MAYA ANGELOU AND NEW ORLEANS


I first saw Maya Angelou speak, January 1991, in Seattle, Washington. I was nineteen years old. Sitting in the middle of the room on an aisle chair, I was slightly self-conscious that I didn’t have anyone to whisper to or nudge, like the hundreds of other individuals surrounding me. As more people filled the room, their whispers grew to a collective hum, but when Miss Angelou took the stage her presence quickly sequestered their conversation and the room fell silent. Dressed in vibrant colors, she sashayed her way to the microphone. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I recall how she said it. With her arms outstretched and her chest expanded, she roared. She would draw in a deep breath, and exhale a flow of verbs and adjectives that commingled into the most divine array of musings and meditations. Occasionally, she would stop in the middle of one of her poems, pop her hip out, raise her arms over her head and break out into song, singing snippets of an old blues or jazz tune. I didn’t know if it was spontaneous or rehearsed; it didn’t matter. Her confidence, coupled with her uninhibited bravado as she howled, wailed, shouted, or coaxed words from the bottom of her gut, was astounding. Simply put, she was dazzling. You could hear her heartbeat.

Afterward, a crowd gathered in the back for a book signing. Many of them held “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” or “The Heart of a Woman,” but I clutched my handwritten poetry journal. All of my various poetry and fiction journals were in black and white Mead Composition Folders. In them, I wrote my poems and the date of completion. Periodically, I’d scribble notes at the bottom for prosperity. In the back of my journal, I collected inspiring quotes or poems that motivated me while I attempted to fill the journal up with what I hoped would eventually be inspiring for others. This was the typical format in all of my journals. The particular one I held while waiting for Miss Angelou contained poems by Stevie Smith, Ernest Dowson, Shel Silverstein, Gelett Burgess and Emily Dickinson, as well as my own personal nuggets: “Underwear Voidness,” “Sex Appliances,” and “Wild O’Wild Salad Fork.” I don’t know if I was at that motivational part in my writing yet.

In the back of the line, I flipped through my journal wondering if this is how Miss Angelou got her start - if her scribbles led to revelations. Time passed until eventually a security guard made a loud announcement that Miss Angelou was getting tired, and was only going to sign autographs for the next ten people in line. I was number twelve. The person in front of me, and everyone behind me moved, but I locked eyes with the security guard, holding my ground until he shrugged his shoulders and waved me forward. I suspected the security guard was using this tired “excuse” as a rouse. Miss Angelou certainly had more exciting plans than dealing with fawning fans.

When it came my turn, I handed my journal over, explaining that I was a poet too, and for the first time looked closely at the woman who was just on stage. This was not the same woman. This was not the woman who tramped and sauntered. This was not the woman who bellowed and howled. This was not the same woman who, through movement and words, took captive an entire audience. This woman was tired.

Maya Angelou signed my journal, gave me a polite smile and nod, and handed it back to me. Seeing I was the last one in line, a man helped her up from her chair.

In my journal she wrote, “Joy, Maya Angelou 1/91”

She was sixty-two years old at the time.

In this short life, she was called: a prostitute, a poet, a mother, a singer, an actress, an artist and an activist. She was resurrected, reformed, and reborn. She was all of these things and more. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the complexities humans possess.




In 2005, I had lived in New Orleans for eleven years. After Hurricane Katrina, I evacuated to Crested Butte, Colorado. I managed to take with me my computer, cats and a small backpack with some flip flops, tank tops and a few toiletries. My home was in Mid City. Since there was varying degrees of destruction reported in my area, I was unaware for six weeks if my house and its contents were okay. A friend from Alabama sent me a gift box of donated jeans (thus, breaking my lifelong habit of only wearing 501 Levis) and books. Since I couldn’t concentrate on anything with too much of a time commitment, I took to reading poetry. Favoring novels and short stories, I hadn’t actively read poetry in years. 95% of my own poems were written in free verse. I liked the experimentation of loose words and placement. Rules were too restrictive. Yet, after Katrina, I embraced strict rhyme schemes and logical structures. I devoured haikus, villanelles and sonnets, finding solace in the formula and routine. For some reason, this structure and discipline I eschewed for years, took my mind off the situation of my adopted city and the loved ones I still couldn’t find.

