I have never had a straight walk. Literally. As a child, I walked crooked with pigeon toed feet, until the corrective leg braces worked. As an adolescent on my cross country team, I ran crooked. So much so, my team-mates teasingly kept a wide gate between us during practice. Otherwise they would be inadvertently tripped or cut off by me. I still cannot walk or run in a straight line. Just recently, while walking with a new friend, I warned her of my crooked walk. “Sorry if I elbow you or step on your feet~ I don’t really know how to walk straight.”
My new friend (who feels like an old friend) suggested we walk in Audubon park, not on the smoothly paved track but through the more wooded, crooked paths on the perimeter. As we were walking and talking about life, as any old friend does best, I quietly thought about my adoration of crooked, unkempt, wonky , messy paths and the people who walk them.
My own path hasn’t been particularly straight. I guess like many teenagers and twenty something’s I shifted from boyfriends with opposite personalities, rebelled against my faith, drank too much, switched friendship groups, used school loan money to buy cute clothes and was insensitive to my parents and family in the name of independence and “finding myself.” Totally obnoxious. But necessary, I suppose. And comfortable, for she who rarely walks straight or consistently.
As a married woman with children and a developing career, I have comfortably transcended childhood, adolescence and the aforementioned stage of my twenties. Sigh. Relief. I don’t think I am obnoxious anymore. However my path and person are still not straight. As my daughter affectionately refers to anything that works imperfectly: They are wonky.
Commonly, I am full of contradictions. For example, I cannot reconcile conflicting political beliefs. Abortion? Murder? Yes. Undeniably. Can I sympathize with the want to end an unwanted pregnancy.Yes. Should any human being be denied access to good medical care? No. Never. It’s as inhumane as murder. Often, it is murder. Does the effect of socialized medicine on society scare me? Yes. Very much. If you could peek inside my soul, or have a script of it, you would see other wonky ways too. They materialize when I use my anger to say hurtful words to my husband, my pride to judge, my laziness to overlook meaning, or my impatience to frustrate my daughter...while my guilt leads me to ask forgiveness and my patience withstands endless days in the floor with a toddler and my love helps me forgive a friend and delight in a hiper child and give my family a warm meal and my husband my undivided attention. If my daughter’s intuition was more sophisticated, she would undoubtedly remind me, “ Mom you are very wonky.”
For countless moments, I have wished away my unkempt self. “If only I could consistently keep a tidy house, never gossip, lose patience, covet, etc.; Then, I would be straight, consistent, uncrooked, or…something like that.” I don’t even really believe in wishing but I have hoped that my will or prayer or both would propel be a bit closer to straight. Then, I moved to New Orleans. New Orleans, who says, “No.” to perfection, “Yes.” to life and most importantly to me, “Yes.” to a crooked life.
New Orleans: It’s human and raw and gritty. It’s wonky. I-10 into the city is much like a rickety county fair roller coaster. The roads get worse, the closer you get to local life. Natural speed bumps will ruin the best of car shocks on nearly every New Orlean’s street. Cracked sidewalks make it virtually impossible to stroll a sleeping child. Unashamedly, prostitutes solicit sex. Alcoholism, gluttony,and laziness shine at every corner. The city is dirty. Physically, the dirt and pollution will give allergies to the healthiest horse. Politicians are dirty too. They lie and cheat and steal. Murder and crime are blatant: robbery, rape, drug deals, abuse.
It’s a brokenness that at times, perhaps, would be relieving to avoid or ignore. Maybe, take a different route to only see beautiful homes or avoid seeing the homeless, ugly and crooked. But you can’t do that in New Orleans. You cannot avoid the bum on the bench, or the cat lady with huge breasts, no bra and a broom, who sweeps the sidewalk all day. There is no straight route home. No smooth road, no uniformity, and no normal.
Oddly, I believe these are the realities that the disciple Paul encouraged us to ponder when he told us, “Brothers, whatever is true {real} , whatever is lovely…if there be any virtue or praise, think upon such things.” (Philippians 4:8). Truth: the reality that life and death, rich and poor, ugly and beautiful co-exist. Moreover, all humans suffer and sin (albeit to varying degrees) . Truth, like New Orleans, cannot deny that racism and poverty are always staring and most often ignored. And, that whether we spend our days sweeping our sidewalk with saggy boobs, paving bumpy roads, harmonizing tourists at Café’ du Monde, dealing drugs, loving children, hiding in beautiful homes or sleeping off a hangover in a cardboard box (or mansion), we are wonky.
Ironically, if it weren’t for the wonky, the virtuous and lovely wouldn’t exist. New Orleans is lovely. Which is known by my unspoken agreement with a friendly drunk father: Our girls met on the swing set and developed an instant friendship. Every afternoon, we meet at the same neighborhood park. He teaches my daughter how to hopscotch. I teach his daughter how to pump her legs on the swing, while he takes a “break” to drink a tall boy and pee behind a bush. He drinks way too much, is crass, and a good daddy. Or you may find it in the tattooed cowboy who boils crawfish and is gentle and godly and a teacher of life skills to uneducated men. Or you may find it in the calming hand of the large black woman at Winn Dixie, who gently pats the back of the frazzled, young, white mother of a tantrum throwing toddler and says, “Baby, you gonna get through it. These times a gonna’ pass and she gonna be good.” Or, by a jolly pastor, a lover of all things spicy, cajun and New Orlenian excitedly reminding his congregation, week after week, to receive communion with cheer . The Lord’s Supper and Heaven are like Mardi Gras, he says. (Yes, I did say Mardi Gras.) We have the promise of life and redemption: Shout! Parade!Jump! Drink! Feast! Celebrate! Live!
New Orleans is blatant about truth (good and bad), virtue and all things lovely. The streets are crooked and so are the people. Enjoyment of the city or even better, love of it, comes at the expense of being “straight.” It will love you, convict you, celebrate with you, grieve you, feed you (really well), expose you, entertain you ,bless you, confuse you, and befriend you.; If you are wonky, it will make sense to you. Even more lovely, it will make sense of you.--------------
