Bridging the Gap

 

Its been ages, but I am back writing about my (wow) 5 year old return back tomy home town of New Orleans, La

 

Its been a dizzying incredible ride thats not over yet.

 

What is different is I broke the 5 year itch!  On or about 5 years, I am reading to get out of Dodge, so to speak... But this time I stayed.  I cannot even tell you why but I have...Fussing and fuing all the way, but somethig is indeed differnt this go around.

 

 

Time will only tell...

 

More photos to follow very soon.

 

 

 

 

 

At this Moment~ Still standing...

10-24-10 Oretha Castle Haley Bl with a view of downtown New Orleans.

It never fails whenever I take a visitor on a mini tour of the city how I see my hometown in a diferent way.

Saturday after taking a couple of visitors on a tour of the Lower 9th Ward watching how other people seem to have a total lack of regard for the pioneers who moved back & rebuild. (That experiemce is a whole different story & I do not want to get on my soap box about that).

Back to subject; I wanted my guests to see the Musian Villiage & the being built Ellis Marsali Music Center we came across a part of a house that I had seen once before but could not remember where it was to photograph.  Lo & behold we found it:

 Side "back" of house

 Toddler's sneaker

 "Back" of house

 Guest & 9th Ward resident

Side of house

I still marvel that the front is still standing.  However it was my guest who discovered the toddler's sneaker still hanging on the tree. 

As sad as it may seem, it still indicate that someone(s) made a mark & despite it all at this moment we are still standing.

May we never underestimate the extraordinary capacity one may have to be resilient at this moment.

Way to Know ALL the ways Healing takes Place...

Blooming Basils 9-6-10 All rightsreservedJHM

There are many who do not know I had an emergency hospital emergency 8 day stay with a 2nd surgery August 27th following a previous surgery stay August 11th. The second surgery came out of the blue while I was recuperating from the 1st surgery. I am ok home resting, weaken, but thankfully managing to survive 2 surgeries in 3 1/2 weeks!

Needless to say it has run a major curve for me the next few weeks. But I am here and I am healing! Which brings me to this story...


Today I had two unexpected visitors both bringing unexpected gifts. Funny thing in their way these two women brought me exactly what I needed for the day, their time attention & love.

While not knowing one another are very similar in personality and close in age (66 & 68) The 68 year old is very scattered brain, but huge heart, very passionate about New Orleans spending time before coming up my way helping others use Labor Day (how appropriately) to mow down all the high weeds & grass in a part of the Lower 9th Ward putting their time not talk into the community, health food,/organic living. She taught in Berkley on the reservations for a number of years, very hippie-ish and a very vocal advocate. Just really scattered, I tease her calling her Mrs. Magoo as driving with her is an experience.

. Anyway she went our local store and brought me lots of fresh fruit, some jambalaya (with shrimp only) a couple of newspapers & her company.

The 66 year old clean up my kitchen swept my floor, took out my garbage and visited. She also is very scattered, loud, unrefined but heart as big as all out doors. I was so tickled when she went to take out my garbage she out it in my compost because all the other times she came I gave her my compost bag to dispose so she thought this was going there too. She had never seen a compost or a organic garden before, very prim & proper knows very little about community activism, but can be verrrry vocal about ppl abusing the neighborhood.

But I watched her as she swept up my porch, bringing in all my clippings to go into my bag for my compost. (hmm maybe she's learning?) While I tried to figure out her cell phone as she knows nothing but the basics (on & off).

Shows you 60-something can be very eclectic eh?

And they are here for me as I am for them in ways that cannot always be measured. And while there are those days their collective scattering may send me up the wall, I KNOW they will be with me when the chips are down...


So now I tire and will lay down for awhile & thankful for this day.

May 2, 2010~

These are images I've recently took in the city as I took a guest around to see and drink in all that IS New Orleans. Some of the pictures include some of the Make it Right Houses in the Lower 9th Ward as well as a forlorn house on the same street adjacent to the bridge & the levees. The signage is from a church I've been shooting since Oct 2005:

Brought it on Home...

Bienvenue!

I came back home to New Orleans after a 5 years absence. I had been craving to go home for over two years but time & circumstances would not allow it to happen before this fall.

I've created the Burnt Toast blog to document my experiences especially in this 1st year through my photography, muses & whatever suits me. In part, I want to experience being part of the never to be repeated, I pray, revitalizing & reinvention of New Orleans. It will be my own eyes & how I see the fits & starts, hills & valleys as I see this quirky, magnificent, perplexing, never a moment of boredom, resilient city glow as it never has before.

My family's stamp is all over the city & goes back a century or more.My maternal grandmother in the early 1900's worked at Two Sisters where she passe blanc(passed for white) in order to support her only daughter who was too brown to pass off.

In the 1940's my parents met & fell in love right on 600 block Burgundy in the French Quarters where my father, a handsome, striking musician home after the war (WWII) moved next door. My mother was living with my Uncle Ellis a French speaking Creole who own a very successful bar & restaurant at that time called the Golden Pumpkin. According to family lore, it was the hangout for the Zulus during Mardi Gras. My mother worked there.

Shortly, before I was born my parents moved to Gert Town on Fig Street (I was a Charity baby) but before I was 5 months old bought a house in the Lower Ninth Ward which became my childhood home.

In my teens my mother moved us to Southern Cali only for me to return to N.O in my early 20's then back to Cali for another 22 years returning in 1997 living in both the Marigny & Uptown until I left in 2004 for work.

I only escape being in Katrina narrowly by the job offering me an additional year otherwise I would have been here in Katrina, other family members were not as fortunate.

But like a boomerang I would always return to New Orleans as I did this year.Whatever it is that pulls me back I cannot get voice to that yet. I just want to see what will flow this time around. So welcome to this thyme...