The Smell of Cypress

Moose, 1998-2011

2011-08-01T11:41:00.003-05:00

There should be a law … or a rule or at least an unspoken agreement … that writers should never acquire pets. Especially dogs. Most of us know how vulnerable we are to the slings and arrows of those we love; how easily crushed we are by the slightest breath that bodes anything less than good and perfect harmony. We expect that and build our barriers, construct our walls, fortify ourselves against those hurts that will inevitably come.

But we trust our dogs, just as they trust us. We know as surely as we know the sun will rise and set on the world somewhere today that our dog will love us and trust us and accept us even when we are at our worst. Few of us ever feel that way about another human, but we easily feel that way about our dog. So, we go on for years, taking him for granted, giving him our leftover time, showing him every side of our self that we would never trust to another human.

And we forget…conveniently, easily, too completely…that one day, no matter what, he will die. And take with him all the best there is in us and leave us alone with our worst. Very much alone. Alone in that total aloneness we can feel only after we know what it is to be loved absolutely and unconditionally, the way only our dog can love us.

I said goodbye to my friend, Moose, yesterday after 13 years of being loved by him and only sometimes being worthy of that love. My granddaughter says there is a dog heaven where he will be a puppy, again. I hope that’s true. Just in case there is something to life after death for the pets we love, I buried him on the bayou, very close to where he caught the dead fish and nudged the turtle shells and buried more things than I will ever find again.

Moose was the best dog ever. A much better companion than I will ever be. He set a good example. He will be greatly and unconditionally remembered and loved and missed.

Life in the Fast Lane

2011-06-25T21:21:00.003-05:00

I should have saved all of my writings concerning the accidents in front of my house. I would have enough for a book by now. My affection for the traffic in my personal corner of the world began long ago, when I first moved to southern Louisiana. I soon became aware that no one can go anywhere without turning around in front of "the shop." The shop was my late husband's place of business. It's used for temporary storage, now, and the occasional indoor yard sale, (which, by the way, is an oxymoron, as I have recently been reminded); but the traffic pattern has remained the same.

Anyone who goes anywhere in my parish (county) must come here first to turn around. I have always suspected information is given out to strangers passing through, requesting directions to anywhere within, say, a 30 mile radius, ..."well, ya know dat shop dere, where da man uset ta sell dem tvs and veeceearahs? Well, ya go dere, sha, and ya make dis turn in da udder direction, den ya go ..."

I even suspect google maps, Garmin and Tom-Tom use this as the starting point for getting anywhere in the parish. They've just cleaned up the language, "go 2.2 miles then turn right, turn right, turn right, turn left, go ..." Coming from the other direction the miles change and the rights turn to lefts and vice versa, but the effect is the same. You cannot get anywhere in this parish without coming here first.

As a result, there have been a lot of bizarre accidents. There was the time a car ended up sitting on the broken shaft of the telephone pole. And the guy who dredged both of my ditches but managed to leap over the driveway right in the middle. Of course, we've had a couple of sugar cane trucks lying on there side. And more recently, some people may recall, a tire off one of those sugar cane trucks hit my front window and knocked one entire brick wall of my house away from the underlying wall.

Tonight I lost a mailbox. Actually, two were lost, but only one was mine. The other belongs to my neighbor across the street who has shared these vignettes of life with me over the past thirty years. Some light colored truck decided to take his ditch, this time, instead of the road, and that included plowing under our mailboxes and the post that held them up.

And then he kept on going. He lost a bumper, but kept on going.

Presumably, no one was hurt.

Mailboxes can be replaced. Grass will fill in. One more story to make me shake my head. One more story for the blog. Like Paul Harvey used to say after telling the rest of the story, "Good day ..."

Viktor Frankl and Having Choices

2011-04-30T15:14:00.003-05:00

A young friend, today, reminded me of an author I have not considered in way too long. Viktor Frankl saved my life. The circumstances were long ago and far away and of not much consequence, anymore. But save my life, he did. And he probably deserves more frequent remembrance.

I do not often have difficulty expressing my thoughts about matters of deep meaning to me, but, it seems, I struggle here. I tried to assemble these thoughts into some sort of meaningful review that would, perhaps, inspire someone else to think thoughts differently. But still I struggle.

I will think on that more. Until then, I will share those particular words that were the most meaningful to me at the time, so many years ago, when I was someone else, but, in some ways, more me than I am now.

(Does it ever seem to anyone else that we are devolving instead of evolving? That we are born closer to who we are meant to be and we live our lives struggling to stay connected to that self, only to find the more we struggle the further away we get? It's sort of like drowning, in a way. If we could but trust that we were once fish, how easy it would be to swim. If we could cease the struggle ...)

The Words of Viktor Frankl

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.

More of his words can be found online. A life-changing experience,possibly, can be found in his book, Man's Search for Meaning.

And if I can find some sense of my thoughts, one day, I will write a more worthy review.

How come ...

2011-04-26T23:02:00.017-05:00

I began my writing this evening with a small frozen daiquiri from a drive-through window. We have those here, in southern Louisiana. I actually never had to leave my car. I drove right up to the window on the side of the bar and told the girl at the window, whom I have known since before she was out of diapers, that I wanted a Margarita flavored frozen daiquiri. This was served to me in a styrofoam cup with a straw for convenience. A fast-food drunk on the road. I don't get it either. The whole business seems to me to be a recipe for disaster, but I am responsible enough not to take even one sip until I am back at home, out of my car, and comfortably ensconced for the night.

And I always try to sip slowly, as I imagine one would have sipped a mint julep out on the veranda of an overly large plantation home. Thinking about the plantation home necessarily creates images of slavery and abuse, spoiling the taste of the julep and breaking me unpleasantly free of reverie. As I strive for a more appropriate image, comes the pondering.

... after I have had just the right amount of an alcoholic beverage, words I have been searching for all day, all week, maybe for months, begin to tumble and roll and literally drop from my fingers. Forcing me to struggle to keep them from spilling all over the floor and oozing out the door and across the patio and plunging into the bayou, streaming inexorably to the ocean, exposing every thought I ever had not only to the gator and that awkward looking bird looking back at me from the water's edge but to every living thing on this earth.

How come?

How come words can't find me when I am already sitting at the keyboard, coffee cup comfortably close by, when I'm feeling lazy and at ease with myself and the world? How they can't line up, obediently, and stand there without moving until I can get them in their proper places, with time to check the hemlines, and the dirt behind the ears, and make the necessary adjustments?

I want to write sort of slow and southern with a little bit of sassy. I tend to believe more words are better than less - as long as there aren't too many more. Just enough to temper one's progress across and down the page, allowing time to savor the journey and encouraging the reader to sit back, settle in, stay awhile.

How come my words can't fall like that? Why does it always seem as if there were a pendulum swinging relentlessly between rush and struggle and absolute dearth of ideas? What do I do when my glass is empty?

Thinking Too Much

2011-04-23T09:04:00.004-05:00

I have friends who say I think too much. Possibly, they are correct. For instance, when typing the title for this blog I debated on whether or not the word "too" should be capitalized. As a fledgling editor, that is probably something I should know, and I could easily look it up in my Chicago Style Manual or any of a number of places online.

But ... I don't and I didn't.

I did think about it.

I am sitting on the patio, cup of coffee at hand and thinking about not thinking.

It is in moments like these that I feel just a twinge of panic, a fear of what I will feel when I can no longer sit on the patio, watch the bayou, listen to the birds, look for old owl. I had a moment last night, when I was out with friends listening to good Cajun music, and trying to dance the Cajun two-step while discovering that I cannot talk and dance at the same time. It was in those moments, between dances, when I sat back to watch others dance, that I recalled one of my first impressions of Louisiana.

Everybody here, no matter the age or the mental ability, dances when the accordion plays. It is a joy to watch families, from toddlers to octagenarians, taking to the floor and doing a more than passable two-step. Last night, as I watched, I had more than a moment to miss that.

This morning is another of those moments. I don't have the photographic ability to catch the shimmer of the water in the morning sun, nor the ability to record the birds as their conversation carries from tree to tree. I have only my words to say, this morning, that good-bye, even when it's right, sometimes carries as much pain as when it is wrong.

