Tags: quotes
i moaned on stage. legs shaking…smirk spreading across my face.
in private maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal. alone, behind closed doors. even among old friends. but my audience was speckled with new friends and professors.
today was my debut in the vagina monologues.
it went well. the crowd wasn’t as large as we would have liked. but they were kind and effusive. and even though my legs just finished shaking and my breathing has finally returned to normal…it went well and i’m excited about tomorrow’s show.
as big as my mouth is – as much as i talk – performances have always thrown me. they aren’t like the talks i’ve done for work or my scholarship, somehow it is different. i find myself obsessing about the crowd, wondering if what i give is what they want – what they expected.
all said and done…the cast is an amazing group of women. we’ve grown into friends. we offer support – tmi (too much information) – hugs…hugs…hugs…i forget how i miss those. the common everyday reassurance that we inhabit the same space and that space can be and is pleasant. these are my fellow vagina warriors, on stage supporting each other. and i am proud to be a part of it.
Tags: friends, me-ness, neworleans, school
the show is fast approaching…day by day. today we did a run through. tomorrow a dress rehearsal. pulling it all together…
the hardest part about letting go of a friendship is losing the intimacy…the special club that knows the secret passwords and handshakes…hell…that knows the secrets. saying goodbye, even for good and healthy reasons, doesn’t make that transition to stranger and bystander any easier.
all of a sudden this person who still knows the heart of you and who you still know the heart of, exists in a world where you do not. you do not exchange joys and pains – you do not comfort or rejoice with…they are just there…this person you used to know, who used to know you.
the problem about saying goodbye is that you don’t just lose the hurtful or scary parts, you leave the beautiful and intelligent parts – the parts you came to love…
Tags: friends, me-ness, transition
it only struck me yesterday, as i rushed to the 24th floor with something or other of “importance” regarding my education. it actually made me stop for a second and then laugh a rueful laugh. tulane was hosting some sort of meeting titled, “caring for the uninsured”.
i am uninsured. i, who spend my time looking at health disparities, consider cost effective vs. quality of life analysis, and weigh the merits of prevention, education, and treatment.
how is it that that happens?
walmart is CLOSED! i mean come on…
worse, they didn’t put up a sign so i have no idea when they will open again.
that wouldn’t suck so much if i hadn’t come home yesterday sick as a dog and without food or juice…today i’m not great but food would have been nice!
it sounds ridiculous to the outside world. how could i not want to be out and about during mardi gras? but if you ask any number of local new orleanians…you’ll find similar answers. sure there are the die hards who love it…but there are the rest of us who endure it.
this year it is frustrating because i have a good friend in town celebrating her birthday. we had plans to meet up but fat tuesday is not a day to do that. i turned on the tv before i was supposed to venture out and two things happened…1. the place we were supposed to go was closed and 2. i saw the chaos down town.
it seems strange to any business person that restaurants would actually close for mardi gras. this year is a smaller one but even so 700,000+ people who want to eat who need to eat – are all converged on a few square miles. but for some businesses like some people it just isn’t worth the hassle.
the other side of it is purely logistics. trying to navigate into the city is almost impossible. people set up camp days in advance to insure a good spot. and those that wander in just in time are forced to push against throngs of people.
so what you have in new orleans right now is too many people – half or more of them drunk, the good restaurants are closed, and the necessary streets have been blocked off…yeah…i’m going to get groceries and then i’m gonna stay put because this is not my kind of chaos.
Tags: neworleans
one of the things i found vastly different about zed was their concept of danger. one of my first nights in auckland i walked to a concert a little ways from my house. i left at around 10pm and didn’t get home until after 2am. and while i was very vigilant on my walk home – constantly looking around, keeping in the light and within sight of groups of people – i never felt particularly unsafe.
months and months later someone warned me that k-road, the street i had walked down to get to the concert – was perilously dangerous. S and i had a good laugh. we’ve both seen and been in places where the cops actually carry guns.
sounds funny…i know…because in the US we call men in uniforms without guns security guards…not police. but in zed they don’t. i discussed this with my dad when it came to my attention and he pointed out to me that gun-less-ness is a very real situation for a lot of cops around the world. he mentioned england and how for years and years it was all about the billy club.
