Posts Tagged ‘preservation resource center’

The last few weeks have been strange ones. There was nearly 3 weeks of jury duty for an ungodly Katrina death case. To call it exhausting and miserable would be an understatement…and after all that time, they settled. Which was a good thing, ultimately, but still.

And as we come to the one year anniversary of the business closing I’ve finally gotten rid of the last of the stuff. I feel like I NEVER stop thinking that, but every time I think I’m done I open some cubbyhole and find yet MORE stuff.

The dregs seem to be really and truly gone now- the filing cabinets that used to hold several thousand beads were picked up yesterday and dropped off to their new homes, and the huge box of leftover gift boxes that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away have found new lives.

In their Notably New Orleans lives, they would’ve looked like this:

In their new lives they’ve found a much higher purpose:

PRC’s Education & Outreach department does a fantastic job of working with local public school kids, giving tours and setting up different long term programs with the schools. This display came at the end of several months of working with a classroom and exploring what community really means and what goes into building a livable space.

They all did an amazing job, and it’ll be on display for another couple of weeks at the Preservation Resource Center (923 Tchoupitoulas) if you want to come check it out. There are quotes from the students and all kinds of other interesting things to check out.

And then of course there was the hard freeze that went on for days- the worst New Orleans has seen in 15 years. The carnage was fairly complete- all the hibiscus are dead. Ditto the passiflora, bougainvillea,and on and on- even the ginger took a huge thwacking, and I thought that stuff was indestructible.

Well, here- let’s save some time. Allow me to point out what survived using a photo from the fall as illustration: Arrow=survivor. No arrow=fallen soldier.

So yeah, that was freaking depressing.

But a good culling is like a forest fire, leaving behind newly excavated mental and physical space that needs to be filled up with new exciting plans. Some of those are writing based, and some are photography based. Some involve shopping for new and ever more exotic plants to fill up the yard with color.

And just maybe some might even involve finally making an honest man out of poor, long suffering Charlie.

It’s been a long year of post-going-out-of-business recovery- time spent clearing deadwood both practical and metaphorical. Here’s hoping it was time well spent.