I had been a volunteer for the Big Brothers and Sisters of Southeast Louisiana for over a year and half. My little brother, Nicholas was nine-years old and lived in the Lower Ninth Ward. Two to three times a month, I drove down to his slanted blue shotgun house on Tupelo Street to pick him up. His youngest brother, Devon, who was only two at the time, was frequently in his diaper or a pair of shorts playing on the sidewalk. He’d run to my car, waiting for me to roll down the passenger’s window so he could hang from it and call my name, one of the first words I ever heard him speak. Devon loved Spiderman and he loved cuddling, and I knew every time he was outside, regardless if we were late for a movie or event, there was time to pick him up, hug him and hang him upside down by his ankles. “That boy is a flirt,” his mom would always say with her infant son, Jquine, securely on her hip. ‘Don’t know what I am gonna do with him.”

Frequently, I took Nicholas’s two older brothers (and occasionally a cousin or two) with us on our outings. They were hard to turn down, and I suppose anywhere I was going in my car seemed more exciting than playing up and down the cracked sidewalks, like they did every day. Most of the time, I agreed, but other times I had planned events for just Nicholas and I didn’t want him overshadowed by his other siblings.

The first time I took Nicholas and his older brother, Shaun, to a movie was the first time they had ever been to one. Since we were running late, I told them to go pick out our seats while I bought our concessions. Shaun was already amazed they served cold drinks and candy at the movies. I spent a good five minutes reassuring him that it was okay for him to go into the theater without me. “They don’t let people like me in there,” he worriedly told me. Shaun, tall and lanky like all of his brothers, was eleven-years old and put in a different school because he punched one of his teachers. He stood in front of me nervous, almost unwilling to leave my side. “It’s okay,” I told him, pointing in the direction of the theater doors. “Just go in and get our seats; I will find you.” Minutes later, as I was debating over buying Milkduds or Hot Tamales, the two boys came running back. They were beaming proudly. “We got our seats,” they told me, jumping up and down. “We got them!”

I didn’t want to crush their coo. “Okay, well, you got to sit in them.” They thought this over for a couple of seconds and then raced back without saying a word.

During the movie, the boys laughed, shouted and filled up on the usual movie fare. Afterward, Shaun dropped to his knees to find his ticket. Thinking he only wanted a souvenir, I offered to give him mine. “No,” he wailed, “They won’t let me out without one.” It was only a glimpse into what their lives were really like.

Another time, at a pizza party at my house, Shaun asked me why I was scraping dishes and putting them into “that machine.” I told him it was a dishwasher. “You put the dishes in here,” I told him, opening the door. “And then you put in soap, shut it, turn it on, and it washes your dishes.” Shaun contemplated this for a good minute. “Can I see that soap?” he asked.

I took a lot for granted.

After I passed the interviews and background checks with Big Brother and Big Sisters, I was given two choices for little brothers. I chose Nicholas, despite the fact they said he had learning and social skill problems out the applicants, because he was the same age as my friend’s stepson, Jake. The two couldn’t be more different. Jake was small for his age, a voracious reader and loved rocks and biology. Nicholas, tall and gangly, had a bit of a lisp, mumbled and lived for sports. They instantly hit it off. When Jake asked Nicholas if he was excited for the new Star Wars movie and Nicholas responded he had never heard of it, Jake elected himself Nicholas’s personal Star Wars tutor. Jake promptly renamed Nicholas, “Nick” and would constantly chant “Nick and Jake are the man!” Nicholas quickly deemed whatever Jake ate and drank as “it.” They also enjoyed talking to no one. Sometimes I would look in my rearview mirror to find both of them deep in conversation with themselves. They had a lot to talk about.

