Yesterday, Brad, Sarah and I worked on one of the rain garden sites. I have not had ever had a garden, nor done manual labor in a very long time. Digging, digging, digging, then mulch mixing with the soil, then mixing the sand and the mulch in the soil, rocks/gravel on the bottom, filling in the rest with the sand/soil/mulch mix.
I really liked the group of people that we were working with – from Virginia. We sang songs; well, we tried to sing! Okay, I tried to sing! Spice Girls, anyone? Ah well.
I will be posting pictures when I get back to Mpls, as the cord that connects the camera to the cpu is not here.
So the best part of yesterday was meeting Marna David. I had been watching This Old House on PBS a while back, and the guys did a tour of her home – not the one we were working on, but still it was amazing to get to walk inside her beautiful home and her generosity and spirit are absolutely inspiring. I love hearing people's stories on why they moved to NOLA and why they are still here. It really helps to put my life in perspective, and the choices we make about the kind of lives that we lead. And also, that going through all of this (and my dad and stepmom are living proof, having experienced Rita in Beaumont/Port Arthur, TX) you still have your sense of humor and the ability to keep on keeping on. Marna said something really interesting. We were talking about PTSD, and I was saying that I considered therapy for PTSD when I came back from the hurricane recovery work in 2006, that for people who are living here, there's no "post" – the stress and the pain is still going on every day – and we turn off our TVs or we get back on our planes – but the faith in the sense of this place is so strong that we keep coming back.
Or we move here.
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