am now drawn to work with people who brave the same challenges, those who risk death and uncertainty in ways I cannot personally imagine, in order to make a better life.  Being poor in the United States means a hard life, but being poor in a poor country means that each day is life or death.  A hard life is a better option for many, one that they will gladly take on even if it means living in fear of deportation, separation, and bigotry.  Evacuating a city under threat of a storm is a terrifying option to a family who lives under the radar.  What is worse?  A coming storm, or a uniformed official who may stop them for questions?

I feel guilty for being out of harm’s way with my family.  These are situations where I can be helpful: collecting research data, offering broken translation, mobilizing and organizing.  I worry that the families who are staying and are at risk are the same ones I’ve been working with for three years.  If that is the case, isn’t there something more I can do?

Three years ago, we were filled with uncertainty about our homes and community.  But I know now that I can make these anywhere, and that they will always be there for us in New Orleans.  Today, I worry for the people and things that the disaster committees and planners looked over.  I worry for the lessons that we didn’t learn from last time, when we showed the world what happens when it forgets about the realities of vulnerability, poverty, and race.

My head and heart are mixed and fearful.  I don’t know what to do and am not sure if there is anything I can do.  But wait.  And hope.

We are loving this fun, snappy song, found through a NOLA blog.

Happy Mardi Gras, Everyone!

A month or so ago, Abeona House applied for and was given a grant from Oak Street’s Main Street improvement project to have a sign made for the school. (The kids themselves walked to the office and hand-delivered the grant, something that the granting committee have said they will never forget!)
This weekend, before going down to enjoy Oak Street’s Block Party, Abeona held a small celebration (complete with champagne and noisemakers) to formally announce our non-profit status and have the unveiling of the sign.
The sign is spectacular. Our wonderful logo was designed by a talented graphic artist parent and the sign showcases her work in impressive relief and bright colors.
It is absolutely fantastic! A very touching moment to reflect on how far the school has come and all the wonderful things we have yet to do. I cannot wait to see it up!

Then we all walked down to the Block Party. We watched Brad (owner of Oak Street Cafe) read out some of the raffle winners, said ‘hi’ to Charles Farmer (Oak Street musician) and went out in search of food and fun.
Hooray for Abeona House and Hooray for Oak Street!

The last conversation I had with Helen Hill was a friendly hello at Abeona — we both wanted to say more but were overwhelmed with our kids at the time. I had hoped to send the images from Oak Street Cafe to her over the break and we had talked about getting together for New Years, neither of which happened. So, it may sound silly, but it was very important to me to get the images to her family directly. We dropped them off in a sturdy folder with the flowers and cards at their front door. Soon after, Emmy and Renee (friends and Abeona instructors) visited the memorial. They saw the folder and recognized it; wanting to keep it safe, they gave it directly to a family member and showed the photos I took. They were very well received, and were brought directly inside the house to Helen’s family. Media swarmed. Emmy felt they all were piranha-ish… with the exception of one British man who she felt was very respectful and caring. She gave him my phone number.

… And this is how I met Charlie Varley. When we first spoke, I had no idea who he was and acted very suspicious. Photography is a funny medium. It can easily be exploitative and I am very sensitive to this. I consider it a privilege to photograph people and feel that, particularly where children are involved, a photographer needs to be very careful with their work. So at first, I was very unsure how to handle Charlie Varley, who wanted to send some of my work to several news sources that were preparing memorial articles for Helen. By the end of our conversation, I was assured and agreed to send him some images. Then I googled him and realized who he was… when I sent him the photos, I wrote that I felt like I was sending a crayon sketch I made at age 10 to Picasso.

I was surprised to receive a wonderful email response from him. For one, he encouraged me to protect my work by adding a photo credit to the images and made some suggestions in that regard. Before sending them on, he embedded my credit into the image file for me. Second, he said wonderful and encouraging things about what I had done: “very professional and not at all amateur if you ask me.” He went on to say some personal things about being a parent and covering this story. It was, in every regard, a kind and thoughtful message.

