From Mute to Screaming Out Loud

Recently, I found out a very special person that we met in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans had passed away due to the coronavirus. Ronald Lewis was a beaming light for his Lower Ninth Ward community and will be missed by so many. The knowledge of his home going led me into a contemplation of how similar and yet how distinctly different this current unfolding pandemic is compared to Katrina.

I recently came upon my project, Mute, from late 2005. I photographed these mangled billboards on our return to New Orleans for the very first time after six weeks in exile. We had not been able to return due to the second hurricane, Rita, and the civil unrest that occurred directly after the storm. 

When approaching the exits for the various casinos that line the Mississippi coastline on I-10, one was normally met with numerous billboards advertising attractions one after another, enfilade, for miles. As we approached Louisiana, the billboards were the first indication of major damage from the storm. It was hard to believe that the wind had such power. Each skeletal and twisted body expressed its singular experience with the unbelievable forces of nature. I imagined a clashing of egos: “I am steel!” and the retort “I am wind!”. 

The destruction of the billboards became an emblem of the fragility of our communications systems which, for most, became a huge difficulty in post-Katrina reality. For months, we did not know where our closest and dearest friends went. It was all very chaotic; decisions were made hastily before evacuation. Our cell phones did not work because all of the towers were destroyed. Email servers could not complete their mission as they, too, had been made inert. We had no way of communicating with those we needed most: our friends and families that were in the same boat: no way to find one another, no way to return home, no way to comfort one another, and no end in sight. We were hyper-mobile and were moving all over the country yet it was like we were in a vacuum.

The shelter-in-place predicament we all find ourselves in now is a new flavor of inertia. We are hyper-connected through social media, video conferencing, email and phone calls. The uncertainty is similar to Katrina yet it is rarified through the collective cries to become a very loud scream. Our mobility has been truncated severely which yields its own type of vacuum. There is a danger of becoming overly identified with our things and our places. 

In Katrina, it was as if we were turned inside-out. In the coronavirus pandemic it is as if we have been turned outside-in. I write this because I am trying to understand how lessons learned from the experience of Katrina can be helpful towards the managing of the difficulties of the pandemic.  

The take-away for me is that connections are the most important support that we have. Thankfully, we have the ability to communicate and unfortunately the vulnerability is in our own body-system. Because of the hyper-ability to communicate, being strategic, flexible and open to the fact of impermanence will help to dispel any difficulties that arise from rigid persepectives in communication that fight the flux of change. Letting the process flow so that new relationships and juxtapositions can evolve naturally will create a sense of ease. And because of the endless amount of information available, being mindful and limiting to just the information that is necessary to well-being and the well-being of others will be helpful rather than hurtful. 

Meeting Ronald Lewis was one of the precious moments resulting from Katrina. It never would have happened if we had not remained elastic in what we thought was possible. New relationships developed as a result of the challenges and lots of really good and beautiful things arose. The same thing will happen as this event unfolds even amidst the seeming chaos now.