Live Oaks
It's past midnight, and I've just come back from the beach, where a group of us volunteers were sitting around exchanging stories about our lives and how Hands On and Biloxi fit into everything. Aided every once in awhile by the bright lights of a hotel or casino, an eerie string of streetlights reached desperately out to light US-90 into the thickening mist. Most coastal structures are still crumpled and dark. The newly built Holiday Inn radiates its neon "Happy Holidays" marquee just across the street from the sparse skeleton of an old souvenir shop, Sharkland.
For me the most compelling sight is the trees. The majestic live oaks stripped of their leafy fullness by rushing wind and water then left to slowly regrow their ancient branches. Unlike all the man-made structures that have come and gone along this coast, the trees have been here forever competing yet coexisting with the weather, and they will flourish and be battered again as cycles of storms come and go long after I leave this place.
Today, most of the Dartmouth group went to church at the Main Street Missionary Baptist Church, where we enjoyed amazing gospel singing, and a rousing sermon by the Rev. Hayes. He spoke about the Virgin Mary and following God's plan, and seemed to direct his words at us a bit more than was comfortable, but in all the congregation was overwhelmingly warm and inviting to us. They wanted us to share a song with them, and we conceded by singing the alma mater. How embarrassing to have us standing and weakly singing a preppy college song in front of a congregation with more musical talent and rhythm than all of us put together!
I'm very lucky to have had the opportunity to see Biloxi at two very different stages of recovery from Katrina. Last December, the area was still very much a disaster zone, struggling to keep order and provide necessities. There was very little life on the streets, particularly at night. Most stores were closed, and the city was ghostly. A year later, there is a faint but palpable sense of life reborn in Biloxi. It is certainly not a normal city again, but many citizens have settled back in to make new lives for themselves and their families, and the occasional string of Christmas lights reminds the outside world that someone is back in their home.
I can't help but think again of those trees. The live oaks along the coast are particularly beautiful and interesting because of their twisting, convoluted branches. They grow in response to wind and weather, bending to accommodate their surroundings. The bark will envelop and eventually grow around a foreign object, like a chain or brick or wall. Strong and determined things, these slowly growing giants. They have learned, as Biloxi and many towns before it have learned, that handling disaster is to grow with it, incorporate it into one's being, and become all the stronger and more beautiful for the hardship.
-Sarah Overton '07
For me the most compelling sight is the trees. The majestic live oaks stripped of their leafy fullness by rushing wind and water then left to slowly regrow their ancient branches. Unlike all the man-made structures that have come and gone along this coast, the trees have been here forever competing yet coexisting with the weather, and they will flourish and be battered again as cycles of storms come and go long after I leave this place.
Today, most of the Dartmouth group went to church at the Main Street Missionary Baptist Church, where we enjoyed amazing gospel singing, and a rousing sermon by the Rev. Hayes. He spoke about the Virgin Mary and following God's plan, and seemed to direct his words at us a bit more than was comfortable, but in all the congregation was overwhelmingly warm and inviting to us. They wanted us to share a song with them, and we conceded by singing the alma mater. How embarrassing to have us standing and weakly singing a preppy college song in front of a congregation with more musical talent and rhythm than all of us put together!
I'm very lucky to have had the opportunity to see Biloxi at two very different stages of recovery from Katrina. Last December, the area was still very much a disaster zone, struggling to keep order and provide necessities. There was very little life on the streets, particularly at night. Most stores were closed, and the city was ghostly. A year later, there is a faint but palpable sense of life reborn in Biloxi. It is certainly not a normal city again, but many citizens have settled back in to make new lives for themselves and their families, and the occasional string of Christmas lights reminds the outside world that someone is back in their home.
I can't help but think again of those trees. The live oaks along the coast are particularly beautiful and interesting because of their twisting, convoluted branches. They grow in response to wind and weather, bending to accommodate their surroundings. The bark will envelop and eventually grow around a foreign object, like a chain or brick or wall. Strong and determined things, these slowly growing giants. They have learned, as Biloxi and many towns before it have learned, that handling disaster is to grow with it, incorporate it into one's being, and become all the stronger and more beautiful for the hardship.
-Sarah Overton '07
posted by Dartmouth in Biloxi at 11:29 PM
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