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W e d n e s d ay, s e p t e m b e r 4, 2024
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Jan Risher LONG STORY SHORT
New view of N.O.
Plenty of hope and the secret o’ life
STAFF PHOTOS BY MATTHEW PERSCHALL
Helen Sierminski reaches for an orange recently in New Orleans. Sierminski leads nature walks around the city to share her love of urban wildlife.
Nature enthusiast shares love of urban wildlife through city tours BY JOSIE ABUGOV Staff writer
Standing at Washington Square in New Orleans’ Marigny neighborhood on a hot summer morning, Helen Sierminski shares her fascination with crows as the black birds caw overhead. The 9 a.m. walk she’s guiding is already her second of the day. During her first morning walk, she said she noticed 15 different species of birds. She leads nature walks around New Orleans, and she loves to begin these ambling strolls within a park — an urban setting that’s also a habitat for plants, trees and various critters. Her philosophy about the walks is rooted in mindfulness. “If you’re not looking up, you’re not going to see the birds that are flying,” said the 41-year-old. “If you’re not looking down, you’re not going to see a little lizard that’s crawling around. If you’re not looking to the side, you’re not going to see a beautiful flower. There are so many beautiful things to see, especially in our city.” Sierminski created the Instagram account @nolasidewalkgardensandforests last summer, as city residents suffered through some of the hottest temperatures on record. Despite the heat, Sierminski “refused to hide inside,” she said, so her daily walks would consist of zigzagging from tree to tree, trying to capture a few extra moments of shade. She was already an appreciator of nature, she said, regularly taking photos outdoors and even holding a nature-based spiritual practice. “But this really made me realize all of the different beautiful overhanging
Helen Sierminski spots birds through her binoculars. tree walkways and beautiful gardens and things like that because that’s what I was clinging to as I was doing my walks,” she said. Most of the posts are short videos of sidewalk landscapes that Sierminski films as she walks — trees and flowers overflowing narrow walkways, manicured or overgrown neighborhood plots. On the walk she led in the Marigny, she pointed out milkweed, beauty berries, orange trees, shrimp plants, cornhusk fences, neighborhood cats and a pig named Alias. As she walked by a row of cypress trees, she stopped for a moment of gratitude. “Maybe the whole aim of your article is going to change when I tell you this, but I kiss those trees every morning because I love them,” she
said. On her Instagram page, she intentionally foregoes music, voice-over and lengthy captions on most of the posts. Instead, the account captures the actual experience of walking through the city’s flora and fauna, often in the middle of the day at the height of summer. Sierminski noted that many people can’t do these kinds of walks for health reasons, so the page allows them to experience urban nature without going out, she said. When she made the Instagram account, she assumed that only the people already following her on her personal page would follow the new one. Instead, she says that operating @nolasidewalkgardensandfor
ä See URBAN, page 2G
Working in a newsroom means hearing snippets of conversations that run the gamut. Here are a few jewels, as collected by Matthew Albright, one of the editors in the Baton Rouge newsroom: n “OK, but if a cat eats a rat that’s high on marijuana, does it get high?” n “I hate people who wear glasses just for fashion. It’s like ‘You’re appropriating my culture. I wake up every day and can’t see.’ ” n “Don’t sing. Unless you want to allow me to drink on the job. In that case, you can sing.” n “I’m seriously about to DM this dog on Instagram.” n “The motion was one of the most opaque and convoluted things I have ever read. And I have a freaking philosophy degree.” n “If he gets on the council, we’ll have a Frog, a Scooter, a GBoy and a Hoot.” n “He told me ‘I want to be cremated, but don’t do it in Baton Rouge. It’s so much cheaper in Gonzales.’ ” n “If you can be feckless, can you be...feck? Fecked? Feckful?” Listening to the variety of conversations is one of my favorite parts of my job. Many of the conversations are between people who are much younger — and some that start off almost silly spur other chats with surprising depth. Last week, I heard a 25-yearold reporter say to a 23-year-old reporter, “Man, I sure miss being 14, don’t you? The 23-year-old, sportswriter Reed Darcey, laughingly agreed about the wistfulness associated with being 14. I said something to the pair of young men, along the lines of, “Every age can be a whole lot of fun. Try and embrace it and you’ll be better off.” I couldn’t help myself to join ever-so-briefly in the conversation, but we all had deadlines to meet and there wasn’t time to delve into the topic further. That afternoon when I got in my car to go home, James Taylor’s “Secret o’ Life” was playing. I love that song, but the line, “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time” has long been one of my favorites. Juxtaposing it to the conversation I had heard earlier that afternoon not only made me smile, but it has stuck with me in the days since. Young Darcey is a thoughtful and earnest fellow, qualities I appreciate regardless of age. He and I share an appreciation for basketball and often chat about the game and a variety of other topics. A week after the “oh-to-be-14 again” conversation, I decided to revisit the topic by asking if he
ä See RISHER, page 2G
HOW YOU CAN HELP: VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES Louisiana Inspired highlights volunteer opportunities across south Louisiana. If your organization has specific volunteer opportunities, please email us at lainspired @theadvocate.com with details on the volunteer opportunity, organization and the contact/registration information volunteers would need.
Acadiana
CASA of SoLa, 215 E. Pinhook Drive, Lafayette, recruits, trains and supervises community volunteers to speak up for abused and neglected children and advocate for their timely placement into safe and permanent homes.The organization’s volunteer recruitment and training are ongoing and year-round. The first step is to attend an orientation session, which only takes about 45 minutes.Volunteer advocates, once trained, serve as a powerful voice for abused and neglected children in the foster care system. For volunteer opportunities, visit casaofsola.org.
Baton Rouge
The State Library of Louisiana’s Center for the Book, 701 N. 4th St., Baton Rouge, hosts the Louisiana Book Festival, a free celebration of readers, writers and their books held every fall in the heart of downtown Baton Rouge in the State Capitol, State Library of Louisiana Capitol Park Museum. Volunteers are needed to work in the festival.To sign up, visit louisianabookfestival.org.
New Orleans
New Orleans Habitat for Humanity, 2900 Elysian Fields Ave., New Orleans, helps to build homes for low- to moderateincome partners in need of secure, quality housing at an affordable price.The organization helps families break out of the cycle of low quality properties with high rent payments and into the world of reasonable payments toward home ownership. For volunteer opportunities, visit habitat-nola.org.