A family tries to recover belongings from their home in Central, La., a suburb of Baton Rouge. Photo: David Grunfeld, AP Photo
Unprecedented and unexpected, the storm came like a hurricane with neither wind nor a name, but a relentless, record-breaking rain that over the course of four days wreaked havoc in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. According to Scientific American, this is a “once-in-a-1,000-year event” that has killed 11 people and displaced tens of thousands. The Governor’s office reports that 40,000 homes are damaged and at least 10,000 people are living in shelters. Over 30,000 people have been rescued, but they cannot be certain how many people are still stranded, waiting to be rescued.
We watch from afar, horrified and hoping we can do something with our prayers and donations of blood and money. We stop to count our blessings that we are safe. We find our better selves as Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy explained in her response to the earthquake in Haiti, that poetry is as powerful as prayer, that its language is where we find our humanity:
Poetry is the music of being human. We turn to poetry at intense moments in our lives ~ when we lose people, or are bereaved, we look for a piece of music or a poem to read at the funeral, or when we fall in love we turn to poetry, or when children are born. And I think that can happen at moments of public grief too, as well as personal. It is so close to prayer, it is the most intense use of language that there is. It is the perfect art form for public or private grief.
Far from Haiti, Sondra Honora lost her home in the Louisiana flood, the home of her dreams and for which she saved for years. She started out dependent on government subsidies and used Section 8 vouchers to live in apartments and rentals, until in 2012 she could finally afford her own garden home with three bedrooms and a fireplace – her American dream off Old Hammond Highway. Getting the keys to that house was the best day of her life, and now it is gone.
Honore and her daughter, Ciera, are bus drivers for East Baton Rouge Parish. They have no flood insurance, no home, and no livelihood now that the buses are flooded as well. A poem, a prayer for her – forever – from poet Sara Cress:
HOME SWEET HOME
I saved.
Not a penny spent
on frivolous things,
I forgot the taste of candy.
And when I walked in that front door I said, “finally!”
That floor under my bare feet was sweeter
than ten years of spun sugar.
Funny how it dissolves
like that
like one second
atoms switch around
and you fall right through.
They’re so nice here,
we don’t hear the rain,
they’re bringing us fruit,
and I laugh with the baby so I don’t cry.
But it isn’t my home,
now slowly melting down
to sweeten the sea.
I love a list. It has a beginning and an ending. It’s a certainty. A sure thing. Naturally, then, I love Rob Gordon, a kindred spirit erstwhile hapless record shop owner in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. A compulsive maker of lists, his “top fives” run the gamut of pop culture, eclectic compilations that include his top five episodes of Cheers, top five Elvis Costello songs, and the top five “women who don’t live on his street but would be very welcome.” Like Hornby’s character, I can produce all kinds of top-five lists . . . album covers, fonts, pet peeves, life lessons, things not to say to a teenage daughter, mix tapes (now playlists) for any occasion, places to see and avoid in Phoenix, dive bars, concert venues, ways to get my own way, pizza toppings, authentic “Irish” bars in Phoenix (there might not be five), hairdressers, Tom Petty concerts, Van Morrison songs, things Nora Ephron said about what not to wear, lipstick shades, road-trips, playlists for road trips, white lies, cocktails involving gin, dramatic entrances, exit strategies, famous people who could play me in a movie, Heaney poems, laughs, crying sessions, and ways to let someone down easy (mostly myself).
It turns out there are psychological reasons for this love of lists. For instance, there’s the guess-work, the wondering if what I think will be on the list will be there when I click on it, confirming that I was right about something. Apparently, a correct prediction causes the brain to send an extra little shot of dopamine, and that boost makes for a better day. So today is a great day. I clicked on the link, and there it is – this blog has made it to the long-list of the 2015 Blog Awards Ireland competition in the Irish Diaspora category. It is a lovely thing to know that there are readers for whom this corner of the blogosphere represents the Irish abroad, and the recognition delights me as does being included on a list with others who have lifted me up and set me down again in this very space.