A week before the storm, my friend and I took Jake and Nicholas to a co-worker’s birthday party for her son in New Orleans East, where they rented a large water slide. Before we left the party, I dropped school supplies off for the brothers. Fearing they would think them lame, I tried to find the most “exciting” supplies I could: folders with tigers, pencils with basketballs on them and notebooks with racecars. When I handed them over, feeling like the aunt who gives socks and underwear for Christmas, the boys attacked them, jumping up and down and screaming. They acted like I gave them all new motorbikes. Sensing Nicholas was a little sad about “sharing” me and my gifts, I took him out separately and he picked out a backpack, notebooks and calculator of his own. He held tight to the backpack, even insisting on taking it into the convenience store for fear it would be gone when we returned four minutes later.

At the birthday party, I watched Nicholas and Jake race barefoot through my friend’s yard and hurl themselves down the slide. Later in the park, I wondered how a kid who was so much taller than Jake frequently lagged yards behind. My friend had pointed out the state of Nicholas’s shoes before, but it was the first time I really noticed the effects. In a year or two, his older brother’s shoes would be fine, but for now they were an encumbrance; extra baggage. It must be a horrible thing to always be last. When I dropped Nicholas off at his house that night, I told him next week we would get shoes. It was the last time I saw him.

For weeks after Katrina I tried to find Nicholas and his family. Eventually, through the help of the local Red Cross, I managed to locate his mother, two older brothers and Jquine at the Houston Astrodome. Nicholas and Devon were not on the list. I paniced. If they registered the nine-month old, surely they would register Nicholas and Devon. I tried many times to contact the family at the Astrodome. Who could I call? Could I have them paged? Was there a phone? Where were Nicholas and Devon? No one could tell me.

Somehow, and I am not quite sure how, Devon and Jquine’s father, Darrel, managed to track down my cell phone number. “Are you the white girl that always comes around the house and gets Nicholas?” he asked me when I answered. He told me couldn’t find his sons. He didn’t have a computer. He was using a church phone in Alabama. He didn’t know anyone. We traded information and spoke every other day. Eventually, Darrel told me his story. He spent three days on a rooftop with a baby in a cooler. They waved to the helicopters, holding the baby up and screaming every time they passed. Eventually, it was the wildlife and fishery department that rescued them. He took a deep sigh and said, “Miss ______, the water rose so fast. The water rose so fast.” And to this day, although I can’t recall the exact particulars of our other conversations, I can still hear the incredulity and exhaustion in his voice.

Three weeks later I found Nicholas. I am still not clear how he and Devon were separated; they had been in Arkansas. I was driving through Oregon from Washington on my way back to Colorado after dropping off my cats at my parents’ house. I had to pull over to keep from crashing.

Nicholas and his four brothers and mother were in Dallas and staying at a church. I immediately called a friend in the city to drive down and drop off pizza for them. It was Floyd, the eldest brother’s thirteenth birthday and I had promised him a pizza party of his own. My friend, reported back to me that they were and okay, but a little hesitant and distrusting of him. Nicole refused his money.

Months later I would try to send them whatever I could. I came back to the city in October and was like everyone else, just trying to get by. A friend of mine in Pennsylvania had her son’s Cub Scout Troop adopt them for Christmas and all of the boys got an electric car. They called at least twice a week. Nicholas would sometimes sneak the phone and call me at odd hours. His messages were jumbled. “Please come and get me. I need…Come and get me… Please…No longer… Come and get back.” Then there would be a long pause and he would end the message like he did all his others. “Love, Nicholas.”

Sometimes Nicole would call me and tell me how much she hated Dallas and how they “treated black kids like shit.” “They hate us here,” she told me. I asked her if they treated her and the children badly because they were black. “No,” she said. “We surrounded by black people. They just treat blacks from New Orleans bad. They just don’t like us. This ain’t our home; we want to come home.” I wanted them back, too. I didn’t tell them I had been by their house and it was even in worse condition than before. It wasn’t their neighborhood anymore and it certainly wasn’t there home.