Existential Angst

2011-02-12T16:25:00.004-06:00

If one were to look for an underlying, intertwining theme in my writing, I think it would have to be 'angst.' But for those who may read this and have no idea who I am or what years I have lived, I should confess that I am sixty years ... of age. Neither young nor old. I have lived on this earth for that number of years plus some days

Angst is more tolerable when one is a teenager. Charming, at times. Most definitely expected. Sexagenarian angst just doesn't so easily roll off the tongue. It would, no doubt, be obnoxious if not for the philosophers who saved those much like myself by supplanting the word "teenaged" with the word "existential."

Existential Angst. Now, doesn't that sound better?

I am most heartily delighted that the existential field of philosophy was invented. One can get away with sounding just like one knows what one is talking about - just by adding one word. Existential.

Existential angst. An hours long intellectual discussion plus months and months - maybe years - of therapy are summarized in those two words. And the really great thing is, the meaning is so vague, no one dares to question too deeply lest one should appear less learned.

So, here I sit, wallowing in my existential angst, eagerly anticipating the evening shadows that lend a certain sophistication to the next glass of wine. Because wine too early in the day would be, well, gauche.

It's not fair ...

2011-02-11T23:25:00.003-06:00

...that I should inspired to post two writings in one day when I go for so many days without a word to say to anyone. But I have been watching the movie, "Julia and Julie", and wondering if I could do something out of the ordinary every day for one year that would be worthy of writing about. No sooner had I wondered it than I decided, "no". Not just "no" but an emphatic "NO!"

I often feel as Julie felt - that I have ADD. I only wish I had felt it first. At least if I had claimed it first, I would have a really great excuse for not finishing what I start. If I claim it now, I will be perceived as a copy-cat.

Yes, much better to have an excuse that is not of one's own making than to admit that I lack the courage to see things through. Because, you know, once something is done, it is done. Others then feel compelled to pass judgement on the completed project. I don't know why that is. I don't finish things to suit others, but it seems they invariably feel it is so. Therefore, if one can postpone completion, one can postpone judgement day.

I knew a writer, once, who made the commitment to write one poem a day. The courage in that was his willingness to accept his own imperfections. He was willing to show himself less than perfect.

I still struggle with imperfection. I see it in myself readily enough. But I enjoy the comfort of deluding myself that others do not - cannot - see it.

So, what did I do today that is worthy of being put to paper?

I drank two glasses of wine while watching Julie channel Julia.

Different for me because I usually drink one glass - when I drink at all. Different because I usually don't drink at all.

Although I seem to be able to write much more when I do.

Perhaps the wine will encourage me to channel a writer. Yes, at this point, most any writer would do.

But Dorothy Parker would do best.

It took me awhile ...

2011-02-11T22:59:00.005-06:00

.. to figure out how to sign into blogspot without going all the way around the web and back. You see, they changed the sign-in somewhere along the way - while I was on one of my many hiatuses - when they apparently became part of google; but I don't even know if that is true. I only know that when I request to sign in I am automatically taken to a sign-in page for gmail. I tried to switch my sign-in procedure to my gmail account, but I was rebuffed. Yes, rebuffed. At every turn. In frustration I entered my original yahoo sign-in address into the gmail box and wah-la! I am in.

Yes, I know that is not the French way to spell that word, but I am not French. My name is a misnomer. A direct attempt to fool the observer. Trompe l'oiel! I seriously do not believe I have even one cell of French blood in my body. I am French in name only. A poseur, as a writer friend of mine would have said some years ago - when that was his favorite word. His 'word of the day' word. That hung around for more than a day. Ad nauseum, actually. And that, I think, is Latin.

So, this is the disclaimer. I am not French. I am many things, a collaboration of things, a veritable melting pot of things! But, mostly, I am Polish. Long o.

Mostly only because fifty percent of my genetic makeup came from a father who was 100% Polish. At least, as far as I know. Legend has it that my grandparents met on the boat coming over from the 'old country.' But that legend came from my mother who most likely heard it from my father. I met my paternal grandparents once, apparently. When I was about three months old. Part of the legend.

My mother was a lot kinder than I am. She was fond of creating legends that leant a gentleness to life that did not otherwise exist.

Are there any real legends out there? And do any of them really matter? I am not my grandparents. I am not my mother. And I am sure as hell not my father. Just as most everybody else, I am who I am. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But always, and forever, just that - who I am.

And a couple of glasses of wine make that somewhat better than it really is.

Ahhh, dysFUNctional!

2011-02-07T22:16:00.002-06:00

Seems a woman was arrested today in southern Louisiana for assaulting her boyfriend with a frozen piece of meat.

The boyfriend told police she became angry when she went to chill her mixed drink and the glass wouldn't fit in the freezer. So she slapped him in the face with a frozen beefsteak. They booked her with aggravated battery.

What exactly does that mean? Wouldn't you have to be at least a little bit aggravated to batter somebody? And, even then, isn't aggravated a bit of an understatement?

Just one more reason for becoming vegetarian. I doubt my package of frozen broccoli would have had quite the same impact. Nor would it have made such a good story.

Although it might have been as good as the burglar who was arrested after leaving his cell phone at the scene of the robbery ...

My friend Eileen was right ... we sure know how to put the fun in dysfunctional!

Did I Ever Tell You?

2011-01-23T14:51:00.003-06:00

... about the time I pulled up to a drive-in window at a local fast-food establishment and ordered a large drink and the person taking the order told me she couldn't give me that because they only had small and medium?

Can somebody tell me why that isn't funny? I still recall my difficulty keeping a straight face. Truthfully, I thought at first she was deliberately making a joke, and I was momentarily impressed with her cleverness. Until I realized she was serious and had no idea why her response was funny.

After telling this story a number of times, I have yet to find anyone else who thinks it's particularly funny. Can someone please explain, why not?

For awhile I thought that would be my magic pea. Like in the story the princess and the pea, only I was looking for a prince and the pea was a fast-food story that nobody thought was funny. Except me. And, of course, the prince. Whom I haven't found, yet. Apparently.

What to Title This?

2010-12-13T17:49:00.004-06:00

I'm not sure where to start to write today. I could go back 12 years and work my way forward or I could just start with today and trust that anyone who has ever shared her/his life with a dog will get it.

I got the call from the vet while in the middle of preparing Sweet Potato Butter. It's good that I was already busy, involved in something I couldn't just leave. There is still too much of my Granny in me to allow good food to spoil, so I continued the process while pondering the implications of the information from the vet. Moose, the dog who has - to borrow a phrase from the writer Jim - licked the love back into me more than a time or two, has a bone tumor on the side of his head.

The surgeon feels sure he can operate and remove it all, but he also assured me it would return. There is no cure, only decisions to be made concerning the best course of treatment. I'm not going to opt for the surgery. I suppose that may outrage some pet owners, but Moose is not in pain, now. He is not acting as if he is ill or uncomfortable or in any way distressed. I cannot justify deliberately distressing him, when the outcome is inevitable.

As I stirred the pumpkin, waiting for it to thicken, I, of course, relived the many adventures of Moose - the Moose Tales. I'm not even sure I have a copy of all of them anymore. Computers come and go, and I have failed to print out or save much of my writing. I am sure there are a few who read this blog who know Moose as well as they know me; mainly through words that have been shared over the past twelve years. He doesn't hear much at all anymore, and his vision is becoming more tunnel-like with age and cataracts. He rarely ventures all the way to the bayou these days, preferring to stay close to the patio, closer to me. I can't remember the last time he brought me a dead thing.

He still likes to sleep at the end of the bed, although now I have to pick him up and put him there. His weight is down about 19 pounds from his heaviest weight, but he always tended to be heavier than he should have been, so now he is pretty much the weight he should be. He has begun to bark to get his way this past year; mostly to let me know when he's ready to come inside or that Bella the Cat won't move away from the water bowl, where she plops just to torment him.

He's a good dog. He's still possibly the best friend I've ever had; a major source of unconditional love in my life today. And I promised him a trip to the Grand Canyon some years ago. I'm gonna have to get busy to make that happen. I want to show him the stars from the North Rim. Heck! I want to see them myself! Before we both get too old, too blind, or just too tired.

Fickle Pickle

2010-12-11T09:10:00.002-06:00

I wake up most mornings with the intention of updating my blog with some particularly witty or intellectual comment that is sure to garner boatloads of traffic, only to be sidetracked by things of equal, albeit less satisfying, importance. Things like, working the daily Sudoku or letting Moose out for his daily dump. Letting him back in again. Letting him out again. Letting him ... well, you get the idea. I have all manner of things of pressing importance wearing away the minutes of my day. There just seems to be no time left for the frivolity of writing.

