WORD NERDS: this is NOT your nanay's blog

Oh no, Ms. Roxy.

That was my first reaction and worry when I heard about Hurricane Humberto.

Last March I participated in an Alternative Spring Break program that schooled me on Southwest Louisiana during and after the storm. About the other Hurricane, Hurricane Rita, not Katrina. I’m actively discerning Rita from Katrina because coverage about Rita’s destruction was so absent and made invisible in the media. And I don’t mean to discredit the media entirely because, otherwise, I wouldn’t have heard about Hurricane Humberto at all. Humberto is hitting SWLA pretty hard right now, and is literally hitting home.

Ms. Roxy is the owner of the quaint, humble home that United Way took up as a repair project. Ms. Roxy and her home were featured on MTV. So for four weeks, hundreds of volunteers came in and out of her house working, painting, mudding, scraping, texturing, installing, building, etc. And I was fortunate enough to have been one of them.

"Welcome. Make youself at home!" was the first thing she told me when I arrived at her residence along with a van full of peers that were eager to work on a real house. And I feel for Ms. Roxy. Maybe because I know what it’s like to respect single mothers. Maybe it was her outgoing personality that suggested that a fellow volunteer should braid her hair for community service. Maybe it was her infectious laughing that set out to simultaneously tease and comfort all of the volunteers. Or maybe because her two children grew on me. I still remember seeing one of her somber sons sit, head in his hands, on their newly painted stoop away from the group because he wanted to prolong the inevitable farewell to the last week of volunteers. That was the only time of that entire trip when I felt the way I saw him - I didn't want to say goodbye.

Earlier this summer, I caught a poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Café, and one of (perhaps THE) most salient line that I repeat to myself in memory is about “those things that you just can’t have a picture of.” Ms. Roxy’s son on the stoop is certainly just that.

These days, I catch the early morning (or in my case, super late night) news and I’ve seen hella segments that are live in Louisiana. One took place in Holly Beach, an area completely wiped out because of Hurricane Rita. The possibility of these same people losing their homes seems so much more tangible. It’s disheartening.

But I guess I needed another reason to believe in Mother Nature. The more I dig deep for connections, I find that life narratives are indeed female. Almost inherently female.

Hurricane Rita – September 24th, 2005.

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I am absolutely smothered by the IDEA of this tour:




www.gilesli.com
www.myspace.com/kiwi
www.baophi.com

Smothered. Please please please happen at a venue near me.

x_magsalita