Wanderlusting

"Eden Street"

I clung to the ladder, trying not to look down, repeating what Mrs. Jamison had told me. “It's not about the fear, honey. Everyone's afraid. If you're not scared, you're crazy. But you do it anyway, because you have to. You do it because it's all you've got." I hadn't known I was afraid of heights until now. My veins were alive with adrenaline, cold and electric. Sweat dampened the nape of my neck. I gave myself a silent pep talk. “You aren't going to fall. It's all in your head. Just climb down, slowly…” I couldn't force my legs to move so I stood as still as possible. I watched as two of my teammates ran spongy rollers of primer over the violently green, spray painted X below me - a mark many homes still bore from the first rescue teams.

I'll admit my initial motivation for going to New Orleans wasn't the most philanthropic: it was a cheap chance to travel. The city hadn't been on my mind — I'd had college applications, classes, a part-time job and family drama to think about. The news channels stopped showing videos of the aftermath so it disappeared from my radar. But when Charlotte told me about the volunteer trip, I'd jumped.

My team was assigned an inviting, lop-sided house on Eden Street. The owner, Mrs. Jamison, introduced herself and offered us lemonade. Her voice was all accented consonants and Southern vowels. She told us how her diabetic sister had climbed onto the roof after the hurricane and died before the rescuers arrived, unable to get to her insulin. She told us how she'd whispered to God from under a desk in the nurses' station when the looters shot out the windows in the hospital to demand drugs. I was ashamed of what I'd considered “hardships” in my life, ashamed of my small-sightedness.

After that initial experience on the ladder, I did everything and anything to make myself useful that didn't involve heights. I filled paint trays and bagged lunches for the volunteers. I scrubbed brushes, using my fingernails to pry away the tacky, partially dried paint where the bristles melded into the wooden bodies. We had more people willing to paint than ladders anyway. Still, something inside me fidgeted. "Coward," it whispered. On our second to last day, I made myself do it. Hands shaking and heart racing, I forced myself up the hot aluminum rungs. I was still afraid of heights but I painted there for two hours. New Orleans was in ruins but the flowers - Snapdragons, African Daisies, Louisiana Irises - were beginning to stubbornly fight their way back up to the sun, through the spaces between the wreckage.