NOLA Tripping…Louisiana Living

So it seems I am back were I started.  I came from poverty in central Louisiana. After years of education and hard work, I overcame and freed myself only to willingly return thinking I saw the value in it.  All I found was the truth of my culture slapping me in the face, knocking out my sense of self and holding me under until all I could do was struggle for freedom once again.  So let me tell you a little about the Louisiana I know.  This tale is through the eyes of a lower economic white girl just trying to figure out why things are. Everyone has their own lens of the world.  This is mine.  To each his own.  

The culture of Louisiana appears to be one of lassiez faire.  We are a people who enjoy life the way it is: slower, simpler, and easy-going.  We have a community that celebrates itself.  You can often find us outside, hanging about our porches and our neighborhoods, speaking to all that pass.  We end sentences in prepositions (a habit I still have trouble breaking) and we have easy going colloquialisms such as ‘yea you right’ and ‘bee’s knees’.  We throw a party and have parades for everything. Although we still have a strong racial divide, it is not one that’s based on economic levels as other southern states tend to be. Here, we are all poor.  We all struggle on a daily bases to just make ends meet.  And when we do, of course we celebrate!  

Herein lies our flaw. When we accept things as they are, when we are content with our lot in life, we stop fighting.  We are poverty then.  We are the ones that must work hard for a few dollars at a job that means nothing other than a way to feed our families.  When someone succeeds in making it another week without having the lights turned off, we find that a success.  To feed and love your family is our ultimate goal.  I don’t know if it’s years of christian indoctrination pacifying us into it’s hierarchical view of humanity or if it’s our history of otherness, of being a unique blend of settlers delegated by the aristocrats as those on the level of slaves. It could be because of our long history of isolation from the rest of the United States due to it’s proximity to the largest port in the Western Hemisphere (things come to us, why go to them?)  It could just simply be the fact that the weather controls our culture and we have no control over it, thus no control over our lives.  I am more than positive that all of these things and more I have yet to notice due to my own socialization are the reasons of our compliance with the status quo. Whatever the reason, we accept this life as our own. 

So we hang around outside because we have nothing else to do after work and well, it is just too hot to stay in doors. We celebrate everything because that is our reward for making it another day. We take things easy because if we were to start worrying about everything wrong or hard about life, we would not be able to sleep at night.  Do not be fooled into thinking we have something figured out about how to live life simply.  We were just raised to believe that this is what it is to live life here and there is no point in fighting it.  

I love my state and my culture.  We are unique.  We love each other and will always be there for anyone who needs us. We do not have the security of a government like most.  Our is crocked so we take care of each other.  We are a strong people that can survive under the worst of conditions.  We survive everyday.  I come from this strength and love.  I just wish we would fight. Let’s fight Louisiana.  We deserve the best!  We deserve to be happy, doing the things we love.  We should not have to work so hard to be secure.  There are things out there that we can do that make us happy and pay us.  I promise.  It’s out there. Things do not have to be this way.  We can have everything.  We just have to want it.

I have nothing left to loose but myself…

and I am not so sure I wanna hold onto her anymore anyways…

waldosia

dictionaryofobscuresorrows:

n. [Brit. wallesia] a condition characterized by scanning faces in a crowd looking for a specific person who would have no reason to be there, which is your brain’s way of checking to see whether they’re still in your life, subconsciously patting its emotional pockets before it leaves for the day.