Initially I was going to put a disclaimer on this. However, it's my blog and I'm not going to. What I am going to do is warn you that this entry will be long, it will contain things not everyone will agree with. I will say that you should read it. You might learn some things. I sure did.
If you know anything about the entertainment industry in CA, it is basically hemorrhaging business to other states. Despite assurances that I'd always find work in my occupation, I've had troubles finding employment. In October I was offered a job on a movie and in less than 24 hours I had packed up and left my life in SoCal and was in Greenwood, MS.
Perhaps you've never heard of Greenwood, MS. Don't worry, most people haven't. It's about 90 minutes outside of Jackson, MS. The Help was filmed there. Check out this link for a little more about it.
I was excited. Not only was this the first Distant Feature I was working on, it had some pretty well known actors in it. As I talked with the agent from the rental car agency, I spoke animatedly about my time living in KY and how I thought it would be much like that. He quickly advised me it probably would NOT be like that. He told me I'd be driving through one of the poorest parts of the nation. How I should NOT stop my car. How I should remember I was in the South now. Um ok? (This is 2014 isn't it?)
This is a hard blog to write. I expected to be away from home for maybe 6 weeks. I've been away for two and a half months. I have spent the past several years looking at and finding the positives in situations. I'm pretty broken right now. Honestly, I don't think I'm even focused enough to be writing this, but with events happening as they are, I couldn't in good conscience not put it out there. So what to do? Two writing styles? Two blog entries? Those of you who know me will know how to narrate this. Those of you who stumble across this I guess I'll seem pretty lost and all over the place. Maybe that is just the way to be, as that is exactly how I've come through it all. Lost, found and all over the place.
Goofing around. Who doesn't love frog jammies with a frog on the drop butt?!
Soft Shell Crab Mmmm!
I like to call this my librarian look
Mexican food comes with homemade kettle chips. =/
The most awesome Production Clerk EVER!
Jenny, M.E., myself and Adrianne and the wrap party
Oh ya know, just hanging with Woody
Walking through set
This is obvious
KERMIE!!!
Have you guys ever picked actual cotton?
It is amazingly soft!
I had all kinds of adventures. As I said, I met AMAZING people. A single mom, raising two girls, working full time, while going to school. A doctor mourning the loss of a parent while going through a divorce. A wife navigating a long distance purchase of a home. And then the flip side of that...silly, naive girls who made asinine comments like "People from Mississippi can't read." Are you kidding me?!
For the first time in my life I was in a situation where I was the minority. It was humbling. It made me think, it made me check myself, it made me open my damned eyes. As I stated before, I try to look at and bring the positive to life, but I REALLY tried to be appreciative to what I had and who I was when in MS. It was AWAKENING. I have A LOT, and THANK YOU for that.
One of the girls I befriended informed me that a restaurant I'd dined in with a few other girls was known for being racist. I was appalled. Not only that I hadn't known, but that in this day and age that would still be happening. I was mad as hell that I'd dined there too, because if I'd known, they sure as hell wouldn't have gotten my patronage. She told me about a documentary on Netflix, Bookers Place which had some of it's history. I made a point to watch it. When I told her a few days later that I had, she said that out of all the people she'd told in the office, I was the only one who had made the effort to watch. That made me both sad and mad. Why isn't this important to anyone else?! For the record they mention that Booker's Place still stands vacant in Greenwood.
Unbeknownst to me, Halloween weekend would be my last with this group. We'd decided to make a trip to New Orleans, LA for a girls weekend.
Festive right?
When your boss lets the whole office leave, except for you.
You finally arrive in NOLA at 11:30pm on Halloween. At 2:30am you find the infamous Peanut Butter Burger your friend has been raving about. It is repulsive.
Turtle Soup at Commanders Palace.
Bread Pudding Soufle
Cafe du Monde Menu
Beignets and Cafe au Lait
Football Jesus as I've found it's fondly called
Seriously guys, Turtle Soup. YOU MUST TRY IT!
