Here’s Lookin At Hallelujah 2007 – St.Stephen’s Mission to UnBog New Orleans: The Blog
What difference does it make? We ARE the difference.Archive for as ourselves
this is still there
we cannot see the people that are gone
but we can see that the people are gone
this is a picture taken in New Orleans. The visuality of the land, the interrogation of this moving picture show by giving a picture show to you, the readers, it is hard to get into (and even now harder) but so very necessary for us.
as we toured around we commented on how it felt to pass through a landscape, a foreign landscape, for some the first time to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast since Katrina, for some the 2nd, with little or no narration, a silent film progressing, parading, processing through the windows of the vans we drove in, to the music and faint chatter of talk that we managed to keep going, of how it was hard to connect. some were struck straight into lament, sorrow, grief, anger, frustration, disbelief, unbelief, and on and on into emotion, some of us documented and sent our images onward.
the vacancy of the landscape is what gets to you sometimes, the sheer lack of it all when you realize that you could have three years previous been standing in the middle of a pickup football game, or double dutch, or a block party, and on and on…
a more formal declarative post will be dedicated to the nature of this blog, the nature of this trip, the nature of this disaster, for the nature of the light that is shed on New Orleans and rom it burnishes the halls of American homes , polishes the corners of the eyes at times.
En Masse, In Orange, In SeaTac
SeaTac wasn’t ready for the orange. Most people in SeaTac weren’t ready for the orange. Most people (in Orange or not, didn’t matter, they all got the same treatment) weren’t ready to be waved at by the stuffed monkey Sophie brought – but they waved back anyway. Even the cops. It was a good sign in our SeaTac departure.
Notes on the Orange – Thou Must Conformest To Thy Own Humanity, Thy Own Inner Orangeness
Perhaps because the shirts were neon orange, perhaps because most of us were given youth size Small or Medium that exposed our happy trails and triceps, perhaps self-consciousness of sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of an airport drest in bright orange about to take over a flight to New Orleans (we later agreed that New Orleans is the sore thumb nobody pays no mind to), but some people just didn’t get it that we were all going to be in on this thing together, tiny neon shirts tied into tummy knots in the vans were one thing but out in PUBLIC they didn’t want to wear the orange.
“Conform,” we told them.
“Nooooo,” they, the unoranged, remaining sarcastic.
“CONFORM!” bellowed we.
“OKAAAYYY,” caved in one quickly, donning orange.
“NO WAYYY!” Blair and Lily weren’t so easily convinced. Or quite so easily fit into youth small neon shirts as Sophie.
Physical bargaining and persuasion tactics were then enacted on both sides.
Eventually a compromise was struck – in the efforts to effect solidarity we would all wear orange while in the airports. Planed, we were free to wear anyshirt.
I ain’t much one for conformity one way or t’other – but there was some kind of feeling that describes how it felt seeing fifteen neon orange shirts board the plane, iPodded, phoned, Gameboyed and hopped up on free single-serving-pretzels and the idea of a nature-ravaged city in an era when nature is supposed to lie at our feet and manifest loafers. Everyone on the plane knew it too. It was out there. For the most part, we were nonchalant, chatting, working crossword puzzles, etc, but the mission was out in the open, a public eyesore gaining noteriety, bright & orange & hyper hyped on smiling & bubbling & monkeypuppet-waving neon kids in their too-small shirts.
“What Difference Does It Make?”
“We Are The Difference!”
