Artinua Arts: The Aviary Art Show : 2 : "Disconnected"

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*This post is the second weekly issue in The Aviary Art Show series of paintings and posts, from the Aviary Art Gallery of wild bird paintings at Artinua.Org .*

In the weeks following the hurricane, the blockades were lifted, electricity and communications began to be restored and we heard from or heard news of at least some of the relatives and friends who had been unaccounted for. The counts of missing people diminished as the body counts rose. The people began to return, some for a few hours to assess the damage and salvage what they could, others to make repairs and resume their lives. During this time everyone shared their stories, of evacuations, of survival and of the return home. Friends and strangers alike listened, shared hugs and they helped each other to heal.

The most compelling of the many stories I later heard were those of the remarkable men and women who stayed on in the hospitals, in some cases in the absence of power to drive equipment or run air conditioning in the sweltering heat. Without adequate sanitation or refrigeration, these people stayed when they could have left. Whether it was doctors taking shifts at keeping a newborn's heart beating, a nurse sleeping in her car in the parking garage or anyone on the staff who struggled to provide comfort to patients, they represent a group of largely unsung heroes. For too long, understaffed, with too few provisions and under extreme stress, these brave individuals stood by their commitment to some of the most vulnerable people in the New Orleans area, improvising and waiting for help to arrive. Most remarkable perhaps, upon talking to these people after the event, was that every single one that I spoke with would volunteer to do it all over again.

Three years later I still wonder about the people who've wandered from our lives over the years and whose fates may never be known. The sadness and triviality of those things that divide not only communities, but friends and families, like fear, gossip, judgments and the casual nature with which we move through the places and people in our lives, weighed heavily on my mind. The carelessness with which our culture divests itself of responsibility for it's elderly and it's poor were laid bare for the world to see. If we learned nothing else from this storm, but that we each have a personal responsibility to stay in touch with family, friends and neighbors then we have learned a great deal.

It seems that we failed to realize the potential of this place and became a region of scattered and disconnected families, refugees from bad schools, crime and economic decay, stratified by personal successes and failures and divided into different denominations, sub-cultures and political groups. Sadly, we had become all of this and more, even before the tragedy of a hurricane made it apparent. The bonds that once held families and communities together through multiple generations had somehow become unravelled, and the death toll, especially that of the sick and of the abandoned elderly in this once great city stood as a testament to the loss of the single greatest and most healing gift that this region had to give it's inhabitants, a sense of togetherness, of family, of community and of a shared culture of cultures. The music of New Orleans, like any place, is not a musical genre, but that healing sense of a common social culture, the healing energy of laughter, joy, festivity, charity and compassion that brought not just people, but souls, together, not under a single family roof, or that of a single church, but under the knowledge that we are one, sharing our breath, our environment, our resources, and our celebrations of our brief time in this remarkable place of swamps, bayous and marshes abundant with swaying moss, flowers and wildlife.

Some people say that New Orleans will become a theme park of high-priced development, and the poor and the undesirable will be driven out in favor of a neat, idealized tourist attraction. How could that happen? What they may have overlooked is that it is the healing music of the people cooperating and interacting with one another and with this place that made it attractive, and only through that integration of cultures, socioeconomic groups and personal expression can we hope to bring about the realization of it's great potential. The famous open-armed hospitality of the people, present still and passed down from the days when the indians first helped others survive and flourish in this place, can bring out the best of what this region once was and will be.

This post and painting are dedicated to the people who always have food on the stove to share with visitors, to those who always find room for unexpected guests, to the fisherman who shares his catch with his neighbors, the boy who practices on his saxophone on his way home from school, the man who sells fresh greens from his garden on the tailgate of an old pickup truck, the artist who sells his paintings on the street, the Mardi Gras indian who labors all year to sew his grand costume, the homeless musicians who remain to share their gifts where they can and all of the other people who are working to rebuild this unique regional society and to bring their families home. Most importantly, though, to all of the health care workers, volunteers and good neighbors who selflessly gave of their time and sacrificed their comfort and personal safety for the people of the Gulf Coast during this and other
disasters.