And, on the top-five list of people who would be happiest about this? Other than myself – my mother, my father, my daughter, my best friend, and my Ken. This is the second time the blog has made it this far without him here to celebrate with me. He knew better than anyone that after the bloody cancer altered our life together; it altered me. He understood that when I retreated online to this timeless space, that it was to reconnect with the girl I used to be and with the country I left behind. The blogging often excluded him as I spent so much time in my own head, but he nonetheless carried endless cups of coffee on Sunday mornings and on week-day evenings, he’d leave a glass of Old Vine Zinfandel on my desk, just to get the juices flowing.
Sometimes he’d get misty eyed, but mostly he would find something to laugh about and tell me to keep on keeping on. So being on this list is as much for him as it is for me.
Thank you.
Blog Awards Ireland will announce the shortlist on September 2nd and it will open to a Public Vote on September 7th. So G’wan . . . vote for us, will ya?
I always thought Robert Frost was very sensible to ask so plainly in a poem we had to memorize for school, why it is that good fences make good neighbors:
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.
If walls could talk, what stories would they tell? I never pondered this more than in 1978 when I traveled with the North East Ulster Schools Symphony Orchestra to Germany for our annual summer trip. Ordinarily, we spent a week in Ballycastle, County Antrim, that culminated with a concert for our parents, but this July would be my first away from Northern Ireland, from one bitterly divided place to another, the latter split in two by the Berlin Wall.
I knew only a little about Nikita Khruschev’s wall. I knew it had been built two years before I was born. As I grew up, I came to understand it as a symbol for the “Iron Curtain” that had divided Eastern and Western Europe since 1945. And then in the summer of 1978, I was standing in front of that symbol, its graffitied messages preaching to the choir.
I remember Stephen, one of the lads in the woodwind section, urinated on the Berlin wall, offending, as he did, some passersby who perhaps did not understand that the wall was infinitely more offensive with its barbed wire and watchtowers and its armed guards with their shoot-to-kill orders. In retrospect, I wish there had been more like him, outraged and outspoken.
We were curious and a little scared, I suspect, when we took a trip beyond the curtain and into East Berlin. We were given strict instructions not to photograph any bridges or buildings, and a young tour-guide was assigned to us. Although we were all from Northern Ireland – except the conductor and his son, who were English – most of the Catholics among us had Irish passports whereas the Protestants carried the British counterpart. This caused some delay and confusion at Checkpoint Charlie where I acquired the first stamp in my very first passport, documenting forever the borders that bear down on us, closing in on us, constricting rather than expanding our vision of what our world could be like . . .
On the other side, I remember staring out the window of an old bus at an austere city, its sad grayness a stark contrast to the bright and bustling Kurfürstendamm Avenue – Ku’damm – on the West side, where fancy restaurants, bijou boutiques, and world-class museums made it too easy to be oblivious to the wanting on the other side of that wall. Although we knew her for only the shortest time, I remember crying for the young woman who had served as our tour guide, understanding in full that she would not be able to join us in West Berlin, to hear us perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor for a radio program. I don’t suppose a group of youngsters from Northern Ireland schools made much of an impact in 1978, but a decade later, Bruce Springsteenpaid a zAvisit to East Berlin, telling a crowd that had never experienced anything quite like him – a wrecking balleven then, that he was there to rage against the injustices built up in that wall:
I’m not here for or against any government. I’ve come to play rock ’n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.
I like to think it was The Boss rather than Ronald Reagan who urged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that walland that somewhere in that crowd, was the teenage bassoonist who had relieved himself against the Berlin Wall ten years earlier.
Watching on television when the wall came down was one of the greatest events of my personal history. I remember hoping that our young tour-guide had been reunited with family and friends in the West. Photographer Kai Wiedenhöfer documented it, believing that the fall of the Berlin Wall would end forever the notion that a wall is the answer to some of the most complex issues of our time. But from 1989 until 2013, he photographed what he described as a “renaissance of walls,” that includes the Peace Lines in my beloved Belfast, Northern Ireland, the West Bank fence that separates Israel and Palestine, the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, and the border between Mexico and the United States.
