KID smART

Today I will begin with where we ended. Sonali showed a brief powerpoint on the meaning of stories. Stories as mirrors; as reflections of our lives and the way our lives intersect. A mirror is not there to relay the problems or imperfections, but it is there to see uniqueness, patterns, history. The metaphor in these slides was that our stories weave us, reaffirm our connections to one another, and expose the similarities in our struggles and strengths. Today was about stories and relationships. It really is an incredible thing when you get a group of creative minds to answer “What brought you here?” The answers were varied, but there were continuities. The answers included emotions, practicalities, longings, disappointments, hopes, and perhaps most frequently, community.

We wanted to focus on New Orleans, on neighborhoods, on memories, stories, relationships, what bonds us, what we miss, what we dream of. Sonali started off the session with describing what happens after a breakdown. Whatever the breakdown might be, we all experience a very similar kind of pain and anguish, and also a strong yearning to heal and find belonging and meaning. This is a theme most of us have crossed paths with, whether we’re conscious of it or not. We question our paths, our histories, our futures, our reactions, and our sense of security and belonging in a fast-paced world with unexpected events. In order to practice stretching time and reflection, we were asked to tell stories. As we shared our stories of how we got to the workshop and what drove us to it, we started to feel a calmness and a focus; a new energy. We each placed a stone of some sort-most were these beautiful yellow, green or orange stones, like the colors of lemons and the Mediterranean Sea-to the center of the table, usually after holding it during the time we spoke. The rocks at the center of the table represented the completion of the story circle. We all contributed. Some felt a sincere energy shift, as we were all coming from a place of wanting to engage, explore, and build together as a community with shared experiences working with youth, creativity, community development, and in a post-Katrina environment. To make progress, we agreed that we had to begin with ourselves. To impact youth in the positive ways that we want to, we must explore what they explore.

So, as our group of twelve proceeded to communicate and find connections among our stories, we understood more about what binds us, what weaves our stories, and how we must also communicate with youth with the same kinds of openness and trust that, despite age and background, we all have something to offer one another, we all have stories, and we all yearn to connect and interact. And so, we literally wove our stories. With a ball of yarn, thrown from person to person, each person wrapping a section around their finger-and some people taking the time to further creatively twist and tangle-we created a web. To talk is to heal, and healing leads to rebuilding strength and moving forward. So we weave to reweave; we hear our stories, what and whom we love, miss, and long for, and we create a larger framework of our connected stories that stand as our building blocks. We mounted our web of yellow yarn on the wall to observe for the rest of the workshop. I felt so engaged during this exercise that asked us to reminisce the places or people that impacted, or stood out, in our community pre-Katrina. As someone who grew up coming to New Orleans, but only moved here after the storm, I longed to be on the porch Elise spoke of, or the auto shop Asante spoke of, or the drumming classes Andrew spoke of, or the church Ayo spoke of… When you hear these stories, they are told with such detail, recall… But then the next story told was of what changed. The church pews weren’t there, the crazy guy on his bike wasn’t riding down that street anymore, the tops of the houses in the lower 9 can’t be seen from the bridge anymore, and the UPS man actually asked for a signature!! Wherever we are coming from, and whatever lives we have lived, we are spending these days telling our stories, exploring our common ground and collective journeys, and with lots of passion, sadness, hope and humor, we’re trying to figure out how the heck we got here and where we’re going….