hmmmm.
that got me to thinking about all the places i’ve lived and visited. and it dawned on me that my reality – even in travel – is skewed. houston has guns. south africa definitely had guns. kenya had guns. i don’t recall about china…don’t remember seeing a cop. guatemala either…though given their rather recent civil war issues i’d be surprised if they didn’t. all that to say my violence radar – like most americans i’d guess – has been heightened for so long it doesn’t feel high anymore.
talk about drastic changes though…from zed to NO. it is interesting the things the mind and spirit get adjusted to. or maybe we just tolerate and don’t recognize the difference. i can’t believe the folks in baghdad or sudan are used to it…at least i hope not.
Tags: me-ness, newzealand, soapbox, transition, travel
it took forever to get the blood out. the shaved hair and glass. for days it all stayed with me, moments from a day that was almost my own finality.
you can’t get stitches wet when your head is infected. you can’t stand up long enough to pick out glass when your medicine is making you too sick to think about anything but the fleetingly sweet release of all food from your body.
and when it finished. when the blood was finally washed away, the glass clinked like tiny pebbles down the drain, the stitches, like tiny scabs, discarded.
all that was left was a fuzzy patch of hair. that, and a scar.
***
it was the same here. in this city where people died in their homes, on their streets; where windows were blown out and stomachs empty…here in new orleans, like that harrowing road in mozambique that left me stranded and dangling in a wreck of a car, it was the same scene. blood and glass.
and in the same greatful breath that cries out how bad it is, how much it hurts, how much is lost – a voice rejoices that for all the tears and brokenness it could have been worse.
only worse is an abstract concept when life and death meet and become acquainted…friendly. sharing the same space. one world overlapping another. spray painted indicators scrawled on the sides of buildings that reveal rescues on time…rescues too late…
fleshless scars to remind those that would forget that worse is relative.
***
the city has her distractions…new construction, parks with fountains water gleaming in sunlight. i have mine…wild hair and dangling earrings. we are the same -rising waters and harsh sun – dry heaves and asphalt- all forgotten for the moment until a glimpse of scar. the first floor of a shotgun house – red scar against the white paint, indented lighting bolt – coffee colored against caramel skin. the reminders of where water meets land, skin greets road, life meets death.
and even as scars fade, even as time processes them and they become the usual…the norm of my everyday reflection, somewhere in my mind i always see them, always see the moments that collided and left their mark , on buildings – on my profie – for me to view.
Tags: katrina, me-ness, neworleans, travel
…or the garden district, or even downtown – haphazard as the rebuilding and rejuvenation of downtown is. midcity approaches it but nothing i’ve seen so far comes close to the 9th ward.
today i did some volunteer work in the ward. driving across the industrial canal i thought i was prepared. i wasn’t. driving was difficult because my head was pivoting…checking out dilapidated houses, broken windows, boards, and general disrepair. it moves you to do that.
and in my head i find myself saying what i say so often here…its been a year and a half.
as it turns out the volunteer work wasn’t the best match for me. very well meaning people beautifying a school in the middle of a demolished neighborhood. and while i understand that the kids (the 400 that will be back in that building sometime in march) should see something beautiful…i can’t help but question the people standing around and nitpicking over which shrub should go where and what bar of the fence it should be lined up with.
the donating body was glad trash bags…so there was lots of posturing too. and i understand the necessity of that – big business has to get something to want to do something…
still…i found myself staring across the street at the empty homes staring back. me and another guy saw some men loading a pile of debris from the median into a huge compactor truck. we offered our services but they told us a machine was coming to do it. two hours later and their standing around turned back into hauling branches and chunks of concrete i couldn’t help but think i would have felt more productive if i’d helped them out instead.
i guess it goes back to my feelings from when we evacuated from fema for rita and ended up helping out in an animal shelter…my thought is people above pets…and now people above plants…but i guess it all feeds into the big picture…eventually.
just so you know though, if people try to tell you the NO is all better…remember that NO isn’t, and even if it was, NO isn’t everything. there is still a whole lot of hurting going on.
Tags: katrina, neworleans
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