A Late Night Post

It's late night in New Orleans right now. I've been quietly browsing the Internet in the bunk room on one of the community computers. It's fun being up and about while everyone else is asleep in the bunk room, similar to waking up and having a midnight snack in your sleeping household.

I was just looking through the blog of a former hands on volunteer, a writer for the Virginian-pilot who came down a couple of weeks ago, and reading his words on Katrina and Hands-On motivated me to write something of my own. The man's name is Tris Wykes; he's a mid-thirties sports writer for the Virginian-Pilot, but decided to come down to volunteer at Hands-On during his vacation time with another VP writer, a guy by the name of Kyle Tucker. Tris kept a blog and updated it daily while he was down here for eight days, and his consistency and passion motivated me to write a little bit tonight. On his last day at Hands On, Tris spoke at community meeting and told his audience that he generally describes himself as a rather grumpy and cynical individual. That being said, his eight days in New Orleans were some of the best and most life changing moments of his life. People say that somewhat frequently at Hands-On, but it seems to have more gravity coming from a 36 year old pessimistic news journalist than it does a does a hair-twirling, "oh my gaaawwwdd" college girl. He was a guy that really connected with Hands-On. I'm glad for him, and I think Tris' initial pessimism is what allowed him to have such a moving experience. Anyone that comes down to do volunteer work expects it to be grueling and tiring, and expects their time there to revolve around the work itself. What I think is special about Hands-On, and what I think Tris found rather disarming, was how important the community was. That's what prevents burnout at Hands-On, a strong group of friends, a strong sense of community.

That community certainly has been heavy on my mind recently, because I'm leaving fairly soon. Solely from the perspective of this Blog, the number of posts wouldn't indicate that. I wrote fairly regularly up until February, than stopped writing until mid April on a post that wasn't even about New Orleans, and now here I am, finally, almost two and a half months later, returning to the subject of the Big Easy. And I imagine in time one of my regrets will be not writing about the period at Hands-On where everything stopped becoming foreign and exhilarating, and the city started feeling more like home. My inhibition to write, I think, stemmed from the fact that my New Orleans trip was intended to be a learning experience, and this blog a kind of tool to process and explore my ideas. But there came a point when I lost that wide eyed curiosity for this city and it began to feel familiar. Writing about regular things is a lot harder than writing about extraordinary things, and I kept telling myself in that period "What is there to write about?" Well, looking back on it now, a lot. In the time between Mardi Gras and now I parted ways with my first group of substantial friends, an Americorps group based out of South Carolina. I met an amazing group of actors, dancers, and musicians from Juilliard. I went home for ten days and got to see friends, family, and appreciate more distinctly the uniqueness of New York city. I went up to Boston for passover and spent some time at BU, sampling what will by my college experience for the next four years. And I said goodbye to more long term volunteers, as well as met some new volunteers who will, for the first time, continue to be volunteers here after I'm gone. I've been here long enough that some selfish part of me wants to think that when I leave, this place will struggle, that yes I have grown in to this place, but this place has grown around me as well, evolving like a jigsaw puzzle with a single piece missing, a space just for my niche, a space that will be empty once I leave. But it doesn't work like that, does it. The nature of a volunteer organization is far too dynamic to allow that. People cycle through so quickly at Hands-On that in a few months, who will be there to tell my tale? I'm speaking epically only with a hint of self irony, because seriously, I've never been so emotionally invested in anything my entire life, and I'd like to leave having left my mark in some substantial way. Call me selfish, but the one reward a volunteer receives is the recognition that he or she is doing something important. That is what I want at Hands-On, the memory that I did something important.

And, well, I was planning on talking about all the music I've been seeing, French Quarter Fest, and Jazz Fest, and the blind pianist Henry Butler, and I was going to talk more about the Virginia Tech shootings, but at this point anything I wrote would become an anti climax. So I'll end here. But anyone reading should know that it feels good for me to be writing again, and I appreciate the audience. New Orleans is in my heart and soul, and I'm finally, again, putting that onto this page.