In fact, since the Berlin Wall came down, 28 new border walls have gone up all around the world. Ironically, these walls that are going up at such an alarming rate reflect not totalitarian regimes intent on keeping their people form seeking freedom and opportunities beyond their borders; rather, democracies such as these very United States, intent on keeping such people out.
From July until November, 2013, Wiedenhöfer’s Wall on Wall exhibition featured 36 giant panoramas of modern man-made barriers glued on the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall. Perhaps the installation helped spark a conversation about why so many of the walls between us today are taller, longer, and stronger than any we could have imagined on that jubilant November day in 1989 when echoes of Kennedy’s visit to Berlin in 1963 rang out: “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Perhaps it played a part in the story I saw splashed across the front page of the Belfast Telegraph this weekend, that the walls have been coming down, thanks to negotiations that did not make the front pages. In the past two years, six of the walls have been removed, and more are slated to come down.
Peace comes dropping slow.
The walls of the “Peace Line” started going up in 1969, intended to keep apart Belfast’s two divided communities. While these walls were erected only as a temporary measure, many have been standing for over four decades. That’s the thing about a wall – once it goes up, it seems to take a very long time to come down. It becomes a part of our external and internal geography, at once keeping us apart and a part.
I always thought Robert Frost was right to ask so plainly in a poem we had to memorize for school, why it was that good fences make good neighbors:
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.
And, if a wall could talk, what stories would it tell? I suppose the first time I pondered this question was when I traveled with the North East Ulster Schools Symphony Orchestra to Germany for our annual summer trip. Ordinarily, it was two weeks in Ballycastle with a concert for our parents on the final night, but this summer would be my first away from Northern Ireland, from one bitterly divided place to yet another, the latter split in two by the Berlin Wall. It was 1978. I was only fifteen years old and knew only a little about the wall that had been erected under the direction of Nikita Khruschev two years before I was born. By the time I was old enough to understand it, the wall had become the definitive symbol of the “Iron Curtain” that had divided Eastern and Western Europe since 1945.
I remember the teenage bassoon player who urinated on the Berlin wall, offending, as he did, some passersby who didn’t understand that the wall was infinitely more offensive with its barbed wire and watchtowers and armed guards with shoot-to-kill orders. In retrospect, I wish more of us had been like him, outraged and outspoken, but we were curious and circumspect. We were a little afraid, when we took a trip beyond the curtain and into East Berlin, where the young tour-guide assigned to us instructed us not to photograph bridges or buildings.
Although we were all from Northern Ireland – except the orchestra conductor, who was English – most of the Catholic kids among us had Irish passports whereas the Protestants carried British papers. This caused some delay and confusion at the border where I was delighted to acquire the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) stamp, the first in my first passport marking forever the borders that bear down on us, closing in on us, constricting rather than expanding our vision of what our world could be like . . .
Once on the other side, my face pressed against the window of an old bus, I was sad. The sad grayness of the austere city on the other side of the glass, a stark contrast to the bright and bustling Kurfürstendamm Avenue on the West Side – Ku’damm – where fancy restaurants, bijou boutiques, and world-class museums made it too easy to be oblivious to the wanting on the other side of that wall. Although we knew her for only the shortest time, I remember feeling sad for the young woman who had served as our tour guide. She would not – could not – join us in West Berlin to hear us perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor for a radio program.
A group of youngsters from Northern Ireland schools made little impact in 1978, but it was different for the man who would visit East Berlin a decade later – Bruce Springsteen. He told the crowd that had never experienced anything quite like him – a wrecking balleven then, that he was there and on their side, raging against the injustices built up in that wall:
I’m not here for or against any government. I’ve come to play rock ’n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.