If I were Vianne, I would have a grand tale of being kidnapped by a roving band of gypsies and forced to perform for crowds at county fairs by day and privately entertain a different gypsy man every night, escaping only when she began to feel guilty for enjoying herself too much.

But, I am not Vianne. The last I heard from her she was still holed up in some sleeze bag hotel with that scoundrel Mikey. Loving every aching minute.

Thanksgiving was pretty much the usual assemblage of Catholics, Christian Fundamentalists, Muslims, and me. I was visiting my younger daughter and her husband who live near Fort Hood, Texas. The three men and one of the women are all currently serving in the US Army and have all spent time in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. In spite of what might be apparent religious differences, the day was delightful. Most folks I know don't get into discussions of a religious sort just for the heck of it, and the topic didn't come up. There was some interesting sharing of cultural experiences, with the only really awkward moment occurring when one of the CF's asked one of the Muslims if he were pro-Taliban.

Seriously???

After the silence fell and picked itself back up again, and the young man being questioned graciously answered "no" without appearing at all condescending, conversation was diverted to other topics.

The only other issue that was remotely amusing was that my daughter has decided everything is better with bourbon, which she had added generously to several of the dishes. However, it was easy enough to tell which of those had been cooked enough to dissipate the alcohol, so no preferences were inadvertantly compromised.

The rest of the visit was spent eating leftovers and decorating for Christmas. I am home again, and preparing for birthdays(not mine) and Christmas. The carpenters have finished the work in my house; the bricklayers did what they had to do outside; and life on the bayou, while unseasonably cold, is once again quiet.

If you're passing this way, stop and get down for a cup of coffee and a chat, sha'!

Addendum

2010-11-22T23:00:00.006-06:00

Well, the dog didn't get to make the trip this time. He had to stay behind at the Vet Hotel and Doggie Spa for some much needed rest, relaxation, pampering and maintenance. Nothing serious. Getting old for dogs is just about like getting old for humans. Everything starts to fall out, fall down or fall apart.

Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and Visa/Mastercard, most of it is repairable.

Vianne called to say she was stuck somewhere in small town Texas for the night, booked into a suite at regular room rates because she reminded the clerk of her grandmother.

Nothing like the young to make us feel old.

But Vianne assured me she is not alone. A brief stop at the post office on her way out of town led to the discovery of her very own copy of Life and War with Mikey Fatboy Delgado. You can find the link to his blog in the column on the right under 'A Little Lagniappe.'

For tonight it's just Vianne and Mikey - in a suite right next door to the hotel lobby.

In case Vianne needs security.

Vianne is trippin'!

2010-11-22T08:19:00.004-06:00

She's getting packed up, bathing the dog and heading on down the highway. Well, not 'down' actually. Just slightly up and to the west, past Lafayette and Lake Charles and right on into Texas. And she's wondering if it's really possible to say Texas without that accent which seems to emerge, unannounced, anytime she says Texas (Tayuhxas). Or Tennessee (Tayuhnnessee), for that matter. Mississippi (Meyahssissippi). Louisiana (Loueeyuhzeeayuhna). Alabama is almost neutral. Once you get past the initial 'A' that never seems to sound right unless you make it a two syllable sound - Ayuhlabama.

Vianne left home awhile back, quite awhile, in fact, and has been roaming the highways ever since, looking for life, engaging herself in one adventure or the other. I know from long contact with Vianne that most of these adventures occur in her imagination only, but it's surely hard to tell truth from fiction. Sometimes. Not only for those of us listening to her tales, but, I suspect, for her as well. I've never known someone to live so much inside herself. And not even know that's where she is.

I remember the time she called, full of the tale of the satin stranger. She described him as sleek and smooth and willing to do most anything in the world just to please her. They rode together for a day and a half before she pulled into a truck-stop cafe for morning coffee and saw a big ol' truck driver chatting with the waitress. As soon as I heard all about his muscles expanding his t-shirt, I knew she had found another travel companion. That particular day dream lasted for most of the week. It took her that long to find a suitable replacement in the check-out line at the D'ville WalMart. She was there just to pick up a half-gallon of Rocky Road and a Redbox new release. Never suspected she would find the man of her dreams.

But Vianne is nothing if not open to knew suggestions.

Vianne lives - or half-lives, might be more accurate - with Joe the Depressor. You know how we were taught as children that if we didn't have anything nice to say, it was better to say nothing at all. Joe didn't learn that lesson. Or if he did, he somehow got turned all the way around and interpreted it to mean just the opposite. Joe believes saying anything nice is a sign of weakness. And unfortunately for Vianne, he's the strongest man she's ever known.

But the girl is on the road, again. Good things happen on the road.

Retirement, or What's it All About?

2010-11-21T22:44:00.003-06:00

On the 17th of December, 2010, I will have been retired for exactly one year. And sometimes, I still feel like I'm on vacation. Like when the holiday is over, I will be back in the classroom, writing lesson plans and IEPs and doing all sorts of inane paperwork that has little to do with the actual act of teaching. Sometimes, when I feel that way, I begin to feel a bit of anxiety - okay, more than a bit. More like panic, with an accompanying increase in heart rate and shallow breathing and even a little extra perspiration in the perspiring parts.

Sometimes, I feel something else entirely, and I'm not at all sure how to describe it. As if the past 33+ years really didn't matter much at all. As if I tried much too hard to make it mean more than it actually did.

Apparently retired teachers remain in the parish school board email system. I guess it's an easy way to communicate information to us, but, to tell you the truth, there doesn't seem to be much to communicate to retired teachers. Too often, it seems, my school email is used to inform me of funeral arrangements for other retired teachers. Rather disturbing to think there is nothing to report between the retiring and the dying.

Occasionally, I receive email that should have been sent to someone else, an 'active' teacher, who has the same last name and first initial. I log in just to forward it on to her as an act of courtesy.

I think one day I'm gonna have to send an email right back to them, address it to everyone in the school system, just to let them know that what they're doing is not really life. Life is what goes on out here when they aren't playing school.

And I'm gonna tell them I'm not dead. In fact, I'm only beginning to feel alive.

How small is it?

2010-11-12T20:05:00.002-06:00

The place I live is so small that ...

As I posted last week, the house was damaged by an out-of-control tire and I have spent the week trying to find a bricklayer (otherwise known as a Mason, but that's another blog for someone else with more time and more imagination). I simply want someone to remove the bricks that are no longer attached to the house, clean them up real pretty, and put them back again. Sounds easy enough.

I had no idea how hard I was apparently trying until Thursday. I admit I had made quite a few phone calls, chatted about it in the grocery store, even stopped by a lumber yard for a few recommendations.

But I never thought my gynecologist would get involved in the search. There I was, lying back on the table, feet in the stirrups, the sounds of instruments of torture clanging in my ears, and he, in his most doctorly manner says, "So, I hear you need a bricklayer."

That's just not a conversation I ever expected to have at that particular moment. But have it we did, and I walked away with one more name to add to my list of possibility.

If he does return my call, I won't be telling that bricklayer how I found his name.

Country Livin'

2010-11-06T12:49:00.003-05:00

Or - the day the house turned on a dime.

Actually, it wasn't a dime, and the house only shifted a bit.

For those of you not so well-acquainted with living down de bayou, this may not be as amusing I awoke not too early after being up rather later than usual. I was still waiting for the coffee to brew when the house shook, glass shattered, and the cat leapt across the den and flew headfirst into the closed bedroom door. She was too frightened to realize the door wasn't open, attempting a failed quick retreat to the safety of the bedroom closet.

After the initial moment of complete stupefaction, I began making the rounds, inspecting the windows, pondering "whatthehell hit my house!?"

I wasn't stunned that the house had been hit. These things seem to happen here with alarming regularity. I've known folks to install posts in the ground across the front of their homes to keep cars from plowing through their bedrooms. I've personally had vehicles fly from one side of my front yard to the other, damaging only the driveways on either side before rolling to a stop in the ditch. The same ditch that has hosted a cane truck turned on it's side and a pickup truck whose driver was epileptic and should probably not have been driving at all. Admittedly, each of these was a one-time experience, but my thinking has become "if it could happen once, it could happen again". And it has often enough to prove the exception.

So, I live in expectation.

It wasn't until I went outside that I was able to locate the source of the noise and apparent glass breakage. In one of those freakish moments that happen frequently during the grinding season in rural southern Louisiana, a tire had escaped a moving 18-wheeled sugar cane truck, had flown/rolled/crashed into the corner of my house, and had shoved a column of brick away from the outside wall. It also split some wood and send decorative objects flying across the dining room - the source of the breaking glass in the one room I had yet to inspect.

