"and in the end, the love you take......."

The night before we were all scheduled to fly to our respective homes I caught Joanne wandering through one of the cavernous halls of our Garden District house. She had an uncharacteristically distant look on her face.

I feel a bit awkward with the term "uncharacteristic" seeing as I only met her a week prior to this moment. However, since meeting her, I have come to know this bright and engaging person and in this particular instance her expression struck me as out of the norm.

I asked her if she was feeling down. I assumed this only because I was wearing that same expression on my heart and knew I couldn't possibly be alone. She said to me(or something along these lines) "I am. I am feeling a bit lost. Like I'm getting on a plane to leave home and I'm going somewhere else. I have no idea what I'm going back to."

We had a group discussion about community earlier in the week and again during our wrap up meeting. Some fantastic points were made during both of these sessions. If I may, I'd like to add one more...

These past 10 days have been full of hard work, hard sights, hard realizations about the scope of our national consumerism and the toll it is taking on our environment and people. It has also been equally as full of hard laughs, strong bonds and hard.....HARD partying.

On the one hand, we were a group of people from like-minded companies coming together to help rebuild a city. On the other hand, we were individuals with a wide variety of passions, skills and quirks. There were a couple of occasions where a few of us sacrificed themselves by waving aside their fatigue to help others pursue their passions.

For me personally, a few heroic folks drove me to a club and got lost for an hour just so I could pursue my dancing passion for an hour and a half. One of them was sick and one of them was injured. Did I mention they were my heroes?

On other occasions, folks would surrender their place in the shower line so another could be ready in time to help prepare dinner. (a point Joanne made earlier that week) Some would get up at 5am to prepare breakfast.

And others (Caron, Jennifer and Thao)would spend the duration of the days at the house doing laundry, dishes and cooking so the rest of us didn't have to worry about it.

When Joanne said what she did it made me realize that our little community, if for even this short little while, had become a home to me. Not a house on Fourth Street in the Garden District where we were all stumbling home at 2-3-4 am. Not a group of people from like-minded companies coming together to rebuild a city (though that's exactly what we were). Not just me or Joanne or anyone else by themselves. Our little community became what felt undeniably similar to a home. It may sound a bit cheesy, but to tell you the truth, I really couldn't care less.

This realization spread outward to the people at New Orleans Food and Farming Network, to the Ebarbs, to Miss Aida and her day care center, to Bayou Rebirth. These people opened up their doors, arms, kitchens to us and became an extension of that home.

Indeed. What was I going back to?
What have the people in New Orleans taught me? What kind of communities besides our direct families and friends in our hometowns even comes close to what we shared in NOLA? How can we bring that feeling home and share it with everyone we meet and know and love? How can I perpetuate this feeling of community wherever I go?

I have no idea. But I'm gonna try.

Thank you to everyone.
I have been fundamentally changed.