Once I was back in New Orleans, I continued reading mainly poetry. One night, after another day of cold showers, no heat and cooking from an electrical burner, I picked up a poetry anthology and opened up to Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise.” I had not read it in years. When I was younger, I marveled at her descriptions of what it was like to be a black woman. Her courage and confidence resonated with me. But reading it this time there was a familiarity that I didn’t recognize before. A déjà vu. For days I couldn’t place it. And then I remembered Darrel’s comment about the water. I reread the poem and this time, I realized she was speaking about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. It was an affirmation of the artistry and symmetry of the true beauty of poetry. A good poem not only withstands time and circumstance, but it changes with you. It adapts. It grows along with you. It’s multinational; it’s universal. All the while being so incredibly intimate.


STILL I RISE

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
“Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns
With the certainty of tides.
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Wakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words.
You may cut me with your eyes.
You may kill me with your hatefulness
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a post that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise.
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave
I am the dream and the hope of the slave
I rise
I rise
I rise.



It’s been months and I haven’t heard from Nicholas and his family. Their phone has been disconnected and I don’t know where they are. In the fall of 2005, Big Brothers and Big Sisters contacted me and asked if I would like to be reassigned. I declined. I didn’t want to upset Nicholas if he came back and discovered I had a new “brother” or “sister.” I still had hope they would return. But hope only goes so far and then action is necessary. I contacted the Big Brothers and Sisters and am waiting to hopefully be reassigned.

If Nicholas and his family does come back, I know I will still have room for him and all of his brothers. Just like I hope New Orleans will.

Because of Maya Angelou and a poem she wrote almost thirty years ago, I am reminded how people are like cities. I see New Orleans in Miss Angelou, full of history, spirit and color. The mouth of the Mississippi River is like her defiant hips that pop to either side. Her raised fist is the Ninth Ward with her defiance and strength. Her song is the glow that comes from the dark bars and clubs that harbors the voice of jazz past and present. Her eloquence and elegance are the Garden District’s Oak Trees. Her flash and subtleties is Storyville. And her heart is like the cemeteries that keep their souls so close to the surface.
Still, with all this, a city is nothing without the people that inhabit it. Despite all its strength and sassiness, sometimes it just needs some assistance.

And still New Orleans rises.














THE LAST POEM IN MY JOURNAL, 1991

Katrina’s Ark

The newsmen foretold Katrina’s wicked path.
SUV arks fled, heeding the gods of TV.
The criminally poor braced to deal with her wrath.
No credit card oars enabling their flee.

God doesn’t issue checks or ATM cash.
Green segregates the followers in his flock.
It’s why are some antiques, while others are trash.
Redemption for those who live on the right block.

The water rose quickly, her fury was swift.
Rooftops that once sheltered became the penthouse view.
To watch soul sacrifices caught in the drift.
Floating away, along with everything they knew.

And when it was over: the city at a halt.
The rich still pointed to the poor, “It’s all their fault.”

GOING HOME: DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS NEW ORLEANS? 11/05


Almost seven and a half weeks after boarding up our houses and fleeing New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina, my friend, Chloe and I came home to live. We had returned ten days prior with my husband, Michael to view the damage. Our last few weeks had been spent in Colorado gathering information on our city like we were cramming for a final exam. Still, as we turned off the City Park Exit, we knew no amount of research would prepare us for what we were about to experience. We drove past Lake Lawn, one the cities grandest cemeteries. Ironically, it was not a place I usually associated with death. With its lush grounds, elaborate gravestones and sometimes scandalous past, I looked at it as more of a historical walking tour, not a final resting place. Now the colorless landscape signified death. It was eerily symbolic that the cemetery was the first landmark to greet us.




