I stood up from my bed to take a shower and gasped out loud in amazement at the orange of half-sun that stood on the horizon. Hey, Angela was playing and I stood with my palms on the windowsill while it dipped lower, slower over the city until it was gone. I knew watching it that I was happy and that I am supposed to be here and that I miss the people I love but that they're here with me in this place that I need to be.
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Today was good. I finished my Excel manual, which was a huge weight lifted. I wish I knew that it was as good as my Word manual, but I'm almost as new to Excel as the people I was writing it for. A group of girls from a Catholic school in Baton Rouge arrived unexpectedly, so we put them to work clearing the NENA-owned yard that happens to be next to Fats Domino's house. They did a fantastic job. It's incredible what ten people can do in two hours.
Tonight my classmates and I had the pleasure of watching a panel discussion between Trisha Jones, the founder and president of NENA, and the president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association (Holy Cross is a section of the Ninth Ward). Both were brilliant but reserved, passionate but resolute. It became clear that it's people like them who prevented neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward from becoming the city's drainage system after Katrina, which, I'm sure, mattered worlds to both people I work with every day and hundreds I'll never meet.
Picture from: http://images-0.redbubble.net/img/art/size:large/view:main/2971608-2-sun-setting-on-a-louisiana-rice-field.jpg
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