Hello

Well, I’ve been meaning to write a new post for a while now – to mark the start of my second year in New Orleans, the beginning of being 23 years of age, and the flow of life recently.

So how has the rhythm flowed recently?

There are some moments when you’re walking through the day, and the thought just hits you – “Wow, I’m living in New Orleans, and what a great place it is to be.” I’ve had that feeling as I biked under the bowing oak trees of Audubon Park, when the speckled rays of golden sun beam through the leaves branching overhead. I felt it again during the Satchmo Fest second line parade from Jazz Mass at St. Augustine. As we marched through the Treme, down N. Rampart, and along Esplanade, the joy and celebration of music and community – young and old – filled me with an elated spirit. You groove, you jive, you dance up a storm, and I was beaming the whole time, like the hot sun above us. There’s something about New Orleans that is just so…itself. I love that New Orleans loves New Orleans, each nook of its culture in its own way.

The thought that I’ve been reflecting on recently is this – how do I make the most of my time here? What should I be doing to fully blossom, or grow the seeds of blossoming, to embrace the vivacity and richness or life? There is so much to learn and much to experience. I feel the need to actively engage, but I’m also held back by my tendency to find comfort in passivity (watching, reading, listening). The world is a pretty cool place, man. But on that note, I realize that there are still so many injustices that our social and political systems perpetuate. [Note – just read through Flash Boys by Michael Lewis. Why is there so much money circulating around Wall Street for intangible networks of financial tangles (like “dark pools” and millions of dollars for milliseconds of access) while there is so little money for social services and direct care systems that demonstrably help people?]

So with that, I also want to use this year to do the most meaningful work I can at Covenant House. Knowing that I only have 12 months to carry through the projects that I’m managing provides a framework/perspective. I like that my role and my responsibilities allow me a mix of external and internal engagement. And I hope that by the end of this fellowship, I can say that I’ve contributed in some concrete way to improving the well-being of the youth we serve.

Here we go!