nola 6

This place is messed up. I want to see hope and I can’t find it. I want to know that what I’m doing will make a difference in the long run, that someone will recognize the work it took to get New Orleans back together. I feel underappreciated.

I want to see the green pastures of the Midwest, enjoy the summertime corn on the cob and fresh tomatoes but I can’t. I want to see a forest. There is little which resembles nature here. Green medians sparingly sprinkled with trees does not satisfy my daily need for greenery.

Greenery and nature remind me of my place here. It reminds me of the size of things and how I fit in. The world is much larger than me and without something to remind me it’s easy to forget.

Everything is so dirty here. There is litter everywhere; businesses, schools, houses are filled with garbage, the streets are lined with rubble, the people who work are dirty. Going into a mall on Canal and seeing all the pretty people in the air-conditioned bubble is dreamy. Eating an ice cream cone for the first time this summer on Friday was a sensation I didn’t know I could miss that much.

After talking to a close friend

I’ve put myself in this situation that eats away at my self. This is a form of suicide in which I’ve set a trap for myself and not allowed an escape. I think I’ll feel bad and see this as failure if I leave, if I see all the problems these people face on a daily basis and leave anyway. I put myself as a cause of the continuance of this. For a while now I’ve been asking myself, “why don’t you go home?” and I can’t think of an answer. Sometimes it feels like I want someone to rescue me, and that I’m looking outside myself for that.

I am not whole right now and I can’t take care of myself. I need to fix this situation rather than rely on someone else.

Though when I do have what it takes for self-reflection and the ability to get an understanding of the situation I just wonder what is wrong with these people? Why can’t they take the situation into their own hands and fix it? Now, I’m not necessarily talking about the people of this city, those who simply “don’t have the ability to do so,” I’m also talking about my fellow volunteers who can’t clean their own dishes or wash their own clothes. It’s hard to continue working and working for these people (perhaps with them) in the midst of their apathy toward what I’m doing.

You have to empower yourself before you can empower others.

You know what makes you happy.

6:30 pm, later that day

Woke up to Jewel asking “who will save your soul if you won’t save your own?”

Bess being here makes me realize a lot of the fucked up shit that I’ve learned to ignore, that I forget to question, that I’m tired of throwing myself against, failing.

Bess thinks that a lot of people have other reasons for coming here or staying here for the whole summer – that they want to find meaning in life.

I want to write a lot but not it’s not coming out. I need to write about why I’m still here, why I find myself caught up here, about how I feel Common Ground has gone astray.