So, I spent the next hour, rocking on the front porch, cup of hot coffee in hand, and watched the Keystone Cops try to figure "wha' happened?"

Gotta love this country livin'!

Waiting for Rita

2005-09-23T14:55:00.000-05:00

It is 2:07 pm, when I would normally be wrapping up the school day, and here I sit at home and at my computer. It was announced yesterday, before we left, that schools would be closed today. We have not yet processed all the fear of Katrina and her aftermath, and now we must react to new fears of Rita.

There is a routine in areas that are consistently visited by the threat of hurricane. You watch every depression that forms during the season and monitor its progress. We know the names of all major storms in the past … oh, 50 years, at least …as well as we know the names of our family members. They are like members of the family – the unwelcome relatives who show up without invitation at family gatherings; the ones who sit at the table with bad manners and vulgar conversation, totally spoiling what should have been a warm, wonderful, and cherished family memory.

Katrina left far too much of herself behind and now Rita is going to do the same.

I didn’t evacuate this time. I think I am far enough east, somewhere here between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and I know I am high enough to be safe from flooding. I felt getting on the road, in the way of others who had to evacuate, might not be the best course, this time.

The morning started warm and drizzly, with the smell of the ocean in the air. That’s usually the first thing I notice. Our typically humid atmosphere takes on the eerie feeling of being closer to the ocean than we really are. I can’t say with any accuracy just how far I am from the gulf, but figuring how far it is from here to Morgan City and then from there to the gulf … and figuring how long it takes me to drive to Grand Isle … well, I guess I am about 150 miles inland. Far enough not to smell the ocean under normal conditions.

The drizzle has segued into a more steady rain and just minutes ago tornado warnings were issued for the parish. I am concerned about that. I will continue to type and reflect while listening for the roar of the train that would indicate it is time to run downstairs, seeking the safety of the cinder block walls of the laundry room, calling for Moose and Bella to follow me or get left behind.

I went out early this morning, while the drizzle was still light enough to barely notice, and moved all the patio furniture inside, along with the potted plants and anything I could carry that might become a flying projectile later on this evening or overnight. I moved the garbage cans into the garage and did a visual check of the yard for anything that might get caught up in the winds and thrown through a window. All part of that routine I mentioned earlier. There are limbs, still, from Katrina that I had intended to burn – before the “no burn” order was issued, due to the drought following the storm. I can do nothing but leave them where they lay.

There is a bit of wind outside, blowing intermittently, not overly gusty at the moment. My apartment is upstairs, surrounded by big old oaks. I always say it is like living in a tree house. There is no one in the main house. The Katrina evacuees returned to their homes near New Orleans last week and are going to ride this one out there. They had no water in their homes with Katrina and feel they will be dry for this one, too – but I insisted they keep the extra key in case they needed to get out in the middle of the night.

They aren’t on the same side as the water that is now re-entering New Orleans, overtopping the levees, re-opening breaches in the levee walls. They should all be safe.

I am more concerned about my neighbors to the south of me … all those little fishing villages with the French names – Pointe-au-Chene; the Fourchon; Chauvin; Dulac. The TV is already showing the roads in those areas completely covered with water. Not still water, but rapidly moving water that looks more like an angry river than an overflow.

It seems southern Louisiana is undergoing another major cosmetic change, before the scars of the last surgery have healed. What will we look like when the bandages come off, when the waters recede? What more will we have learned?

Schooldays

2005-09-06T22:08:00.000-05:00

Today ended like so many other schooldays – days from last school year, when I came home in the afternoon and bustled around to do a little housework, ate a quick sandwich and washed a load of clothes before or after tutoring a student in math or reading or occasionally some other subject. So much like so many other days, except today I continue to carry feelings that I don’t like having; feelings I cannot even express, yet, except for the obvious.

Today was the first day we returned to school after the hurricane. Plans had been made to register those students who had come into the parish for evacuation. No one could predict exactly how many students were here, but we are a small parish – a farming parish, nothing much but sugar cane growing along the side of the road. There are the remnants of sugar mills that once refined hundreds of tons of sugar each year; a few insurance offices, a couple of attorneys, the city hall, the courthouse, a Popeye’s Fried Chicken and a few grocery and hardware stores. We have but four traffic lights in the entire parish. It is a truly rural community.

Predictions were vague, but expectations were for perhaps fifty new students. By the time I left this afternoon, after assisting with getting papers and folders sorted and dropped off at various places, I had counted 137 … and there was a stack of at least fifty more. And that didn’t include the students who registered at another site. This doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you put it in context, it reflects the magnitude of the displacement.

Donations had poured in for uniforms and school supplies – donations from children selling lemonade by the side of the road, boy scouts and girl scouts working together to collect spare change. Each family came through the center that had been set up for registration and filled out the necessary paperwork then went to the tables to choose three uniforms, searching for the right sizes, looking for empty rooms to try them on. Many of the children still wore a look of disbelief – as though they had been suddenly awakened from a deep sleep and were not yet sure they were really awake. As if they were hoping someone would tell them this is all a dream.

I sometimes found myself in the position of trying to make someone comfortable as they waited in long lines to get to see the right person to help them. I would ask them about where they were staying, where they were coming from. And I asked about their homes. I know they are homeless, but they are NOT homeless ... not in the sense that is usually imagined. They have lives – had lives. Lives that were lost through no failing of their own. They need to know that others know that. Sometimes they need to talk.

I spoke to a man from St. Bernard Parish. If you have been listening to the events unfold, you might know this is one of the parishes most heavily hit. Most of the parish is 8 to 10 feet under water. His home had been built on pilings, but the water still rose four feet inside his home. He recounted how, when he saw the water rising, he took his children to the attic. No sooner had he gotten them settled than he heard other children screaming outside. He ran out just in time to grab a child rushing past him in the swollen waters and to scoop another from where he had caught on a fence.

He took the two of them to safety and found two other men to assist him in looking for others. They tied themselves together with water safety vests and began going from house to house. As they found people they would carry them to the second story of a building nearby and continue to look for others. Finally they found some boats and the task became easier.

An older woman told of seeing an elderly man in front of her snatched away by an alligator. Another told of wading past the bodies of babies who had drowned.

At one point I just looked around the room, at the shear numbers of people in our small community who had lost, literally, everything they had worked their entire lives to build; people who had had dreams and had worked to make those dreams come true; people who had believed that if they worked hard for something it could be theirs forever; people who continued to look for hope with grace and dignity. Sometimes, however, I saw the despair that was fighting just below the surface, struggling to reach out and around them and to pull them totally under.

It was then I would walk down the hall to the ladies room, lock myself in one of the stalls, and cry for all the dreams that would never live again.

Who was it who said, “The worst pain of all is the grief for what will never be”?

Day Five of Fury

2005-09-04T05:02:00.000-05:00

I read another comment today - this time from someone in the UK whom I summarily blasted - about the deplorable way in which New Orleans and Louisiana responded to the needs of their impoverished citizens prior to the storm, not taking the necessary measures to evacuate more people, save more lives. I am again appalled at the simplicity of thinking that generates these sorts of comments. The dilemma of poverty in America is not so simple, the blame neither so easily placed nor so readily deserved.

There were many reasons for people remaining behind to await the storm - very few had to do with the ability to leave, except where transportation was truly lacking, but rather with the lack of choice of where to go. The impoverished were offered transportation - to the shelter of the Superdome, which only afterward became a poor choice. In previous storms, the Dome has been a semi-comfortable shelter for many people. Not home, but not desolate. It was the best we had to offer, considering the unpredictable nature of the storm. What if the city had sent people in the direction the storm chose to take? What then? What would have been the analysis then?

And this storm was mightier, much mightier, than any storm for many years. For the first time in 25 years, I evacuated. I felt this one was different. I was scared, and I have never feared a storm in my life, having grown up with tornadoes and having lived these past years with hurricanes. I am one of those who sit on the porch to watch the fury of nature. But this one ... my god, it was big. So big. To see the map and this damned storm covering the gulf from shore to shore, filling it to overflowing, no sign of the ocean waters beneath ... and to see that eye, tight, powerful, holding on to so much force. And to see just how far from the eye were the winds. No one should have been able to look at that and stayed behind. No one. But anyone looking at that must have wondered, as did I, just how far must I go to get away?