Once off the exit, we encountered National Guards men sitting on lawn chairs under the freeway pass. They had guns slung across their laps and bottled water at their feet. They waved to us in such a manner that without the automatic weapons, Hummers, and camouflage you would think their main job was Official City Greeters, not there to keep the peace by any means possible. There were few people on the streets and with the stoplights not working, everyone drove at a guarded pace. The streets, littered with trash and debris, had a stench of baked swamp sludge that filled your nose and rooted to the top of your mouth. We continued our drive down City Park Avenue. The majestic oak trees that once witnessed pistol duels in the late 1800s and survived countless storms, now looked like that they had been ripped up like a mischievous child tears up blades of grass. Possessions that once marked individuals’ identity: antique furniture, photo albums, or framed prints of faraway vacation places, were now regulated to garbage. While we were shocked by the state of the various houses (roofs caved in, walls completely torn out, trees reclining in people’s living room) we were looking for that one ominous feature- the water line. The water line, which looks like ground-up coffee grinds, encircles miles and miles of houses. It was an automatic indicator of damage. It told you if you could move forward with your life or if you had to move away. Water was the greatest threat; any amount could create inexplicable destruction. Our friends got less than a foot of water and returned home to find three different types of mold scaling their walls and covering their possessions. They lost everything.










Aside from the obvious destruction, the military had spray-painted messages on houses. They marked the unit, the date and the number of bodies found. The SPCA came in after and marked the type of animal found and if they were alive or dead: Dog starved to death 9/27, Two cats found 10/2, Pit Bull Rescued 9/21. It was just another way to identify tragedy. We didn’t know what to expect when we drove into our Bayou St. John neighborhood.







Chloe, who I met in Washington State over seventeen years ago, lives four doors down from us with her husband, Jason and nine-year old stepson, Jake. We knew from various reports that our neighborhood sustained three to four feet of water. Our houses, like most old houses in the city, were raised. It was just a matter if they were raised enough. Homes two blocks away from ours were in shambles.


















The business owners, who were allowed back in the city before the residents, had already begun piling their ruined wares on the street. We could barely breathe as we turned on our block. Miraculously, we both suffered roof damage and lost all our landscaping but we escaped the water: Michael and I by four inches, Chloe by one. Opening our front door we encountered a musty smell, but all our possessions were unharmed. Standing in front of some of my favorite paintings, I cried.




We were both blessed.





BEFORE


AFTER








The next few days, in the heat, without water and power, we cleaned. Michael worked in the yard, chopping up and tearing out our dead oleander and crepe myrtle trees, azaleas, dwarf orange shrubs, gardenias, jasmine, and lavender plants. We couldn’t do anything with our enormous, one-hundred year old magnolia tree that was lying on our neighbor’s roof. I scrubbed the walls and floors to prevent any future mold. Our refrigerator was duck taped and wheeled outside. The meat had liquefied and the refrigerator was filled with maggots. We learned through our friend, Josh’s folly not to open the door until it was safely on the sidewalk. We had a large ice chest on our patio filled with drinks and snacks and handed them out to anyone who returned on our block.

Our next door neighbor, Gwen, whose two-story house was on ground level, took water. She had just lost her husband, Bobby less than two months before from a heart attack. Bobby was the first one to welcome us to the neighborhood two years before. He was a former Mardi Gras Indian and worked at the Krystal Hot Sauce Company. On Fridays, you could always count on Bobby and Gwen sitting in their lawn chairs on the sidewalk, drinking Milwaukee’s Best, listening to R&B from a boom box and shouting “Happy Friday” to anyone who passed. It was heartbreaking after Bobby’s death to see Gwen sitting out by herself on the sidewalk. We always had a friendly competition with them over holiday decorations. It seemed every weekend Bobby was either taking down or putting up decorations, “Gotta keep the wife happy,” he’d chuckle. Since his death, the only decorations that hung were a garland of white plastic flowers around her windows. Surprisingly, they were still up as Michael and our friend, Glenn helped her salvage what she could from her second floor. Despite their respirators, they were gagging within minutes. Michael said the horror of the mold was only overshadowed by Gwen’s devastation.


