23 April 2006 - Gospel Sunday

Most of us rose early today to prepare to go to Mass. We piled into the bus and vans and cars after breakfast and made our way to the St. Rose de Lima Church. The church still has boarded up windows out front, and a beautiful cemetery next door with ornate monuments, mausoleums and a strong Italian presence. We were directed to the choir loft seating area so we had a great view of the whole church and choir area. They were doing the Rosary when we arrived, so we listened to the quiet litany as the church filled with people. For some of us this was a first, for others a return to a childhood constant. Although the ritual was familiar to only a few of us we loved the rocking choir and could feel the comfort of community the church provides to its members and especially the closeness that they feel from pulling together since the storm. In fact, they felt like us. At one point in the service, everyone in the church held hands so my lasting image is of the full church with rows and rows of linked hands. At the end of the service Joannie presented the priest with baby quilts from the Community Quilts Project.

Then it was home to camp for our closing circle and preparation for the trip into New Orleans for our last show. We clustered the chairs and benches in the small place of shade and sat close together for the Closing Circle. In hours punctuated by tears, wonder and expressions of delight and passion about our experiences together, we took our time going person to person until we all had spoken, unified in our feelings about the significance of our work here. We heard some great stories about the response to our show yesterday - including one tale of an artist, who hadn't painted since the hurricane, returning home from our show and picking up her brushes again. We heard about creative release, the power of deliberate joyfulness and the sharing of laughter. The east coast contingent of our group was full of ideas for more work in their part of the country, and everyone was full of energy in support of experiencing more weeks like the one we've just had.

Tiberio had lunch ready to go and we had a brief time to eat before loading back into the vehicles for the trip to New Orleans, to the Howlin' Wolf Club near the French Quarter. Tonight's show was set up as a show for the patients, staff and families involved with local dialysis centers as well as being open to the general public. The club donated the space but we are providing chairs, so Michael and Oliver, our incredible Truck and Reality Crew, have arranged the borrowing of chairs from Common Ground and Emergency Communities. I rode in the bus with Michelle and her computer so we could view some of the thousands of photos she has taken in order to pick a few to send out for use on our web site, and for the Oregon Country Fair. Traffic was terrible as we came into town and we had difficulty navigating our way to the club, but eventually got there - and squeezed the bus into a parking place across the street from the club. It was now strange to walk into a facility that was meant to be a performance space.

Our original plan was for another parade in the French Quarter with people passing out fliers to advertise the show, but, as things turned out, the club was not easy walking distance to the Quarter and our time was very limited. We eventually put a few people into vans (drums, 2 saxophones, trumpet, trombone and tuba, as well as some gaily dressed flier-girls) and tried to do a fast strike through the Quarter. The traffic was intense and the parking impossible, so we were forced to jump out of the cars and send the drivers around the block to pick us up later. We marched off, and got a great response to our small, somewhat strange band. Andrine and Oliver were our drivers and were immediately separated in the traffic crush. We marched along playing, watching the road and the time, waiting for them to catch up with us again. Oliver found us first at 5:50 (the show was to start at 6,) but there wasn't room for everyone plus the tuba so we reluctantly left David behind after contacting Andrine by cell phone to try to get him linked up with his ride back. We were comically concerned about arriving back at the club, having lost our tuba player with the show scheduled to start right then.

Only a few patrons had turned up, so show-time was delayed to allow for a few more people to accumulate. We never had to confess that David had been left behind. This turned out to be a big show for a small crowd. While the band was waiting outside for the signal to parade in to start the show, two couples came by on the sidewalk on their way to somewhere else. We blocked their way and talked fast and loud about the great show and eventually managed to shunt them off the sidewalk into the club, significantly increasing our audience.

I'm proud to say we gave it our all for those who were there and for ourselves. It remained strange to be in an actual performing venue. After the show we took some group photos, and heard stories from the dialysis folks about the storm times and how they had to do whatever they could with extremely limited resources to keep the kidney patients alive until full services became a reality again.

The truck was brought around and the chairs were loaded back up along with people's stuff and instruments. Dinner then had to be arranged. Most of the group went out for pizza, while some smaller groups went for one last walk around the French Quarter in search of food. We went by Preservation Hall (still shuttered from the storm, but due to reopen this week for Jazz Fest), and walked down Bourbon Street. It was hard to find a restaurant that was still open at 10 P.M. as places are still in recovery-mode and are just now starting to get back to normal after the long months since Katrina. We succeeded in scoring etouffee, crawfish pie, file gumbo, red beans and rice, and jambalaya, all the great foods from song and story. We then made our way back to camp for the last night in our ball-field home.

As people returned, we stood under the velvet sky and looked at the stars and the bright glow of Jupiter and talked, reluctant to go to bed and have the adventure be at its end. Joan concocted a vaudevillian's blessing, "May your shtik always fit your venue" and Robin was all excited to brush her teeth until she realized with great disappointment that she had left her toothbrush on the truck. (Depending on where her bag was in our great mounds of stuff, the toothbrush might as well have been on Jupiter.)