We drove, my daughter and I, for twelve hours. Due north. Roads to the west were jammed and roads to the east were still in the possible path for far too many miles for me to trust them. We drove north, into Arkansas; the first hotel available was 9 hours away. I have friends living a few hours beyond that, so we drove further.

I am sure the world will always believe that the poor were left to perish. But the world sees what the media shows and only that. After all, how newsworthy are the white folks who stayed behind because they didn't want to leave? Of course, that would put an entirely different spin on the story.

Not that poverty isn't an issue, but not for the reasons the media implies or the world infers. The reasons are much more complicated. I strongly believe that if the city had offered free lodging in hotels in Houston and Dallas and Memphis and had presented a streamlined charter bus with full-screen TVs for in-route movies, and all the food they could eat, very few of the impoverished would have remained in the city. The fact is, riding out the storm was a helluva lot more exciting than sitting it out in the Superdome.

I also strongly believe a certain contingent of those who remained behind in the center of the city did so in order to take advantage of the situation. If you are a thief and I tell you everyone in town is going to be gone for twelve hours ... everyone ... would you not stay? Yes, I am quite sure there were many of those who are looting now - for merchandise, not for food - who saw this as an opportunity.

As for the wealthy white population ... I suppose it is because they are so rich that so many are still awaiting evacuation, still in shelters, still wondering where they are going to live.Yes, the wealthy have more options. It has always been this way, and it will remain this way. With means comes opportunity. It is this that inspires people to achieve wealth. It is this that is the basis for our democratic, economically republic society. We have, as a country, denounced economic systems that prohibit or even limit the commerce that makes wealth possible. We actively seek to force our economic system and standards onto other nations. We can't have it both ways. If we have economic competition, we will continue to have those who achieve and those who do not. How can we, then, pass judgment when the system works in exactly this way?

Yes, the wealthy had a place to go and the means to get there on their own. The poor had the option of public transportation to public shelters. Many of the poor did stay because they could not afford to go anywhere but to these shelters, and shelters are not attractive in the best of times. I am curious as to what supports other countries - which are so quick to criticize - have in place to accommodate one million plus evacuees. I am sure we could learn from your example. What do you have set up to offer them as immediate, emergency housing? What do you have to offer for transportation to the sites, other than buses?

Remember, although we know these storms are coming, we cannot predict exactly where - and the when is predictable within only a few days, most of the time. I suppose a mobile evacuation site would be the answer. I suppose other countries have this - to accommodate one million plus people? And of course they have reserves of food and water stored there, with bedding and blankets? And doctors, hundreds of doctors and nurses, waiting for days, just in case ... And of course they have enough vehicles to provide the transportation?

As for the looting ... remember, most of those looting had nothing before the storm damage. Now many of them have wide-screen TVs. The local news media has made little reference to those who are looting for food, water, essentials, other than to say it is happening and to comment on the desperation. It is the looting for electronics, jewelry, guns, etc, that most of us living this madness have a problem with. And to tell you the truth, I have little problem with that. Where the heck are they going to plug in that big ol’ TV? How are they going to protect it from the rising water? How are they going to escape the typhus and other dreadful diseases they will contract from walking in that polluted water? My theory is, let them loot and drown with their plunder. But then, I have never believed we can "fix" everything. Some things are way too far beyond our control. Let nature take its course. It usually wins.

Was poverty an issue in the number left behind, the number left to be rescued, the number left to die? Of course, it is an issue. It is always an issue. Poverty has been an issue for years in this country. However, where was the indignation of the national leaders, the national black leaders, before the storm? How many millions of dollars have other nations sent to the US to save our starving children? How man of those in this country raising money for those in others have acknowledged that we have a huge problem with poverty and hunger and the diseases they beget right here on our one doorstep? Why did you wait until now to get angry about this? And when are you going to DO something?
.

When I grow up ..

2004-12-29T10:12:00.000-06:00

I woke to my usual routine ... turned on the computer, set the pot of coffee to brew, walked back to the computer to dial up and log in; while that was happening ... s l o w l y ... I let the dog out, walked back to the kitchen to fix the first cup - just a little half n half (prefer the real thing, but sometimes settle for the white stuff and only drink it light when I make it myself or order it in a cafe/coffee house in southern Louisiana - otherwise it is too weak to take the jolt); I let the dog back in, head back to the computer with the coffee cup warming the palm of my hand and easing the morning arthritic ache in my fingers, then click on my 'favorites'.

There's the folder here of MSN Groups, one of Blogs and a special one for Poetry Sites. I often save that one for last. It is a savoring experience. One most enjoyed when approached tentatively - with the electricity of anticipation, the yearning built from abstinence, and the knowledge that fulfillment will be sure and complete.

It was. A favorite site is Poetry Daily, http://poems.com/. This morning my foraging brought me to a poem by William Greenway, which is a jewel in itself ...

The insurance will pay for nine
pills a month, he says. Out of what
hat did they pull that number?
- from Aesop at Sixty

Having falling immediately in love with a man who could write so eloquently, honestly and sincerely about the pills to enhance erectile dysfunction, I had to know more about him. And, in my foraging through google, I found this most delicious quote which contains a most delicious quote:

To live without poetry is to risk living only on the surface. I like what William Carlos Williams says:

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

All these writers urge me to do all I can to spread the word that poetry is not a hobby, but a way of living more fully.
- poet William Greenway

For me, too, poetry is not a hobby. I came to poetry late ... to steal from another quote ... and I could say it has transformed who I am. But the really telling effect is that it has transformed who I want to be.

Somewhere in Between

2004-12-28T23:10:00.000-06:00

We are between the holidays, now, and there is nothing particularly outstanding about how southern Louisiana spends this time compared to other places. Lots of folks are exchanging Christmas presents and lots of others are out scooping up after Christmas sales … you know, the usual, materialistic American activity.

I am painting, mostly. I have not yet moved into the apartment I am preparing, because I am still painting the walls a pale yellow and the trim a linen white … on the advice of a friend … ahem! Seriously, it was the best advice anyone has given me in quite some time that I actually acted upon, and the results are … what word should I use? … sublime, perfection, exquisite. Perhaps there is not just one word that tells how totally perfect the results are proving to be.

Of course, I had to attempt a variation on the theme by bringing in a few contrasting colors, and, thus, the task has taken longer than anticipated ... as I have had to paint over the contrasting colors. After two successes and two disasters I have committed to finishing the job with no more experimentation. One can overdo a good thing.

My younger daughter is in Orlando, seeing Disney World with the family of a friend and preparing for the LSU bowl game on New Year’s Day, and the older daughter has not yet arrived for her intended visit. And I am contemplating the space in between.

That space that I always seem to find to be so fascinating. It shows up in the oddest places. Today it was the random first-time meeting of someone who not only knew a truly special friend of mine, but who was also present at his funeral when I sobbed my way through a poem I read in memoriam. I was reminded how much I miss my friend and what a large space he has left behind.

Those of you who are artists will understand the difference between painting the line and painting the shadow; between painting a figure and painting the space around the figure. Well, I sometimes cannot resist contemplating the space that has no figure for contrast; the space that is contrast. The space that my friend, Bill, left is that sort of space. All contrast.

You know, he always said some day I would write about him. I never wanted to admit he was right.

2004-12-24T09:50:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas, sha'!

and so it is … Cajun Christmas

2004-12-24T09:40:00.000-06:00

From the outside looking in, on first glance, there is nothing much different about Christmas way down South. But, of course, one cannot stand outside around here without being invited in for the traditional spicy, hot gumbo with a heap of potato salad sitting right there on top. To be honest, not everyone eats it that way. Over the years, those with aspirations of rising to the top of the Cajun social ladder began to eat their potato salad on the side. Such a pity! The blending of the flavors and the hot and the cold … well, as they say ‘round here … it makes ya wanna slap ya momma!

One of the grander traditions on the bayou is the lighting of the bonfires to show the way for Pere Noel. There are a few folks, still, who build there own and gather around with their families on Christmas Eve to light the flames and toast the tradition. But there are also entire communities who have adopted this tradition in a large way. They build hundreds of bonfires on the levee of the Mighty Mississippi, and this evening thousand will gather as the fires are lit.

And as people walk around, from one bonfire to another, folks in the community gather in their front yards to offer the warming bowl of gumbo to those who are otherwise strangers. Cajuns do know how to warm the spirit while warming the body. Most importantly, they seem to instinctively know that nurturing the spirit takes precedence.