Guess who's here
Dream come true!
The awesomeness runs in the family
This girls is AWESOME!
When I got back to MS, I got a call from a friend of Jenny's we'd met with in New Orleans. She needed a Payroll Accountant. The next weekend I was on my way to a new project that would take me through Christmas Eve. A whole extra month and a half away from home. B and the kids were amazingly gracious as was the project I was leaving who agreed to let me wrap out remotely for the last two weeks. Sure there were some bumps in the road, but man did I miss those guys.
NOLA brought it's own set of challenges. New people, new studio, new environment. I was able to fly home for a few days which was amazing, but also very hard. I missed everyone like crazy. I got sick. Doctors advised me not to work which I disregarded and worked anyways. (When only one person does the job, what choice do you have?)
I offered B the option of presents or a trip to New Orleans as a Christmas present. He opted for the trip. Sadly, I wasn't able to do half of what I would have liked to do, but he was a sport and said he had a great time. (Or at least he faked it well.) We did a little exploring, a lot of eating. Dooky Chase, Commanders Palace, Waffle House. ;) I don't know what exactly moved me to do it, but I suddenly decided to explore the lower ninth ward.
I'm going to be honest. I didn't pay attention nine years ago until after Katrina hit. Until the city had flooded and the damage had been done. Then I did. I remember watching and thinking "Why isn't anyone doing anything? Why aren't they helping those people?!" I remember when I visited New Orleans during Halloween weekend we had driven over something that I had seen on some news report where people had been waiting to be rescued and I'd gotten shivers. I remember flashing back to watching that and wondering why people had been stranded and no one had helped and why where there people just stranded there where people were not supposed to be and holy shit I'd just driven over that same spot. Driving into the lower ninth ward, I knew a lot of it has been razed. I knew that a lot has been rebuilt. A lot of it is just vacant open lots. What you don't know is that some buildings are still there. Like raw, open wounds that remind you of what happened. I found that very, very important and especially moving. So moving I started bawling. Like I pulled the car over and cried.
Now here's where I hope I don't lose a lot of you. For a long time I've tried to figure out why I feel so much. People chalk it up to my Astrological sign (Cancer) the fact I'm a mom, weird past life dreams, the fact I'm just who I am. I've had people tell me I have "gifts", I've had people tell other people I have gifts, I've struggled with wondering why I'm so "hippy dippy." Only just recently did the word "empath" come into my realm of knowledge. Whatever the case, I seem to feel things a lot more than the average person and being in New Orleans has been especially draining for me.
I don't know why no one helped those thousands of people for so long. I don't know why families were split up and shipped across the country and still aren't reunited. I don't know why thousands died. It is, was and will always be disgusting to me. Maybe you won't have the chance to see it for yourself. Maybe you won't feel it like I do. I want to say that's ok, but it's really not. See, I learned more than I ever thought I would on my journey away from home and I can't go back to my sheltered way of thinking. Excuse me for being frank here, but I realized something. I lived a very sheltered life and I needed to wake the fuq up! I live in Burbank, CA. Next to a major film studio. Do you think for a second that if flooding happened where I lived they wouldn't come save my lily white ass? Of course they would! And that is sadly both reassuring and unfair.
I read a blog recently about ten black mothers. Those ten black mothers told the story about how they educated their sons how to behave when stopped and confronted by police. I cried when I read that blog. You know why? Because as a white mother I never for one second have had to give my son "the talk" about how to behave when stopped by police. I don't even think about my son being stopped by police. My son isn't even of an age where I would consider him being stopped by police, but those moms don't ever get that choice. That's sad. That's unfair. That opened my eyes. I might have been one of the people who fought once that #alllivesmatter You know what ALL lives DO matter. However pointing that out just goes to show how little you know about what those fighting for #blacklivesmatter means
Open your damn eyes people, you never know what you might see.
