Gulfport RePost- Day Two: My new name is splinter-butt.

12/18

perhaps because the air is wet and gray

gulfport this morning

is lonely (sabishii)

woke up way too early this morning. my own fault. i overestimated how much time it was going to take everyone to get ready. that's ok... i got to see the grays of gulfport turn into smoky reds. and so quiet. i wonder if it was like this before the storm?

leaving the house this morning, julia and i thought it was raining. but it was only the huge oak tree in front dripping morning dew from its leaves. coming from the airport last night, i saw lots of young trees where there used to be... something else.

today was spent roofing. more specifically, we worked on the roof of a lady who is currently living in a FEMA trailer on her front lawn. someone came in after the storm to fix her roof, but they only put on new shingles, and didn't replace the soggy boards underneath. so we tore up the lovely new roof in order to get to the rot underneath.

i am one for symbols and metaphors. taking shovels and hammers and crowbars for monotonous and neck-wrenching hours was a meditation that gave me time to think about destruction as a step in rebuilding and renewal. forest fires. many many cultures use pain as a part of ceremonies for rebirth. perhaps the screams of pain at childbirth become linked to the act itself, until suffering and new life become completely entwined, unable to exist without each other. whoever first fixed this lady's roof slapped on a happy exterior and then moved on.

some rot is deeper than the surface. sometimes back-breaking work results in more holes than when you started. my muscles are crying out in pain...

"it was kinda eerie," said andrea. "all those staircases leading to nothing."

Gulfport RePost- Day One: "There were houses here."

12/17

our plane left the john wayne airport at an alarmingly steep incline at 8:30 this morning, careful not to awaken or otherwise disturb our orange county neighbors. the flight was generally quiet and comfortable as we made our way from southern california to the houston stop-over, but i was anxious. partly because i'd only slept about a half hour before leaving for the airport, but i think mostly because i was anticipating something i had no notion of. what, exactly, do i think i'm doing?

looking out the window of the plane (past robyn, who had gotten no sleep the night before and was making up for it with open-mouthed enthusiasm) i could see patches of partitioned land beyond the heavy cloud cover, but i had no idea where i was. somewhere between irvine and houston, i knew... somewhere over the southwestern portion of America. somewhere far enough over that the borders and cities and townships couldn't be distinguished, and everything just looked like land.

i started thinking about Om, the sacred syllable which both Buddhism and Hinduism recognize as the essential and universal sound of life. Supposedly, if you stand in the middle of a bustling crowd of thousands and pull back enough that you're hearing, not words, but just a collection of sounds, the sound you'll hear will be Om. is this because all the world, all of consciousness, sings Om whether they know it or not? or is it because Om describes this sound? which came first? from tens of thousands of miles above ground, i could imagine that the whole country was one entity, if not vibrating on one wavelength, at least singing in harmony. no lines except for the streets and the lazy meandering of rivers. we landed in houston (aka the George H. W. Bush Airport), and the first airport store we passed was the Fox News Store. awesome.

an hour later, we were in Gulfport, Miss. we were greeted by a charming lady named Martha Lee (!) who took us on a tour of the shoreline before we got settled in for the night. "There were houses here," she said. "Anywhere you see nothing, it's because there used to be something there."

Going back to Gulfport

Let's see. The title pretty much says all there is. In December 2006 I went as part of a college-age mission trip to Gulfport, Mississippi to assist with rebuilding efforts there, a little over a year after Katrina. It was an incredible experience, physically, emotionally, and everything else.

On Sunday, I'm going back, this time as an adult leader on a high school trip. The kids we're going out with are great, and there's a whopping 18 of them. I can't even begin to predict how it's going to be, except that it'll be crazy. Like, awesome crazy.

Anyway. I don't think I'm going to be blarging from there, but I did think I'd repost the blargs I wrote from 2006, as they have heretofore existed only on MySpace, which is obviously lame. After I post those, I'll post the article I wrote for The Union Weekly about the trip.

If I don't write before then, I'll definitely write something when I get back. See ya'll in two weeks.

Dear Dillan–

If I had known that nine years was all we'd get, I would have spent more of those nine years with you.  

If I had known that memories with you were a scarce commodity, I would have stockpiled them when I had the chance.  Instead, I have pictures on my computer, undated, and they are a slideshow in my head, silent and still.  We are at a Labor Day picnic, and I have just locked your name into my mind forever because I have so many little cousins and it's hard to keep track, but you are the one who hands me a banana to open, your tiny fist stretching into the sky and your hair an explosion barely contained in a knot on top of your head.  As you eat the banana, you lean back onto my leg and fall asleep standing up.  I am looking at the camera, because how cute is that?  I think you are saying something to me, but I don't know if or what it was.  I wish I had that in my stockpile.  Later I will hold you on one side and an umbrella on the other to shield you and our kinfolk from the sun.  You are a pleasant weight, and I imagine that this is a very good way to start a friendship, that I will show you these pictures one day and you will find it hard to believe that you were ever so small.