Most of us have altered the tradition to allow for Christmas lights, hung from the eaves or draping the doorways and hugging the bushes. The effort is still made, by those of us living on the bayou, to shine the brightest lights in order to show the way. You can drive either side of the bayou and find houses all along the way brightly lit with the hope of Christmas. I admit I am particularly fond of this tradition, and I also indulge in the decorations. My bushes are hugged and my doorway is draped as I sit in anticipation of the magic of the season … the magic that lights the way for us all.

There's a cold moon smiling in a blue denim sky ...

2004-12-14T18:03:00.000-06:00

... and the weatherman says 'a hard freeze tonight'. Seems drying trends came this way in a big way, and with the dry cold winter wind the temps are dropping. Last night we sank as low as 32 Fahrenheit degrees, but tonight we will see it drop to around 25, with wind chill … well, if you’re unfortunate enough to be outside when the temperature drops that low, wind chill isn’t much of a factor for you, anyway.

Since I must be at work by 7:15 in the morning, I will be one of the unfortunates. That’s what they make coats for … and gloves … and stockings and boots and socks and long underwear, if need be. I have some of each, although they don’t get much wear.

Last night I brought in the delicate vegetation, except for the ficus tree - it’s wearing a trash bag, cinched tight around the pot, lest some wily breeze finds its way in. Bella the Cat thinks all these plants are just for her and has spent most of the hours since huddled down between the pots, staring through the spider fronds, green eyes shining with delight.

I’ve covered the faucets and drained the outside pipes and taken the gumbo out of the freezer for supper tonight. Except for the gumbo, I usually don’t go through this routine until sometime in January, but this winter is following a schedule all its own.

So, I’m just reading the sky and awaiting my instructions.

Music to Raise the Spirit (of the Dead or Almost)

2004-12-06T01:17:00.000-06:00

The suggestion was made recently, by my older daughter- who is more observant than I sometimes give her credit for - that I should listen less to depressing music and more to music of an upbeat and lilting nature. Actually, what she said was, “If I listened to that music all day long, I’d want to kill myself!” Since the thought of self-demise has crossed my mind a time or two in my life, I wondered if she might be onto something. So, I began a campaign to listen only to optimistic, uplifting, inspirational tunes.

I began with Yo-Yo Ma and a bit of Beethoven, Bach and Mozart “show tunes”. The latter, I thought, would be a ‘two birds with one stone’ – having read that the music of Mozart increases the learning potential of the listener, opens the brain pan or some such thing. Mine has felt a little tight, lately.

It was not altogether a fruitless experiment, in spite of some poor choices. I actually felt my outlook brighten. But, then, we had a few days of uncommon heat and blinding sun, so one could not be totally convinced of a connection.

Therefore, strictly for the sake of scientific study, and being once again consumed in layers of partly cloudy and chance of showers, I turned off the CDs and switched on the radio, tuned to a station playing only Christmas music. Now, tell me, who can be sad and disheartened when inundated with the lyrics and tones of “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” or “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire?” And if that doesn’t get the love light burning, there’s always “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

It’s not that I have a particular complaint about the season, or even about the music – if a song were played, say, once every six or eight hours. However, the station apparently has but a few Christmas albums, something stuck back in the closet for lo’ these many years, and it is these few that are played over and over and over. I counted, in one hour, three “White Christmases” one “Chestnut” and two “Rudolphs” with his blinkin' nose!

To be quite honest, I’m not certain I can handle this much happiness. I’m thinking it might be about time for an evening of Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams, maybe a little Simon and Garfunkel – sitting in my rocker, lights off, wrapped securely in that old, worn Army shirt with the cut off sleeves that served some time in Vietnam, and a glass of wine in hand. Now, that’s my idea of a ‘fun’ ‘uplifting’ evening at home.

Cheers!

Off the Cuff

2004-11-20T14:51:00.000-06:00

It's just one of those days when I have nothing much to say and a burning desire to say it all. Perhaps it's the gloom and drear of a day intense with rain - the sort that soaks everything through and chills to the bone. It is the rainy season, afterall. Although, truth be told, I'm still not quite certain which time of year is not the rainy season. Fall and winter seem worse, I think, because once things get really wet, the chill never seems to leave until around the end of April - when we jump feet first into the heat of summer.

Although, to use the term "fall" is mostly poetic license. There is not enough seasonal variation around here to claim four seasons. It's either wet and cold and winter or hot and steamy and summer. I miss the other two seasons, but mostly fall. We had a day or two earlier that looked like they were thinking of fall. And maybe, if the rain moves on over to the east, we may get a couple days more by the end of next week.

In the meantime I am staying high and dry, painting the apartment cornsilk yellow, denim blue and brickred. That should be cheerful enough to chase the dreary right on out of here. If not, I will follow up with a frozen Marguerita and a little Latin Salsa on the stereo or maybe a corny, feel-good movie. Shoot, enough tequila usually sets anything right!

Like a fine wine ...

2004-11-05T20:24:00.000-06:00

Life is a curious thing. Curious in the way it progresses in some order that may be called natural by the logical, but which is continuously surprising to the rest of us. I sometimes, without willing it, take enough steps back from my life to see with new eyes. Someone else’s eyes. I often think they may be the eyes of my mother.

And in those moments the longing for her presence is nearly unbearable. I want her to see me, now; hear me, now; read me, now. I know she would smile that enigmatic smile that always said so much by saying so little. A gentle “I told you so,” in a smile. Not smugly or condescendingly, but with acceptance and that patience I never seemed to learn, in spite of her many tireless efforts to teach me.

I miss her more with each day as I grow into the fullness of my own life. The past few years, the maturing of my own two daughters, the progressing of our relationships into the sweetness that only comes with age, has made me cherish all the more the too little time I spent with my mother in later years.

I wish I had known then how much our children mean to us as we grow older. Had I understood better how special those moments together are – how much they mean to the parent – I might have been more generous with the time I had to give.

My memories are sweet – bittersweet. And while I do not demand or expect or even need my children to spend more time with me, my joy in their presence is the greatest joy of my living. Each moment we have together makes me more aware of the wholeness of my life with them … because of them.

Even as briefly as six months ago, I would never have thought the greatest “cause” in my life would be to laugh with my children. I cannot tell you what has created this new awareness other than the wisdom of maturity. I can only profess my gratitude and my sense of wonder.

My children are my center. It is sad, perhaps, that I am learning this late in life, but, then again, perhaps it is only later in life that we have perspective to see from this direction. And maybe by sharing this thought, I will encourage some who are younger than I to be more cognizant of the moments.

If your mother is still with you, give her more of your time. Be aware of her need to feel connected to you. And feel the blessing you are to her.

... and Thursdays are for

2004-10-29T08:41:00.000-05:00

Just as Tuesdays are for wood turning, Thursdays are for pottery. Only now, having finished six weeks of hand building with clay, we are learning to paint - pleasant things like bamboo and lotus flowers. This, too, brings its own satisfaction as the classes take place in an old Cajun cottage, restored to house a pottery shop and museum. The history still lives in the cypress boards of the walls and floors - a history of hard working days and warm family nights.

The teacher is a transplanted Brit, with a patient and gentle teaching style, sprinkled with subtle humor, just a hint of mischief, and always a love and passion for his art. In the background are soft, musical tones designed to soothe and relax and by my right hand, just far enough from range to not be mistaken for the water bowl, is a plastic glass of homemade beer. This evening it is a nut brown ale brought to class for us to try by one of the class members.

When it comes time for us to practice, I dip my brush in the black ink and practice the strokes ... and practice the strokes ... and practice the strokes. I don't even pause to wonder what the world is doing. And I don't feel at all guilty for doing nothing to change it. This is my contribution, such as it is. I find places to feel at peace with myself. In this way I am able to be more at peace with others.

Perhaps I sound like one of those older women who have too much time and too little focus. You know, the sort who failed to become deeply entrenched in the world of work and climb the ladder to success.

The sort who chose instead to pursue endeavors that brought with them emotional and personal rewards.

The sort of woman who, upon reaching a certain age, begins to question the direction her life has taken and comes to the not unpleasant realization that the choices, overall, have been good.

The sort who believes the best is yet to come, and it is still unlikely to be found in the pursuit of monetary reward.

The sort who is becoming more herself and less a stranger every day.

I guess I might have made something more of myself. I guess I might have earned more money or achieved more notice or gained more prestige.

On the other hand ... I guess not.