Quickly following on the heels of Charlie’s message, came a phone call and email from Schroeder. Another uplifting and friendly bit of light coming unexpectedly.

Yesterday was my birthday. These little pieces of kindness and thoughtfulness were wonderful presents!

After taking photos at the Abeona Winter Formal two weeks ago, Paul and I went to Oak Street Cafe, our favorite local spot. While there, we visited with Helen Hill and her son, Francis. Francis attends Abeona; we got to know him and his parents (mom Helen and Dad, Paul Gailiunas) in the kids’ Sunday music class. Over breakfast at Oak Street, Helen gave me a photograph that she took of Will and Kate during a Music Together session. We talked about local photography resources, growing up in South Carolina, getting together for a “family” New Year’s Eve party with other Abeona parents, and laughed as Francis pointed to the Cafe counter, requesting donuts. When Charlie (the Oak Street pianist) sat down to play, Helen and Francis went over to the piano — and I took pictures of them.

We are just getting to know Helen and Paul. Paul is a physician and co-founder of a community clinic; Helen is an artist who grew up in Columbia, S.C. They are also musicians and involved in social activism efforts. Like the other families that make up our Abeona family, Helen, Paul, and Francis represent the kind of people that make us want to live in New Orleans. They are, like us, a family that has chosen to be here because they believe in the importance of making the world a better place and are willing to do the work that is required to see that happen.

The phone calls and emails reached us late this afternoon. From the Times-Picayune:

In the sixth New Orleans murder in less than 24 hours, a woman was killed and her husband shot in their home at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday, said New Orleans police, who found the bleeding husband kneeling at the door of the couple’s Faubourg Marigny home, holding their two-year-old son.

The toddler was not hurt; the husband, 35, underwent surgery at Elmwood/Charity Trauma Center, police said. The woman, 36, was pronounced dead at the scene. But friends identified the Marigny couple as Helen Hill, an animator and filmmaker, and Paul Gailiunas, a doctor.

We are feeling and thinking many things right now. But there is one thing that is important for us to get across.

Before you dismiss this grand tragedy and tremendous loss as a causality of living in New Orleans; before you blame the citizens, the local ‘leaders’, the corruption; before you resolve to forget this city and recommend its decay and elimination — remember that THIS IS OUR HOME. And it is important, vitality important, to all of us. New Orleans and its rebuilding should be a symbol of what our country stands for — that the suffering among us matter, that resources should not be saved for the needs of a privileged upper-class, that the incredible contributions of this city be celebrated.

PLEASE BE ACTIVE. GET ACTIVE. Make New Orleans matter in your life, because it does. HELP US. Help us build back a beautiful, strong, safe home.

This Friday Abeona held an end-of-summer party. After enjoying two days of wonderfully temperate (low 80s) temps, the end of the week sweltered back up to the mid-90s in relative heat. Pool party? No problem! Paul and I took the morning off to share in the event. (Well, actually, we dropped Will off at his normal time and went down the street for breakfast at Oak Street Cafe — and THEN went back to the house for the party!)
Paul juggled; I played photographer (note: we have become addicted to our hobbies.) In the picture above, I capture Kate thinking on one of her nefarious plots of world domination. “Yesssss….”
She didn’t last long in her Bumbo. And I got more input from other parents who were there on our Bumbo issue: she’s probably a little young to sit for that long and she’s HOT in the thing. There’s hope yet for our intented Thanksgiving centerpiece!

The kids had a blast at the party. They attempted to make homemade gelato (it was too hot for it to properly set, but they had fun rolling the cans as part of the process), played in a pool, with a hose, and in a newly built sandbox, and painted the sidewalk with special paints and chalks. The teachers were amazing. Everytime I am there, I learn so much — and leave feeling so thankful toward this community of people helping to raise my kids.
I am just posting a few pictures here (just ones that are mostly Will and Kate). Abeona has posted more of the shots (ones not on the blog) here. Check them out, they are really fun!