Tendency

Sometimes we have a tendency to close our eyes to the world around us.
To block out all that anger and pain.
Sometimes we mistake tears for fear and pray for rain to cover it all.
Sometimes it's just too much of a strain to just be....
So we crawl into ourselves.
Bandage our own hearts with puddy & glue.
Sometimes we hide, we cry.
We run, we scream...we yell and laugh.
Sometimes we try so hard we forget how to live.
Don't
Don't let those sometimes tarnish your precious heart.
To live is to feel, to see, to believe.
To have the courage to change colours without prejudice.
To grow into the most amazing tree full of strength.
Full of wizdom, with branches that streach across this vast sky...
supporting all life that takes refudge in your limbs.
Oh sometimes we have a such a tendency don't we?

This is my thought for the day.
I live in the beautiful city of New Orleans.
I love my city. I love the food, the rich history, the culture, the music and soul of this place.
I cry inside knowing what a change it has gone through.
I hate the fact that the media only seems to announce all the violence taking place here.
Yes we have some bad apples in the bunch. Some really bad ones rotten to the core.
But we have an awful lot of folks with more soul, more compassion, more heart and intelligence then what we are given credit for.
I live in the quarter now. I use to live in the 9th ward.
I do so miss my neighborhood. I miss my home there. The peace,
my friends, my neighbors. My community.
No longer is it there.
Folks who don't live here don't understand. Folks who have not been through this have no idea as to what we "yat's " feel. What we the people of New Orleans feel, or anyone who has been through such a disaster.
Not all of us are asking for a hand out.
Not all of us are drug addict derelict...illiterate thieving heathens.
Most can not help the situation they have been born into or happen to have found themselves living.
For we all know that change is not the easiest thing of all to accept. We know our mistakes, we know our saddness, our weak points etc so please give us a break.
We do still need help.
We need doctors down here! we need hospitals that are equipted to handle the crises that we now face.
We need Teachers who have the compassion and patients to teach and understand...to listen.
We need mental health care facilities. There are too many of my nawlin' s folks committing suicide since the storm. Too many tears and questions as to why.
I'm tired of all of this attention on violence.
I do feel like I am living in a third world country. New Orleans , La....La...one of the poorest states in the union.
A place were all the tourists come to yell, scream and party every year during mardi-gras.
Not once do half of them think of a damn thing when they pull their pants down and shit and piss on someone's steps. Yep I have seen it happen.
They talk at ya and not too ya. What gives man.
They will bitch about the garbage and yet through their garbage onto the streets with the rest.
Funny, I have never in my life seen a local litter here. It is always the outsiders who come to visit.
We are going through so much here we don't need the ruddness, we need the compassion.
The help.
We need a damn Mayor who cares about his folks, not someone who has taken the job for something to do to say he has a title.
We need a government to listen to us all.
Cause man, we have faith...we have soul....we have heart. We have the music inside.
WE make the best gumbo in town.
Yet we are lost.
I do so miss my nawlin's old soul.
I miss the folks who can't come home becasue they have no home to come home too.
I hurt for the one's who are now living on Cannal street in boxes who once had a home.
Ya folks..." come on home, we are ready for you" .
Damn Mayor!
We need affordable housing.
What I don't understand is why in the world did he not put a cap on the rent's ? on the utilities?
nawwww man let's just concentrate on getting our resturants open...getting the tourists coming back.
No wonder we have a problem with violence.
Did ya know that we may not have running water to any of the homes in New Orleans ?
No running water to drink, to cook to flush your damn toilet or take a bath with ?
I bet that hasn't made it out there. Nope just the violence.
FEMA said they would help fix all the water leaks and water pumps....well now they have decided it is a "pre" Katrina problem and not theirs to help with leaving this city in for more problems.
Folks have said why didn't you leave to all of those stranded.
What they don't know or realize is that 90% of 'nawlin's folks did not own a car or drive.
Why? we can walk everywhere that's why. The taxes on owning a car in this city is murder man.
So what were they to do? The pay scale for the workers of New Orleans is a disgrace as well leaving most people having to work two and three jobs just to get by and it has been that way.
But no...let's talk about the violence.
The education system is broke...but let's talk about the violence.
The cost of living has gone up, .... once again talk about violence.
We have kids living here without gaurdianship or someone to watch over them as they try to be the adult....who feeds them? clothes them? and you wonder why people are being mugged and robbed.
We have been forgotten.
The people have been pushed into a corner and all that you hear and see is violence.
A third world country.
My New Orleans.
My Home.
My people.
My Children.
My heart.
My soul.
How I love my city. May god bless us all and may you all please have some compassion for us and realize that we are good. That we do care. That some can not help the circumstances they are in, that our mayor sucks and hell with the lack of good education how the hell do these folks know any better.
All I know is this is my home. I love my home for better or worst.
I miss the soul and wish all my neighbors would come back. Some unfortunatly will never.
They were not so lucky.
God help my Creol nation. Bring us back home.
Heart and soul.
Don't let tolerence take over to create more ignorence and cause us to have such tendencies to overlook all that needs tending too.