During our stay, we slept at our friend’s house in the Garden District who had power and miraculously didn’t suffer any storm damage. The only working grocery store was twenty minutes away from our house and only open from nine to five. In the morning we loaded up on ice and snacks under the watchful eye of the military. We stayed for four days; our power came on the last few hours we were there. Our last night, Michael and I walked down our dark street. No lights, no music, no barking dogs or arguing spouses. It was completely silent. New Orleans is many things but quiet is not one of them. The stillness was staggering.






Ten days later, Chloe and I came back to New Orleans to live and I returned to my real estate job. Michael stayed in Colorado to work while Jason stayed so Jake could finish the school semester. We foolishly believed since we had spent a few days in the city before, we were prepared to return full-time. We were wrong. Living in New Orleans is a daily struggle. After eleven weeks we are still without gas, which means no heat, hot water, or cooking. When we can’t use a friend’s shower we either take cold ones or boil water on the electric burner we purchased and fill a camp shower to hang in the bathtub. We don’t have a phone, cable, or internet. Our cell phones are sketchy so communication can be limited. We don’t have any restaurants or gas stations in our neighborhood. The only grocery store is still the one twenty minutes away. With its limited hours and supplies it’s like shopping the day after Christmas every day.






More people are coming back in the city which is a sign of hope but also a sign of more refuse. We’ve had garbage piled in front of our homes for over a month. It has overflowed onto the street, making it difficult to park, and we have no idea when it will be removed. The flies are everywhere and the effort to keep everything as sterile as possible is a never ending task. We are the last block to have power, behind us is only darkness and devastation. There are areas in the city that are completely empty and abandoned and every day we see something that makes us stop and sigh. The Military has taken over NOCCA, the local performing arts high school. I used to drive by on the way to our art studio and see aspiring dancers, artists, actors mingling in the courtyard of the beautiful brick building. Now, it’s filled with Jeeps and Hummers while men and women in camouflage sit outside with their automatic weapons and wave to passerbys. The military is a constant presence and a odd juxtaposition of comfort and apprehension. It’s something I am yet to get used to and probably never will.










Our first trip back into the city, Chloe and I started documenting photos. I chose to concentrate on the messages that the citizens began to paint on their own houses, abandoned refrigerators and vacant businesses. It was their way of expressing their faith, their fury, their feeling of desperation, or all of the above. Chloe focused on the destitution and emptiness that Katrina has caused. Chloe’s brother, Kilian Wicks, who owns the Kilian Wicks Gallery in downtown Bremerton, Washington was in New Orleans during the time of the evacuation and wanted to try and give people an understanding of the loss from a local’s point of view. We had the photos on display in his gallery for the month of November. Despite our fastidiousness in attempting to capture the true situation in New Orleans, we know our photos only warrant a quick glance into the city’s desperate condition






















Regardless, of the daily events that bring us to tears, it’s also a reminder of not only how lucky we are to emerge relatively unscathed but also how fortunate we are to live in this city. It is the loss of the irreplaceable structures in the city (Greek Revivals, Creole Cottage, Shotgun Camelbacks) that taught me a valuable lesson. While the houses are part of New Orleans’ heritage, they don’t make up the identity of the city. The people do. Where else on a Wednesday afternoon do you stop your car to give a girl on a bike wearing chaps, a bikini top and a tiara the right of way? Where else on a Thursday night at 3AM after listening to jazz band does the trumpet player lead you and the members of his band who aren’t too intoxicated outside to the back of his pickup truck for barbeque? Where else would your dentist understand that you were late for your appointment because of an impromptu second line? This is the magic of New Orleans. Yet, before Katrina hit, the city was already in a storm of racism, poverty, illiteracy, corruption and crime. Now, with the rebuilding underway it is crucial that we take this opportunity to not only preserve the qualities that make this city so unique but to reconstruct with social reform in mind. It wasn’t the hurricane that tore the city apart, it was the aftermath. New Orleans will no doubt be reborn but it can not forget the beauty and the angst of its former life. We are home to stay and ready to contribute.









Published in The Kitsap Herald 12/05
Some of these photos appeared in The Kitsap Herald 12/05 and Square One Spring 06