I was exhausted when I returned from tullamore yesterday. needed to get out and sweat off all the hours spent logged into files of zeros and ones…so I headed towards bull island for the first time.

I’ve walked up on clontarf promenade before, but my sister had explained that I needed to keep going to the old pier. and I was excited because the day had been blessed by sun. in typical irish fashion everyone was suddenly festooned in tshirts and shorts, exposing bits of bodies that hadn’t been seen for decades, behaving like it was the middle of July even though it will probably be pissing down with rain tomorrow. but the evening would be glorious, and it felt like my first real day to enjoy moving to a new area. I decided to grab my camera, and keep walking until it got late, so that I could pick out some shadows in the dusk.

The promenade was full of life, crowds of people milling about, to-ing and fro-ing.

A couple of kids were kissing in the undergrowth; a family just sitting on the verge taking in the sun; powerwalkers chatting at high speed; two middle-aged women with their obnoxious pedicured dogs; the posh couple ahead of me ambitiously pushing their toddler onto the seawall where he bounced and balanced precariously; lounging on the benches, young drinkers suspiciously eyeing the intruders.

Everything was busy busy busy - the competition fierce in a scramble to chill out in the hour and a half before it was time to turn on the dishwasher. Everyone switched on to personal exercise regimes and private playlists.

I’m not in good shape and need to get out more, but here I am, clambering down the promenade, feeling self-conscious among the size zeros, stepping aside to let the rollerbladers past, and Leonard Cohen shuffling beside me, still complaining about losing his pension.

Looking out into the bay, I could make out the shape and colour of a figure crouched in the seaweed, working away with a bucket and shovel among the mudflats.

I spent a few minutes examining the nazi swastikas and racist graffiti on the windshelters. Maybe I should have taken photos as I used to do, try to document it, put it up on flickr, write about it, do something – but in the end, I turned away and took a few hasty and failed shots of the bay.

In the meantime the fisherman had disappeared from the mudflats. He reappeared in the distance on the pier itself, hoisting his bucket up out of the dirt mud. Moving up the pier, he was slowly getting out of his gear, and at the same time peering at his catch. I wanted to take his photo, perhaps get him in a good pose silhouetted against the pier, or doing whatever fishermen do. But I could tell he had sniffed me out, he’d seen the camera and the moment was gone.

I walked down to the middle of the old pier and hunkered down by the edge of the mud and refocused. The horizon was dominated by the dark outline of the shore. The strangeness of the silence was eerie. I latched off a couple of shots and scanned the glassy sea which revealed dusky protrusions – two fishing boats anchored in the stillness near the lighthouses on my left, a small black flock of birds arching over the powerstation opposite, the lights of croke park winking to the centre, and at the same time two great big white smears of jettrail fanning out above me in the sky…

Towards the right, I could make out the strong black silhouette of the bandstand and the old gas lamps, with the heads of joggers outlined against the trees of Clontarf proper, bobbing their way back down the walled promenade. The dark shadows had suddenly spread onto the water like a black oil slick. Above, dusk obligingly provided a rich continuum of colours, starting from the shore with flamingo pinks and darker deeper shades of red, then fading into quieter vapours of yellow.

Again, I adjusted my lens and rested on two other fishermen, close left to the pier, scrabbling about, leaning against each other, pushing and pulling in the mud so that their bodies reminded me of the iconic American soldiers hoisting the flag.

The water beside the pier had formed a smallish pool, cut off from the main body by a silted bank. This pool was guarded by scruddy reeds, and mainly filled with bits of litter and traffic cones.

Suddely, I was alerted by the splashing of a labrador as he leapt into the pool, hunting in the mud for something, clumsily thrashing about until its owner called him back, so that in the end he hulked away, the sucking of mud clinging to his coat until he was out and free and dirty, roaming around the shoreline and out of sight.

Ten minutes later, I was about to leave. There, just twenty feet from me, I could make out the reflection of the black shadowed legs of a heron as he arrived in the same pool.
Ignoring everything else, I crouched against the cold stone of the pier, my finger on the trigger, waiting for the heron to move. For a few minutes before being cloaked in darkness, we watched

This one was taken on our trip back to NOLA for the wedding of our close friends. It's been four months since we left New Orleans and moved to Annapolis and it felt really good to go back, even if just for a short time.

We drove around our old neighborhood, The Bywater, and it looked pretty much the same as when we left. The awning of the vacant and abandoned building on the corner was still down. Hanging to the ground and looking the exact way it did after the storm. The same brightly painted and weather beaten double shotgun houses lined the street as they always have (Since before the turn of the century, I looked it up). On the freeways, the same dingy brownish yellow line still marks the time when on ramps became boat ramps; and they remind you that in the days after the storm you would be driving along the bed of a lake the size of an entire city. The only thing that has changed is that they have paved the road- on the day we left of course.

It's amazing how numb you become seeing the destruction and piles of debris on the side of the road every day. Sure the piles are picked up eventually, but someone is always returning to gut or raze a building, so the piles just keep moving around town. I'll be amazed if they ever go away. Returning after living in a *normal* city was shocking. I can't believe we lived in such a crap hole. But huge chunks of the city are crap holes now- even the places where the rich white folks live. The milk of the Chocolate City. You just get used to it. Day after day, month after month, and over two years later and much of it looks the exact same way.

To me though the city is still beautiful. It's an amazing paradox of death and destruction, rebirth and celebration. There is an amazing pulse and vitality pumping through the veins of New Orleans. It's a city fueled by it's amazing people, architecture, food, and music. I love New Orleans and now I truly know what it means to miss New Orleans.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS NEW ORLEANS
(Louis Alter / Eddie DeLange)

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
And miss it each night and day
I know I'm not wrong, the feeling's getting stronger
The longer I stay away

Miss the moss-covered vines, tall sugar pines
Where mockingbirds used to sing
I'd love to see that old lazy Mississippi
Hurrying into Spring

The moonlight on the bayou
A Creole tune that fills the air
I dream about magnolias in bloom
And I'm wishin I was there

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
When that's where you left your heart
And there's one thing more, I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans

*I know this wasn't taken today, but it fits the FGR challenge. If the admins don't like it just take it down. If it gets to stay, thanks for understanding. :)