I hope you know that I love you, and, even if no one can quite keep straight the first, second, and thirds and how many times removed, that you are my cousin, and that means that you are very important to me.  When you are small, things change so quickly.  A few months would pass, maybe a year, between visits, and I think you might have forgotten me.  I didn't know time was so short.  But I think that I hugged you hello and goodbye every time I saw you, and I know that you remember my wedding, just as everyone who was there remembers you.  The last time I saw you, you were sleeping, exhausted from the chemo.  I was with your mom the first time you got someone else's blood, which really freaked her out.  And I was with her the day you died, and I sat with her on the beach and I watched the waves come in and wished that I had known you better.  

I am sorry for all of the time we won't spend together, because I think we would have been great friends.  Thank you for sharing some of your precious nine years with me.  I am proud to be part of your family, and I think I will miss you every day.

"Oops," I said, unnecessarily.

Please picture the following:

I, Mike, and Danfriend are at Chick-fil-A about half an hour before closing.  I order a kid's meal (6 piece nuggets, if you must know) and Mike gets a chocolate shake.  I wait with the tray for Dan, while Mike goes and sits down in a booth with some bud-buds.  When Dan is ready, I pick up the tray and attempt to walk to the booth, but the way is blocked by "Caution: Wet Floor" signs. There is a woman mopping the floor.

I attempt to walk around the signs, and she says: "This section is closed!"

Okay, I think, and I attempt to go the long way around, only to find that my way is blocked on that side by a row of chairs.  As I try and squeeze through them, the woman says again, "This section is closed!  I've already cleaned it... I don't want to have to clean it again."

"No problem," I say.  "I'm just going through to sit with my friends."  I gesture to where Mike and the buds are sitting, in a section still populated by diners.  Exasperated, she agrees, and I continue through the closed section, heading toward the booth of friendly faces.

Halfway through the clean section, I swivel to maneuver around a table and feel an odd weight shift on the tray I carry.  I look down just in time to see Mike's untouched chocolate milkshake topple off the tray and explode on the freshly-mopped floor, splattering the tables, chairs, and walls of the area that, if it's not too much trouble, the cleaning lady would really rather I avoid.

There is a painful silence as every head turns toward the explosion.  The woman hasn't figured out yet what's happened, being on the other side of a partition mopping another area.  She knows something is up, but she's not yet sure what, as I stand helpless in the middle of the restaurant, milkshake dripping from my jeans onto the floor. 

Silence, and then a precocious young lad rushes to the scene from his family's booth to stand, hands on hips, and shout: "Clean up on aisle seven!!"

It was one of the most perfectly constructed moments of my life, and I thought I would share it with you.

Sub Days?

...sigh.

God Kills Another Puppy

I was once lamenting the impending demise of Acres of Books with fellow bibliophile Val (not Kilmer) who remarked: "Every time a bookstore closes, God kills a puppy." If this is true (and I see no reason why it shouldn't be), then Heaven's doggy door will be a-swingin on Saturday, when Borders on Third Street Promenade gives its employees their last bag checks.

Since Borders is a mega-chain, not a unique treasure, though, maybe the puppy won't be quite as lovable as the one dispatched in Acres' honor. Maybe a puppy less like this:

And more like this:

Cute, but not unbearably so.

Whatever the associated puppy looks like, the closing of a bookstore is always a sad thing. This sadness is usually associated with an uncomfortable elation, since bookstore closures are often accompanied by closing sales. And, with such ridiculous savings to be had, the life of a vulture is a little less... um... gross.

Anyway. Carrion bird metaphors aside, bookstore closing sales are freaking tasty treats. Borders @ Third Street is offering 40% off everything, except Paperchase items, which are 75% off. Plus, all the fixtures are on sale, prompting me to ask Brian on more than one occasion: "Yes, but what would you do with it?"

I browsed half-heartedly through the shelves, which were, on Tuesday, already sparsely populated mockeries of their former selves. A half-dozen books from various sections in the store would be stacked on a random shelf among a haphazard collection of DVDs, greeting cards, and the occasional coffee cup. And everywhere were books I'd seen elsewhere and thought about getting: the Hapa Project's book, collections of religious scriptures, novels I might one day want to read by authors I know I'd love if I just gave them a chance. I had to keep reminding myself that 40% off was 60% on, and if I only half wanted the book... well, you do the math. And I was doing the math on a small stack of treasures when I was pleased to overhear the following:

Sixteen Year Old Girl: Oh my God! I love this guy!
Obliging Father: I don't know who that is.
SYOG: William S. Burroughs? He was one of the Beats.

SYOG went on to give her father a mini-lesson on Burroughs, the Beats, and the significance of the newly published And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks. It was so cool. In the end, the line was just a little bit too long to convince me to whip out ye ol Visa card. And I was happy to leave my stack of treasures behind, in the hope that another girl and her father might bond over them and the closing sale that made them 40% more buyable.

Here's to books, and bookstores, and the puppies whose fates to theirs are forever tied.