Simple Kind of Life.

I sat on a porch and ate a green apple today. I can't speak to what kind of apple it was - I wish I was better versed in my apple varieties - but let's just go with Granny Smith, as I imagine that to be green. And as I sat gazing at the apple in my hand, I found that I was satisfied. In that moment, I had no material need. I wasn't obsessing over the hazy cloud surrounding my 5 or 10 year plan.

Sometimes, it's that simple. Just yesterday, I sharpened a pencil using only a razor. Hacking away until the wood segued way into lead, I was satisfied. Our world is oversaturated with an abundance of material wealth and desire for significance and success. And those are all amazing privileges, but sometimes, it can also be distracting in the hunger for more. And more. And more and more.

Life out here in Louisiana is so simple. Simple, yet complex. Family members grow up in homes right down the block from one other. People don't leave New Orleans, at least they didn't used to. So when Katrina hit, many victims didn't have other family members in other states to turn to or stay with. Louisiana is all they know.

Our days as volunteers working with the St. Bernard Project consist of installing insulation and drywalling. I always thought that if I were in charge of physically building civilizations, we would still be stuck in the Neanderthal stage. Now, with my adeptness with the power tools (and apparently, a razor), we just might make it to Cro-Magnon societies after all.

The communities are not what I expected. Rows of brick homes line the blocks of the St. Bernard Parish. You see ramshackle houses surrounded by piles of rubble right alongside remodeled homes with Halloween decorations on the lawn. Halloween seems to have come early this year. Initially, I was confused by the income levels of the homeowners. These homes are relatively large by California standards - I had imagined poverty and desolation to resemble more East LA or Compton, and these brick homes, although demolished, looked like they had once been rather nice. But I suppose anything would've looked nicer than what I had pictured. I soon learned that these brick foundations once housed the working class.

It's a bit unsettling - the thought that while a week's worth of work may amount to insulating and drywalling the insides of one house, the house remains unfinished. And that this is just one house in one block, where maybe 85% of the houses require rebuilding or demolition. One block in one neighborhood. One neighborhood in one town - one still very devastated town, two years after a natural disaster. It's not just unsettling; it's absurd.

It's not, however, as discouraging as I thought it would be. And here's why. I often used to think that with disasters or injustices of this magnitude, how could one individual possibly help in any significant way? I would be daunted at first sight and shy away from any real aid or responsibility, figuring there was not much I could do. And so I wouldn't and would eventually be distracted and forget. But here's where I was wrong: significance doesn't matter. Numbers, statistics, heroic tendencies - none of that really matters. I hope I'm making sense. It doesn't matter the number of people you help but that you helped. That you come down and have conversations and just listen and remember. And that counts for something.

And so today, after a full day of drywalling, I was simply content biting into the crisp fruit within my grasp on a hot Louisiana autumn day.

Eat at Joe's.

I heard the an account of a Hurricane Katrina survivor named Joe today. Our volunteer group comprised of 16 or so Googlers are helping to rebuild his home, and he graciously shared his personal account with us over lunch - of how quickly the water rose, of the smart decisions vs. the mistakes, of his determination to save his two dogs, and of the moment he realized he was homeless. What I found remarkable about his story was his positivity. And what struck me about him and his family was their generosity, considering they have so little left to give.

At one point, Joe recounted of how he had suffered a massive blow to the head via tree trunk. As he was up on his roof, half of his teeth knocked out by the blow, he began to weep. For the first time since the water started rising, he just cried and cried. And his pet beagle, upon seeing this, sprang into action. She would doggy paddle away and then return with animals in her mouth. She had been a hunting dog in a past life, pre-flooding, bursting levees, and oil spills, and so her hunting skills just kind of kicked in. First came a pigeon. Followed by a mouse. And then a rat.

At this, I grimaced. I didn't mean to react, at least not visibly, but I suppose it was instinctual. I had just flown in from New York, where as legend has it, rats can crawl up shower pipes, becoming lodged there. Or at least according to Augusten Burroughs. And I couldn't imagine anything more horrifying.

It was then that Joe looked directly at me, as he continued his story. He explained that the dog had been trying to save his life by bringing him food, and I was instantly humbled. Whereas I had been dreading rats, others were fighting for survival. There were no luxuries. It's funny what our mentality chooses to dwell upon, but how quickly our perspectives change. Survival had always been a given for me.

And upon closer glance, I noticed that Joe was toothless; I had simply relegated his manner of speech to his Southern drawl. Here before me, sat a toothless, humble man, sitting in a washed out home with his FEMA trailer out front, expressing gratitude. Genuine gratefulness for a group of volunteers that had come down to help rebuild his father's house for a week, when really, we were the ones walking away with lessons worth our weight in gold.

Help!

Options. I can characterize my life by the abundance of options. Having had the option to have so many options, I have become something of an ingrate. This is something I actively attempt to undo on a daily basis.

Fear, in essence, is an option. There are those who run away from their fears, and then there are those who face them head on. I think I fall somewhere in between. But then there are those cases where fear transcends being fear and transforms into reality. Fear is no longer an option but is now the life you are living.

I don't normally do this, but it's been a pressing concern. I don't know how many people read this blog of mine, but I need to make a plug for this and I don't care how un-blog/column-like it sounds. One of my cousin's best friends, Michelle, recently got diagnosed with leukemia. She is 25. And while treatment is thus far looking promising, there is someone who has not been so fortunate.

It is incredibly difficult to find a bone marrow match for a minority. If your siblings are not a match, you'd better start searching. Supposedly, for a caucasian, there will typically be up to 15 matches already in the database, but for Vinay Chakravarthy, after having 162 donor drives and 9458 people registered, he's left scrambling. We're talking days, not months or years.

I read an article in the recent Vanity Fair - the Africa edition, guest edited by Bono. And Mr. Grammy winning Do-Gooder-Multi-Hyphenate goes on to say:

"This is an emergency - normal rules don't apply. There are no easy good or bad guys. Do you think an African mother cares if the drugs keeping her child alive are thanks to an iPod or a church plate? Or a Democrat or a Republican? I don't think that mother gives a damn about where that 20-cent pill comes from, so why should we. It can lead to some uncomfortable bedfellows, but sometimes less sleep means you are more awake."

And he's right. How or why you get swabbed is irrelevant. There's this book called the Lazy Environmentalist by Josh Dorfman. Basically, the idea is to seamlessly incorporate green living into your daily routine without altering your quality of life. Modern living seems to revolve around convenience. Go ahead. Be a lazy bone marrow donor. If you are or have any friends who are South Asian (or Chinese-Viet or anything else), please.. what is keeping you? Consider sacrificing one lazy Saturday afternoon, lunch hour at work, or trip to the Fillmore district to get swabbed. You may potentially save a life.

The following site will have all the information you need in terms of procedures and upcoming drives: www.helpvinay.org

Help Vinay.

*edit*
Also important to note that after you register to be a donor, please FOLLOW THROUGH and be a COMMITTED donor! Vinay actually found a match, but was devastated to learn that the potential donor decided not to go through with the bone marrow transfer process.