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Anada 029
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A "Basin" aNAda #29 A
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A by OtakuVidiot 03/19/00 A
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Last year I made two short trips into the Atchafalaya Basin--a large
area of swamps, rivers and bayous in south central Louisiana. I spent two
days and one night near the Atchafalaya River, the Basin's main channel,
boating through the waters, looking into crawfish traps and, of course,
taking many pictures. I'm flipping through them now... but they seem very
flat. They just don't capture the infinity of all the trees and reptiles
and birds. Or the water. In fact, the water seems especially flat.
Over half of my photos are of water--38 waters to 29 others. (When my
mother saw the photos, she said they reminded her of my father's penchant
for water photos.) At first, I thought the large number was a simple
by-product of taking any pictures in the Basin (that's what it is, mostly),
but these pictures are "of-water"--in other words, water as the subject,
water lying there, posing for the camera. Like the photos, more of my Basin
memories are about water than anything else--and when I relax, it's what I
think about. I flip through these pictures often and pause on the water
photos every time.
I've arranged three photos in a row before me, taken from the boat as
we raced away from the launch in Pierre Part, Louisiana. In each, wide
ripples arc slowly in front of us, the brown water turned a blue-gray by the
sky. Much of the water in the Atchafalaya Basin is brown--brown because it
carries mud and silt and sand as it leaks from the raging Mississippi up
north of here. It sloshes onto shores and decks and writers leaning in too
close. There's much mud in here, and this is the closest I've come to such
water. I spent a lot of time digging my fingers (then hands, then much of a
forearm) down deep.
I pull my hands up, I'd look at them, searching for the fossils of
land in the black and brown specks sparking on my hand. I lean forward and
dig again.
The Basin waters don't flow very fast, though occasionally, a canal
opens into a lake. On those lakes the wind gets at the water, whipping up a
nice flow and chop--but in most places, cypress and oaks crowd in, and the
canals become so narrow the wind can't get at the water. Still water.
Water that turns into mirrors, reflecting the above.
I have three photos of mirrors taken at various points in the Basin.
In one, I captured the stillness at a downward angle and, for all the viewer
knows, I am able to boat the sky. The other two are photos down canals with
lines of trees running along or near the center of the photo. These two are
more interesting. The water and the line of cypress and oak meet right at
the center, and create a picture-perfect reflection. Turn the photo this
way or that it doesn't matter. All of these photos were taken near sunset
and capture the humidity just as it's reaching up from the water. Indeed,
humidity rises from the waters nearly the entire night.
Small droplets dampen my face as they rice. They glide, flow,
stretch -- this way and that -- a body of water in-flight, moving slowly
down narrow canals, faster as the breeze picks them up. The sweat tugs at
my skin, makes me sweat. The breeze picks me up; I am in-fight. There are
points in the Basin where the brown water darkens to black. If brown water,
the water of land, is alive, then black water is dead.
The Basin used to be a catch-all for all up north waters. Waters
flowed into the Basin from rivers and banks and bayous through floods or
natural routes, eventually falling into the Gulf of Mexico. But the Corps
of Engineers regulates water flows among those up north waters nowadays to
prevent populated areas from flooding. There are no natural spring floods
anymore less fresh water makes it into the Basin. The side effect: Black
water. Dead water. Here's my only photo of dead water--an extremely bad
close-up taken at a badly lighted angle. The water looks steel gray, but
worse. It looks like dirty cement, pitted and solid. Brown water flows to
a point, such as the end of a canal, then sits and stagnates. The mud in
the water settles;the oxygen slowly disappears the water turns black. Fish
must surface for air in this water, or they'll drown from lack of oxygen.
If crawfish get caught in an underwater trap, they'll drown as well.
Absurd, isn't it? The thought of a fish drowning in water. But it can
happen.
Air suffocates me, to some extent. Here, in this basin, the height
of this mystical dance of water about the night, I feel a tug in my chest.
I am home. Home. Home. The sound, booms loud. I've heard it before. But
muffled...
Every morning I travel to small coffee shop in a suburb of New
Orleans. I always pick a seat by the large floor-to-ceiling windows so I
can look out over the day and wonder. I look out over it now;cars roll by
on white cement, parking, their pilots scamper out into the sun and quickly
into a store. A few days ago, I learned that a bayou once flowed near this
shop--a small bayou that pushed water up into Lake Ponchartrain from the
Mississippi River. But now it's gone--dried up, covered with cement.
So, once even this parking lot looked as the Basin did. But in this
suburb and in this city, the water is piped, shoved, and pushed away. Any
"natural" water is kept in place, groomed like a school boy in a class-
photo, his hair all greased up, his smiling face a duty. I can't touch the
water here it is far from my fingers, hands, forearms. It's there, alright.
But it's buried down deep--under toe, under shoe, under cement.
This is all necessary, I suppose. We had to find a way to move the
water for humanity's advance. And I am satisfied with it. What's left in
the water's wake is oft-times just as exciting. But throughout my life, I
have always heard something like a radio beacon -- "home, home." I fiddled
with dials, traveled to far away cities in search of it. Never did it come
in clear never did I find the source.
Until the Basin. There it is so loud it vibrates my body. I put my
hands in the water and feel the mud that can create land and life. I see
myself in the mirrors. I sweat and pieces of me travel on and on with the
humidity. I can answer the beacon. I was born on land I feel its
permanence within me. I am "of-land." But, in the Basin, I found I am also
"of-water." I suppose we all are.
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{ (c)2000 aNAda e'zine * * aNAda029 * by OtakuVidiot }
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