Still here, but not here

2004-10-27T06:16:00.000-05:00

I have not fallen from the earth or buried myself at sea or drifted into that realm of never to return. I am still right here, squatting on the bayou, watching the water of Bayou Lafourche meander right on past my back door. Life is full of things, at the moment, that would distract me from writing.

Tuesday evening is for wood-turning. Yes, I am a complete convert, totally immersed, loving the distraction and intensity. I think the attraction is due to two things lacking in other endeavors. Firstly, the results are immediately reinforcing. I can see the quick alteration of shape, and progress is swift and pleasing. As opposed to teaching where you put your back and heart into it and then hold onto the hope that one day your efforts will produce effective change.

Seldom do we see the progress or our students or the alteration of shape. In fact, more and more, in recent days, I have begun to question whether we are, indeed, producing a generation of lifelong learners. My appraisal tells me we are producing a generation of learners who can pass a standardized test. Not a skill they will be likely to use very often over their lifetime. And quite likely, the pursuit of this end has effectively reduced the likelihood of ever developing the love of lifelong learning in the majority of our students.

It has most decidedly reduced the love of teaching for the majority of our teachers.

Returning to the subject of wood on the lathe, the second reason I am finding this so satisfying and addictive is the impossibility of thinking of anything else while that lathe is turning. With the wheel spinning and the knives cutting and the wood shavings flying, I must be fully there, concentrating only on the position of the knife against the wood - not too high or I might get a kick back and not too low or I might get pulled in underneath, causing all sorts of unpleasant grinding noises and running the risk of serious injury. In fact, the constant threat of serious injury - cutting off a finger or damaging an entire hand - demands I stay focused as nothing else in my life does.

So, in this state of complete and focused concentration, with the whirring of the machine and the smell of the wood occupying my senses, I have found a sort of meditation - a resting of my mind. Then and only then I have no opportunity to think of other things, not the worries of the world or even the demands of my own little corner. It is a most pleasant place to be.

The Waning Gibbous Moon

2004-09-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I go for days and days without writing anything of meaning in the writerly sense. I answer email at work and write lesson plans. I write IEPs (a monster known only to the teachers of special education) and transition plans (a similar monster but with one head instead of two). I write grocery lists and to-do lists and phone numbers. But all of that, while involving the application of pen to paper, fails to bring the sense of satisfaction with the world that I find when writing things of a totally non-utilitarian nature.

What I need, to find my happy place, is to throw words on paper - words that flow from one to the next with meaning only in the movement. Failing that I find myself sinking, albeit slowly, into a place where the light is less than bright and skies have never heard of blue and the air … the air is damp and sickly, filling the body with mold that settles into corners which may never feel clean again.

For the past week or so I have found myself in just such a place. Now here I am, outside looking in, and wondering what the heck I’m doing here. Whose life is this, anyway? I don’t recall ever wanting to do half of the things I spend most of my time doing. But here I am.

I know. Some probably will think it self-indulgent to feel one should have a choice in everything one does. I, however, tend to think it is in the choosing that we live a life of meaning. And at the moment I feel as though I have opened a Webster’s Third New International or an Oxford Annotated only to discover they are both incomplete. The words are all there, in a neat alphabetical list, but it is my job to write the definitions. Knowing I will never finish, I am reluctant even to begin.

Perhaps it is the waning of the full moon. I wrote a poem once about the waning gibbous moon. I knew a man once who taught me all the phases, and I liked the sound of that one. Words, after all, are mostly about sound. Their meaning is found in the sound they leave in the air as they fly forth from our tongue.

I would never choose to write the definitions.

Good News, Bad News

2004-09-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

It seems there is no good way to say one is grateful that catastrophe did not visit one's front door - when one knows it is because catastrophe went elsewhere. I am glad the danger has passed us by, but I am saddened there is danger for others.

If you cared enough to check the coordinates and track the path of this storm, you will know by now that Ivan is unleashing his wrath on Mobile, Alabama. What we experienced, just to the west of New Orleans, was tropical breezes that allowed us to stay outdoors all day and enjoy the sunshine.

Much preferable to being indoors, behind windows covered with plywood, in a home feeling too much like a tomb.

Ivan, Monday, 5 AM

2004-09-15T05:25:00.000-05:00

Coordinates of Ivan - 26.1 N, 87.7 W. Hurricane tracking. We have children here who can't read, yet, but can plot the path of a hurricane. And others whose families have memories so painful or so fearful they faithfully leave town 48 hours in advance of the storm.

I asked my own college-age daughter not to come home for this one. She's great company, and I will and do miss her, but there is really nothing she can do here - except listen to the wind and the rain once it begins. She'll have quite enough going on in Baton Rouge

As for me this morning, I'm watching the animals. Animals seem to know more than we know, much sooner. I have one dog and one cat, each acquired after the demise of relationships I thought would last forever. As I am in the process of moving from a large house to a smallish apartment, I've got no room for more pets - so I've decided to avoid intense relationships.

When I arrived home yesterday afternoon, the two of them were in anxiety mode. Perhaps they were absorbing my own tension - more than perhaps. But they were whining and rubbing and seeking my attention as they normally don't do. This morning, now that the major preparations have been made and I am more relaxed into the waiting, Bella is busying herself with her morning ablution, and Moose is curled in his bed after an early morning "walk."

It is not yet daylight, and I sit here watching the news. They are showing overhead shots of traffic on the interstate backed up from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Those folks have been leaving New Orleans since yesterday afternoon or earlier. I have no regrets about staying.

But then, I'm not 9 feet below sea level.

Ivan the Terrible

2004-09-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know, I live close enough to the Gulf of Mexico to be concerned about the presence of any hurricane that makes it this far. Ivan is a bother. Without being too specific, I will say I am currently west of the strike zone, but not sufficiently west to ignore the need for necessary precaution. Our parish was issued a voluntary evacuation order about 1:30 this afternoon. Parts of the parish are now under mandatory evacuation – mostly those living in low-lying areas or in mobile homes.

Neither of those describes me. I feel relatively secure, well out of the danger of flooding, but there are windows to be boarded up and patio furniture to be stored in the garage and potted plants to removed to a safer haven. Garbage cans must be put away and all items that one might usually have in one’s garden or patio area that can become dangerous as flying objects have to be stored somewhere out of the direct path of the wind that is predicted.

So, I was more than a bit miffed when our school officials insisted on a full day of school today. I could think of nothing more than how much work I had to do before the rain begins. Because once it begins, it will not stop for at least 24 hours. And mucking about in the rain is not my idea of a great time.

I was doubly miffed when I left school to go to the bank for cash in case of emergencies and discovered my bank had closed at noon today – with no warning! Now, that’s a heck of a thing, since they know full well that many people will need cash to get out of town. By that time today, all hotels in Louisiana were full and folks were having to make reservations as far away as Dallas, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee. Fortunately, I’m not planning on going anywhere. I have a couple of friends coming to stay who are more than a little skittish over the storm. But I would still like to have more than nine dollars in my wallet. Bless the checks and the credit cards!

(I know – I should move on to ATMs, but to tell you the truth, ATM machines seem unsafe to me. They make me a little skittish!)

So, here I sit, in my self-constructed cave, eating pasta and drinking Chardonnay and listening to Nora Jones and Andrea Bocelli and wondering at the pleasures of simple things – of living not with wealth but with the richness of finding joy in the moment.

Even moments such as these.

I will be recoding periodic updates, for those who wish to check back from time to time. Pictures will be forthcoming, for those who’ve never seen sandbags and boards. And for as long as I am able, I will photograph trees swaying in the breeze from the shelter of my front porch.

Left Brain, Right Brain: Battle of the Hemispheres

2004-09-12T13:29:00.000-05:00

Having, apparently, no dominant hemisphere, my left brain seems to be in continual defiance of my right brain and vice versa. I write with my right hand, handle many tools with my left; I press the strings of the dulcimer with my left hand, but strum with the right hand pulling the pick toward me, instead of away as most people play. I conjure the most impossible schemes, then take out pencil and paper to map, list or chart ways to achieve them.

Generally, however, I am able to focus the side of the brain needed to accomplish whatever task is at hand. Today, it would seem, as I rode ‘round and ‘round on the tractor, cutting grass I had neglected for several weeks, I was thinking too far to the right. I was considering how some people simply do not fit in the environment in which they are born.