A fan of The Boss, I like to think it was he rather than Ronald Reagan who urged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that walland that somewhere in that swelling crowd, was the teenage bassoonist who had relieved himself against the Berlin Wall a decade before.
Watching on television when the wall came down was a seminal moment in my personal history. I recall wondering about our young tour-guide and if she had been reunited with family and friends in the West.
Photographer, Kai Wiedenhöfer, documented the occasion, believing that the fall of the Berlin Wall would end forever the notion that a wall is the answer to some of the most complex issues of our time. But his subsequent work reflects a “renaissance of walls,” that includes the Peace Lines in my beloved Belfast, Northern Ireland, the West Bank fence that separates Israel and Palestine, the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, and the border between Mexico and the United States.
Since the Berlin Wall came down, 28 new border walls have gone up all around the world. Ironically, these walls that are going up at such an alarming rate reflect not totalitarian regimes intent on keeping their people form seeking freedom and opportunities beyond their borders; rather, democracies such as these very United States, intent on keeping such people out.Wiedenhöfer’s Wall on Wall exhibition features 36 giant panoramas of modern man-made barriers glued on the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall. He hopes the installation will spark a conversation about why the walls between us today are taller, longer, and stronger than any we could have imagined on that jubilant November day in 1989 when echoes of Kennedy’s visit to Berlin in 1963 rang in our ears: “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Harrowing then to consider the Corker-Hoeven provision in the United States Senate Immigration Bill which provides the following measures, to the tune of $46 billion over the next decade, to bolster border enforcement:
doubling the number of Border Patrol agents stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border, to at least 38,405
erecting 700 miles of steel fence along the border
putting in place military grade surveillance equipment – the kind of thing already tested in Iraq and Afghanistan: surveillance towers, camera systems, ground sensors, radiation detectors, mobile surveillance systems, drones, helicopters, airborne radar systems, planes and ships.
Why? Why? “To achieve 100 percent surveillance of the border with Mexico and ensure that 90 percent of would-be crossers are caught or turned back.” What are the consequences? Since 1994, when the United States began beefing up border-enforcement, the Arizona Recovered Human Remains Project reports that the remains of more than 6,000 people have been recovered on the United States-Mexico border. The Senate Bill’s “border surge” guarantees the loss of life to continue. Think about those deported individuals who have lives here in America; wouldn’t they risk everything to return to their families? Wouldn’t you? Often, they must choose treacherous crossing routes to elude border patrol agents and hike high in the mountains or deep into desolate desert scrub where the temperatures soar above 120 degrees. Combined with lethal heat, the uncompromising desert terrain causes the most common form of death – dehydration. No More Deaths – No Más Muertes works tirelessly to bring an end to this humanitarian crisis, providing assistance to migrants, faithfully leaving water and food in remote and deadly parts of the Sonoran desert. The mission of the organization is noble and humane, reminding me again that the very best of humanity coexists with the very worst.
“ No Más Muertes aims to end death and suffering on the U.S./Mexico border through civil initiative: the conviction that people of conscience must work openly and in community to uphold fundamental human rights. Our work embraces the Faith-Based Principles for Immigration Reform and focuses on the following themes:
• Direct aid that extends the right to provide humanitarian assistance
• Witnessing and responding
• Consciousness raising
• Global movement building
• Encouraging humane immigration policy.”
But we are so very far away from humane immigration policy aren’t we? When there are those who are so enraged by the kindness in leaving water jugs for desperate, parched travelers, that they take it upon themselves to slash open those water containers and allow the water to pour out on the parched desert. It takes my breath away to consider the extent of the inhumanity. Yet, we continue to invest in more walls, to barricade ourselves in and others out.
I will never understand.
Immigration policy should be generous; it should be fair; it should be flexible. With such a policy we can turn to the world, and to our own past, with clean hands and a clear conscience.
On the other side, I remember staring out the window of an old bus at an austere city, its sad grayness a stark contrast to the bright and bustling Kurfürstendamm Avenue – 
