what i saw today

I drove about four miles away from my office today - into the neighborhood called 'Desire'- to visit George Washington Carver High School. First Book did another book distribution and I was there to take photos. I mapquested the school, having never been there before and got directions to 3059 Higgins Blvd. When I turned onto Higgins, I knew immediately that the school was not open, nor were the houses surrounding it inhabitable.

Though I know what it is like here - I live here now. I'm still shocked. My stomach always turns. My heart yearns for something different. Something better. Something. Anything to be done. I drove past the abandoned school, looking for some sign of life.
I drove farther than I needed, but I couldn't stop looking.








When I pulled over, I was given directions to trailers that now held the students -only a few blocks over and surrounded by rotting, gaping houses, useless street lights, cars with flat tires, and trash.

It rained last night, so the grassy areas underneath the trailers were like mini-marshes. Water lapped over onto the cement sidewalks. Students - every one black - every one wearing a uniform of a bright orange shirt and khaki pants, goofed around in the breezeways.

I had trouble paying attention in the classroom. I kept looking at the kids, trying to see into their lives. Later, when looking through the photo release forms, I recognized the handwriting of one student and then her name. Tiffany. She was the brightest student in my summer school class at Reed. Planning to go to college, she was in summer school, not because she did poorly, but because she missed too many days during the year at her regular school. When she told me over the summer that she went to Carver, I had no idea which school that was, what it looked like or where she lived. Now I do. Tiffany wasn't in class today.

what's happening in the projects

Right now, I'm eating my lunch, looking out the window, watching the projects.A tiny baby in a white onesie is learning to walk. Another tiny person in a similar outfit is waddling around more successfully. Some women are standing nearby. A guy is playing basketball on the new court donated by a Hornet's player last month.A police officer just drove up on the sidewalk through the center of the houses and parked in the middle of the common area/lawn. No one has exited the car.Someone is walking along another sidewalk carrying grocery bags.3 other people are walking slowly through the center - each headed in opposite directions.It isn't raining yet, but it looks like it will today.The police officer is now standing on the sidewalk beside his car.

James and the giant sycamore

broken sandals

our street, like many other streets in new orleans, is covered with large white painted letters creating SOS messages on it. yet another memory of katrina. i bike over them, drive over them, and walk over them on a daily basis. seldom do i look down and read them. though sometimes i do. if you look up our address on google earth and zoom in - you can read the messages. it is creepy and bizarre and i only did it once.

today, as i was headed for work, i noticed a pair of metallic gold summer sandals lying in the middle of the road - interestingly enough, they acted as quotation marks surrounding the giant words 'need water' sprawled in white across the black asphalt. the sandals had a broken strap and were abandoned there.

i wonder who, upon hearing the snap of the vinyl, would simply step out of, or kick off the useless shoe and then unstrap the other - leaving both behind. preferring to walk along barefoot, both feet exposed on the gravely, uneven pavement peppered with shattered glass and nails, rather than looking for an alternate solution. choosing not to be bothered to pick up what had become trash in order to drop them in one of the many garbage cans that line the street.

i wonder if she had to walk far to get home? if she noticed where the sandals fell? if she read the words? or, if, like me, she chose to stop seeing the white paint as letters creating messages, and instead, waits for the day when they are finally erased by time and our daily passage over them.