Plaquemines Parish : Some Words
Joe MF Wilson
Did a little bit of rebuild work too, a little bit of cooking meals for hundreds of people, a little bit of dish pit, of mediating, of drinking round fires, of exploring, of talking and listening, of escapist activities, of landscape-like work, of general management, of growing up tired down backwards. I thought and talked and tried to act about politics, religion, morals, laws, and all the other hot topic high concepts. Wrote e-mails and phone calls that touched people who saw something about Louisiana on TV or computer.
Anyway now I’m back in New York, writing e-mails and using a cell phone every day, playing music, looking clean except for when and after washing dishes and fruits and vegetables 40 hours a week to make rent, thinking too much, doing too little, feeling good feeling good but not ever always, staying in touch with many people and losing touch with many people. Thinking about myself a lot, riding the subway a lot and thinking about the strangers I see almost every day and night. Many great things happening, many get missed. I have some soap opera-like drama going on here. I have occasional brief interactions with neighborhood kids, most recently a scruffy teen on a bike in park slope who looked at me as he rode past and goes, “Hey asshole”, and I said “Hey asshole” back. Then there was a stare-off with a 9 month-old on the subway platform, his mother laughing and chatting with me. And then there was a kid who saw me at the shopping center last week and called out to his friends, “Look at this nigga,” but his friends were ignoring him and I did too.
photo by Zana Smith, age 13, visit 450photo.com
I’m remembering Diamond residents all the time and forgetting all the time.
It is and will be and I guess always was….
And there’s this photo workshop gallery showing money, and there’s some people talking about going back down to me, some residue interests and passion, some new news of the kids that I get tidbits relayed to me…. And I pause and reflect, it’s not for me to return yet. But have you seen some of the amazing and explicit photos that the kids took last summer?--- it’s way more truth than my words, way more than American Idol’s little special if you saw that or didn’t, way more than the brief newspaper references if you read them or didn’t, than the AP reporter who decided not to write about it, way more than what other volunteers are saying or their photos that I have or haven’t seen. Yo, check it out the 450 Photo Project and if you want to, do something.
Easily’s a misused word. I’m easily grateful for all this, to you. Thanks? Thanks.
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