The Right Place

We all get those days where we feel stressed, whiny, etc. We feel like we've lost touch with our dreams, that we'll never achieve them. Sometimes, what we need is a shift in perspective to get us thinking about those dreams and our happiness. I've had two today in the span of two and a half hours.

The first: An episode of Babylon 5 (did I mention I now have the complete series on DVD?). It was a science fiction series of course, but its creator/writer J. Michael Straczynski had some pretty profound things to say. Today, in the second season episode "A Distant Star," Captain Sheridan wonders if Earth President Clark made the right choice in naming him the new commander of B5. Delenn, ever the philosopher, remarks, "The Universe puts us in places where we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are is the right place at the right time. The pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of constantly being born." We are constantly changing -- as a species, as individuals -- constantly growing, constantly remodeling our goals, our needs, our beliefs. We are constantly being born. While it is difficult to comprehend why the Universe allows war and sickness and poverty and particularly gimpy days and delays in getting that computer and putting students in charge of things they have to rearrange their schedules for, it is comforting to know I am in the right place. The fact that I ultimately get back on that plane and return to New Orleans means I am in the right place. Sure, I don't have that thought in my head every moment of every day, but I do eventually remember it. Other days I rail against it, but I always come back to it and find some peace within it. I am in the right place.

The second: A modified, shorter version of Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch's "last lecture" (video below). The complete original lecture, with closed captioning, can be found here. The part that really resonated with me was when he said brick walls are put in our path for a reason -- to test how badly we want something. In everything that's happened in the last two and a half years, I'd lost sight of what was important to me.

At least, I thought I had.

Hurricane Katrina. Kidney stones. Acidosis. Numb bum. Another kidney stone. All Paul's illnesses. Blood clot. Depression. Paul's death. Dad's prostate cancer.

And yet, I kept coming back to New Orleans. I moved back after the hurricane. I returned after every trip home though 80% of me wanted to stay. I guess I hadn't forgotten what was important to me -- at least on the subconscious level.

I am in the right place, and I badly want this.

Lessons from St. Bernard

I went to a baby shower for my friend Marlo today (who, incidentally, passed her plug right before the party) in St. Bernard Parish (=county) just south of us here in NO. Besides Marlo and the two people who picked me up, I knew one other person in probably 30 total. It so didn't matter.

When I think of people being a community, these people are it. They don't care about color, they don't care that you're not originally from "the parish" or NO or even Louisiana, they don't care if you walk or you don't. Everyone is chere, everyone gets a hug and a kiss, everyone (even the chick they just met five minutes ago) is community if they're a friend of a friend's friend. Even a little girl whose name I never learned came up and hugged me.

Here's the amazing part -- they're all still in FEMA trailers. The empty lots where houses had to be demolished are overgrown. There are hardly any businesses open. Two years later. These people have every right to be angry or at the very least bitter, but they aren't. They laugh and they hug and they play dopey baby shower games and they eat and they pass their gorgeous babies around for pinches and kisses. It's not all rosy, but they make do -- and they make do with a smile and a hug and a "come back anytime, chere."

If only more people could spend an afternoon/evening in St. Bernard.