Prior to the levee breaks in New Orleans, I saw myself working to bridge two places I loved. I'd return to New Orleans from France, and I found myself wanting to take the bus, ride my bike, walk, shop in the neighborhood, and capturing my place in photos. As I was trying to put those pieces in place, it felt as if one side of my bridge had been bombed. Everything I knew was different and fragile. I found comfort in those bridging activities, but everything around us had changed. I had changed. Throughout all these years, I have tried to make that bridge. But this trip, my bridge materialized out of the mist just when I stopped trying to make it happen. I see the pieces clearly. This is the meant to be in the moving on. I expect that once the house sells, I will continue to come back to New Orleans to visit family and friends. I know I can stay with Stew and Eric. I'll be: riding Eric's bike every morning, taking the bus and chatting with the locals, roaming the French Quarter, shopping at Terranova's, loving on City Park, taking photos, and enjoying visits with my friends and this place who has played a huge part in making me the person that I am.
Feeling my bridge has been important. Riding my bike the other morning, I watched a huge, beautiful pelican fly over the bridge across Bayou St. John. I remembered Faith RInggold's memoir called: "We Flew Over the Bridge", and I was flying with that pelican. As I head to St.Louis this morning, then return to France at the end of the month, I leave you with a quote that says it all:
"Anyone can fly, all you have to do is have somewhere to go that you can't get to any other way and the next thing you know you're flying among the stars."-Faith RInggold's Tar Beach
Comments