How to recycle bicycle rims in garden

wheels

Are we winning?

solnit/The Nation

Complicated even before Katrina...

Filmed in mid-2005, this is a glimpse into life on the French Quarter's lower Decatur Street before Hurricane Katrina.

Originally written by Ray Davies of the Kinks, this track is performed by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band featuring Clint Maedgen on vocals with a guest appearance by the New Orleans Bingo! Show in the video.

complicated

loss in poetic form (from Clara)

One Art



The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.


Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.


Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.


I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.


I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


-- Elizabeth Bishop

news and lessons...

Sigh, It's time for me to tell...
I am unable to build a new house.
I have to give up this idea and realize what I can and should do next and what will work for me.
The short version:
Ironically,as a person who has spent her life (or much of it) in community organizing, I have often spent too little time on my own comfort, on my own empowerment. When Katrina forced me to think about my life and what I would do next (because I was homeless and without stuff), I found many, many people that wanted to help me find something good that would come out of this tragedy. Two of these were friends who offered me the chance to own a house by selling me a open lot, and by doing so, asked me to think about my future and the logic of being set in a place.
I accepted their offer, and set out trying to learn how to pay for and build a house.

I come from a family of people who all have owned their own house at some point but few of them have been able to hold on to them, economics and migration changing reality constantly in my lower-middle income family, so knowing about houses was kind of new to me.
I did my usual thing of putting a few hours when I could find it to my plans, as I spent more time on being there for my city, my friends and my work.

At times, it seemed like the pieces were coming together, that I could actually visualize the house and how it would all work. Especially when my friend Mary connected me to Janna and David, architects from Toronto who wanted to do some good in New Orleans.
After spending time together, I felt I had made new friends and they felt my project was one they could spend some of their intellectual capital on and so, offered to help me. And they were cutting edge sustainability people, who did not laugh when I described my house ideas...
Amazing.
Also had a builder who seemed aware of the need to build sensible houses and do it well without a lot of bullshit, so all I needed was a smart banker...
Don't laugh..
I went to mortgage brokers- they said oh sure, then after telling me to do some stuff and get back to them, never responded to emails and phone calls.
Went to community organizations- Took my money for their classes or fees and then said oh we aren't helping with new construction..
Went to banks-they often were the most confused or rude, but I gotta give Whitney some credit for professionalism. But, also gotta say they wanted way too much and ended up being too scary to innovative builders too it turns out...

The window kept opening and partially closing and I would be sooooo close I thought to breaking ground, I could visualize it. Then one of the pieces would fall away, or health would falter or work would intrude for a while...
And then one day, the pieces just didn't fit anymore.
I sat in my apartment, thinking it all through, taking stock of what I had to do to get this done and what I had. I felt my heart sink and tears of frustration come, as I realized I would have to make this decision to move on.

What this means to me is I feel like a permanent refugee of Katrina. I feel like I have let myself down with this time and project to allow myself comfort and ease soon. I also feel estranged a bit from my friends who offered me this chance and who can probably not really understand why it is not working. I promise them and myself I am moving back to our neighborhood, but it seems hollow right now.

But, I also feel free of this burden of too many steps to build a house for someone like me who tries to live lightly in the word of dwindling resources and unequal wealth. I also am grateful for the temporary refuge of my French Quarter home and my new friend/landlady who has been supportive. I also am glad for my amazing work, which allows me to see all of the possibility of positive places and plans.
I am grateful for my new friends Janna and David, who I have not told yet that I must stop this. I love their design and feel like my city was robbed of having their work on display forever.
Because in the end, the modern society is what failed here. I with my long work days and obsessive focus linked with the bureaucracy of the banks, builders and city structures have all lost track of how a regular person without endless resources can stay in one place.

This comes across as sad. I am sad, but also always a optimist. I live in my favorite city, I will live in my neighborhood again soon and I will find ease and comfort.

Better, let's look at it as a lesson.

welcome

I want to welcome Peter and Annie back to the city. They had to relocate after K and have spent much of that time in Asheville, vending as artists where they could. Peter is a native New Orleanian and has extended family here and Annie found herself here about a decade ago. They met at a local art festival as fellow vendors and have been together since.

This is the type of news that means a great deal to those of us here in the day to day. Much like when George and Budd moved back from Kentucky, I feel as if the balance is a little more righted when our free thinkers and bohemians re-arrive to re-plant roots.
I have never had any less respect of those who had to leave; this is a informal city full of smart people with individual plans and lives. Since all that is respected here, if someone had to go to make a living or to right their mindset, well I just will wait for their return, knowing they will.
I think I believe that because my mother was a New Orleans refugee for 18 years, slogging through Ohio, bravely trying to understand their strange ways. When she returned to her city, she brought me with her and I learned what it means for someone come home. Like a new person she was, and yet, I am sure to her, like the June she really was inside all of those years...
When I left in my early 20s, I said goodbye to my mom and friends and told them I would return, and 14 years later, I did. Those 14 years away were amazing and wonderful and I wouldn't trade them away. Because in returning, like Peter and Annie now and George and Budd before them and thousands of others who stayed away, we are home with added experience and connections out there quite ready to rebuild our daily life in a city we love no matter where we are.

Jane and JazzFest

In between searching for tickets to weekend to the Fairgrounds (thanks to my 3 friends who came through- you know who you are, and I bet you would rather not tell the world you sometimes have tickets at the last minute), I also led a Jane's Walk.
Jane Jacobs, writer, everyday activist and the symbol of regional thinking, would have celebrated her birthday this week. Since her passing in 2006(?), her friends, colleagues and peers have thought of many ways to continue her work. One of the most Jane-like is the Jane's Walk, which asks neighbors to lead a simple walk in their own words and with as many eyes and talents sharing the stage while ambling as possible. No experts, no official work to do, just post a walk and then wait to see who shows up.

We in New Orleans had 10 (our first year of joining in this) and they ran the gamut of our social streetscapes. A short simple video shows photos of many of them:


Janes' Walk

To find out more about the people who brought this to our city (and the work going on all over) visit:

The New Orleans Institute for Resilience and Innovation

And always remember (as I do on May 4) to remember fallen citizens who were gunned down walking out to their public space to protest unjust actions:
Kent State May 4