Precious Ephemeral, Collecting Ourselves
I received this beautiful email on September 9. I had returned from my own evacuation two days prior and felt like a ghost for several days putting my own home and business back together, checking on friends, neighbors, and strangers. Hurricane Ida displaced 200,000 people within New Orleans (50% of the city) alone for nearly two weeks after landing a few miles west as a Cat 4 on Sunday August 29. Our beloved city lost power for nearly two weeks, many days reaching a temperature above 100 degrees. Many who stayed for the storm evacuated after a few days of unrelenting heat. But for too many in our city ,evacuation is not an option, either due to family responsibilities or lack of available funds. As of now 11 people have died from the power outage, though it will take a few months to have a final total.
I want to share this email with you from Precious, who I have known and worked with for many years. Precious hosts a beautiful online network for those interested in magic, tarot, queer art, and spiritual creativity. They were gracious enough to allow me to share their words and photos with my own little Bossy Like Me community. You can learn more about Precious’ work here: https://ephemeralexperiences.mn.co/feed?autojoin=1
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Written by Precious Ephemera
Got a minute? I feel like I need to just tell you a little about our experience
I took pictures as a means of distracting myself through “art”.
We evacuated on Friday the 27th to a Motel off the highway in rural Alabama—a little town called Livingston. We successfully smuggled 3 cats into a Comfort Inn and kept our eyeballs on Bob Breck’s Blog for twice daily updates till he lost power on Sunday.
It became clear that this storm was going to do some damage. Then it did. I was glued to the Instagram stories of friends and neighbors who couldn’t or didn’t make it out in time. And then nothing, no new reports.
Just an Act of God watching us hold our breath from 214 miles away. Blind but hopeful, time stood still in the silent hallmark of learning to pray. On Monday morning, continental breakfast showed up in a brown paper bag and, like everything else, just needed to be swallowed.
Without much knowledge about the timeline of our displacement we set a course south to the coast where we’d be able to check on the house and assess our next bold move.
I “celebrated” my 39th birthday in Mobile, AL where our friends Ethan and Dane have a house with guest accommodations. By this time Ida was attacking New York City and Greg Abbott was annihilating reproductive rights in Texas.
Ethan surprised me with tulips, a delicious orecchiette pasta dinner, and carrot cake complete with a unicorn candle.
I made a wish.
Aaron picked up some paints from the local art supply and kept his heart and soul busy making tiny paintings on little two inch canvases offering one for me as an Ida birthday comfort keepsake. Treasure.
Literally, precious ephemera.
We returned home on Monday, cleaned out a pretty disgusting fridge, sealed up a broken window and cleared debris from the yard.
New Orleans is a little busted but beautiful as ever. Tarp patched roofs covering her battle scars like big blue band-aids. Literal brick walls toppled down and oaks bent over backwards showing you their ass.
She knows how to handle one of those morning after walks. She knows she’ll get home even if her legs are a little wobbly. She wouldn’t really care if her legs wobbled forever probably.
I love her with my whole heart.
From everyday decision fatigue to managing traveling cats for 10 days, I have to say that we’re pretty exhausted.
Aaron has been able to devote some time and volunteer his car to make daily runs to the adjacent parishes down the bayou who took the brunt of the storm and he’s been met with a lot of gratitude from the folks who are getting by as best they can in Ida’s wake.
Yesterday, near Houma, he met some pretty cool chickens.
I tallied our expenses from the last 14 days and with groceries, pet supplies, hotel, and gas plus refurbishing a spoiled fridge we’ve nearly spent $1,900 just in case you were wondering how much one modest Hurricane Evacuation costs.
I keep remembering Kamala Harris’ refrain from the election trail that the average American Family can’t afford a $400 dollar emergency expense. I’m incredibly privileged to be so in love with someone that I’m trying to buy us a house. I’ve never had substantial savings before. It’s meager, but it got us out of dodge.
God, in two acts.
As of today, the power is restored at Aaron’s studio so it’s possible for him to get back to work as long as his rickety window AC survived in the swamp heat. If it looks anything like our fridge I’d say that puppy is a goner
I’ll return to my part time internship when I return to my full time school schedule next Monday but Aaron won’t be selling art on Jackson Square any time soon. All of the Fall Festivities have, for another year, been canceled due to Covid and catastrophe.
We each have subscriber based side gigs that are, for now, our main squeeze.
My boyfriend is a gifted painter and children’s book illustrator (check out his website). He’s been indefatigable in making art his livelihood and this hurricane has really shit the bed on what could have been a recuperative fall festival season.
He’s thrived through the pandemic on impossibly tight margins selling art online and recently he launched a Patreon where he makes personalized mail art to send to his subscribers.
Who doesn’t love snail mail?
Please consider signing up for a few months (or forever!) It's a simple way to support a hardworking independent artist and, by extension, our little family.
As for me…
I’ve been working on a digital platform called Mighty Networks to continue to share my love of Queer Art & Magic with my community of folks who have joined me for workshops over the years.
It’s basically a private social network where the community contributes to the learning. There’s a weekly collaborative Tarot reading, Queer Artist Feature, and Magic 101 Lessons.
It’s all included in one membership. It’s a great way for us to stay in touch and you can learn a little witchcraft (if you want to!) and channel your creativity with our monthly art challenge.
The official launch is Monday Sept 20th with our next MAGIC CAMP starting October 9th. You can sign up at any time.
Ephemeral Experiences Mighty Network
So, for our final Act (god not included)
It’s really important to say that we have weathered this storm with incredible luck, a loving chosen family, and a shoestring of resources that privilege affords.
We are specifically asking for you to join us on these platforms in order for us to share our talents and expertise, provide a rewarding service and allow us to be able to take continued trips down the bayou and contribute to mutual aid on the ground through financial and volunteer efforts. I want to be transparent that these are our personal revenue streams. This is our work. We want to work.
If you’d prefer to just make a contribution to the “string of unfortunate events for gig workers and independent artists” fund, we would humbly accept. You’ll likely get some mail art or some witchy blessings in return, anyway.