In particular, I was reflecting on two students I work with, both quite gifted. Student A is mechanically gifted and cares little for academia - give him an engine to redesign or the task of creating an implement to achieve a certain mechanical task, and leave him alone to do it, and he will outperform most others. But he does not do well in school and is quite miserable and creates misery for his teachers who consider him to be obstinate and non-compliant.

Student B is academically gifted and has taught himself many things beyond the level of his peers. He would learn best if he were allowed to teach the class - sort of on-the-job training. But this is not acceptable to our way of doing things and, therefore, while he is generally quite happy, he creates a bit of misery for his teachers who consider him to be arrogant and non-compliant.

I can’t come up with a valid argument for compliance for either of these young men. Sometimes the adjustment to one’s environment exacts too great a penalty on the conforming personality. Something very rare and precious is lost. I think that will be the case for each of these students, and I am not proud of my complicity in achieving this end.

So I was, contemplating the process of individuation, and how this might best be accomplished within a system which follows too closely a more scientific framework - a substantive misinterpretation of John Dewey - and singing “A Bridge over Troubled Waters.” It was about at that point in my own reverie, as I reached the last beat of “I will lay me down,” that I barreled forward in my pursuit of reaching the hard to reach corners of the yard and hit a brick wall, literally, managing somehow to break the tractor’s steering mechanism.

Now I am faced with not one conundrum, but with two. And the right brain has no bright ideas for the left brain to map out on paper.

I clearly need both Student A and Student B.

September 11 - An International Day of Poetry

2004-09-11T11:02:00.000-05:00

Dare to dream.

Please visit and read http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/.

2004-08-31T23:07:00.000-05:00

My first, but not my last

In Love, For the First Time, All Over Again

2004-08-31T22:26:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure how, when or where my affection for wood first developed. As far back as I can remember, the warping and weaving of the grain lines have been a fascination to me. I can remember, even as a very little girl, eagerly counting the lines to determine the age, trying to read the history of the tree from the varying widths of concentric circles. The more pronounced striations created by intrusions of plants and animals and disease as the tree aged held their own special interest. And the smell! There is nothing as heavenly as the pungent smells of pine or cedar and the more subtle aroma of oak or walnut. And of course, the smell of cypress.

But it is the caress of a smoothly sanded piece of wood that is the most alluring. When the grain has been worn and hewn and sanded until it is as smooth as glass, smoother than glass – this is when affection turns to love.

Tonight, I had the golden opportunity to turn my first piece of wood on a lathe. I never cease to be amazed by the talent of those around me. That I have come to know, over the years, so many people with so much talent who are so generous to want to share that with others is a source of continuous astonishment. I am very pleased to know the husband of a very special friend of mine who is quite adept at turning wood and at handling wood in general. He is quite well known along the bayou for his ability to fashion any number of useful and decorative items, including Cajun pirogues, using traditional methods.

For a number of years, now, he has been turning wood, creating bowls of varying sizes, goblets, and merely decorative pieces. He neither sells nor gives his creations away – at least not intentionally. Those who know him well have been known to procure an item or two. But, generally, if you want something from him, he suggests you come to his shop and make it yourself.

So, tonight I took on the challenge. I showed up, this Tuesday night with the wood turners, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, ready to get in amongst them. If the other men there were surprised to see a woman in their “clubhouse,” they were gracious enough not to show it. On the contrary, they encouraged me and good naturedly revealed their own blunders as they were learning and even after they felt somewhat adept, in an effort to set me at ease.

Surprisingly, for one who has always been intimidated by power tools, I felt no hesitation at all. I eagerly took each tool into hand after a brief demonstration of the use and went right to work to try to imitate what I had been shown. My mentor first cut a small block of wood, about six inches square and five inches high, from a piece of mimosa he had been fortunate enough to find. This is a particularly fine piece of wood, amazing for its size, as mimosa generally does not get old enough to grow so large or develop such variations. He cut for me just a small piece from the larger whole, but I was decidedly pleased and honored that he chose to share it with me. The two or three men there with us were quick to inform me he had not shared any of this particular wood with them.

My teacher set the piece up on the lathe, tightened what needed to be tightened, then leaned over and flipped the switch. As the block turned, he showed me how to use first the gouge to level the outside and then the blades to smooth the finish. When that was about as smooth as it could get without sanding, he showed me how to begin work on the inside. I continued gouging and cutting and shaving until the bottom began to take shape, the inside walls began to thin out and the whole began to look like a bowl. Sanding came last, working through various grades of sandpaper from coarse to fine, from 80 to 120, etc, and finally to 400, until the wood began to sing and to shine and to wink in the reflection of light from the overhead gooseneck lamp.

And while the visual transformation was incredible to behold, it was the feel – the sensual transformation – that, to me, held the most satisfaction. My guide was anxious that I should have something to take home on my first night at the lathe. But had I felt more confident in speaking up and less conscious of his hospitality and generosity - his eagerness for my success - I might have said to him that I wanted to go more slowly. I wanted to take each step in slow and steady paces, stopping frequently along the way to feel each stage of the process. To fall completely in love with one phase before moving slowly on to the next.

But there will be a next time. And I have a feeling that in woodturning, as in love, each time will feel as though it were the first time, all over again.

Coffee at the Corner Cafe

2004-08-26T21:25:00.000-05:00

We stopped somewhere at a corner café
for coffee, hot, fresh brewed, hand ground
beans of what still might have been.

Sliding softly into seats yet warm from our departure,
He asked how are your children, I replied
they’re fine, then took my turn to ask how’s yours?

Your hair is longer, shorter, darker.

You’ve lost, gained, look happy.

Have you stopped, started, finished?

When, just yet, I still, almost.

And when the cups were cold, a breeze picked up downriver
breathing evening gently in our face,
reminding us, again, where it was we’re going
and how quickly we should be to get there in our time.

Well, it’s been good, looking great.

We really should, again, more often.

Then walked away, back to back,
pocketing the call we’ll never make,
the phone we keep on silent.

ma 8.26.04

I Need a Smaller Plate

2004-08-24T19:26:00.000-05:00

I had an appointment with my hairdresser/counselor today. I used to go for therapy a couple of times a month. You know, to deal with all that dysfunction we are so famous for here in the South. But I have learned over the years it is just as effective to go get my hair cut. So, I schedule regular sessions, and she cuts, colors, goops and twirls.

All the while she listens, nods in the affirmative at all the right places and pulls out the common sense when my own is running low. She also makes a perfect cup of coffee and offers wine in both red and white, chilled or not, as you like it. The music is low and soothing, the hair washing is a total scalp massage, and the ambience is … ambient.

Today I went bald. I walked in with more stress than I normally choose to carry and way more than I want at this time in my life, and I walked out lighter than air. Partially due to the severe lessening of tresses, but mostly due to the severe lessening of stresses.

Emma, the name by which my therapist/hairdresser is addressed, helped me see it is not that my plate is too full. The problem is I need a smaller plate. I am filling a plate that would feed a 400 pound Amazon gorilla, and I really only need something the size of a saucer. Because no matter the size, I will fill it to overflowing.

But overflowing a saucer would require a lot less stress than overfilling, say, a turkey platter.

And I just might be able to carry more hair on the head where it matters the most.

In Memoriam

2004-08-16T19:46:00.000-05:00

I could write of much today, the beginning of the school year, the unseasonably cool and pleasant weather we are having, the fury and destruction of Hurricane Charlie. There is much in one’s life of which to write. The subjects we choose for wordy embellishment are, perhaps, a reflection of one’s nature. Presuming that to be the case, one may then make the leap - albeit a large one, to be sure - to assume the subjects that garner the most words in the popular press are a reflection of the nature of the culture which supports that press.

It is the passing, in the same weekend, of Czeslaw Milosz and Julia Child which have caused me to pause and consider those people whom the populace of this nation revere. While I am certain Mrs. Child was a worthy influence on many people, I must still consider, in the scheme of things, in the relentless forward movement of life, which of these two will be of the most lasting and pervasive influence? And feeling, as I do, that the words of Czeslaw Milosz will inspire many future generations, long after Julia has passed gently into history, I am saddened that more was not made of his passing. In this part of this country, at least … down here on the bayou.

Or, to borrow from John Donne, "... any man's death diminishes me." But, admittedly, some more than others.

Having said that, I will say no more, but will, instead, conclude with a quote that presents a somewhat harsh critique ofwhat we choose to read and to write while paralleling my own intense comfort in finding poetry, late.

“What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song for drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.”

from Dedication by Czeslaw Milosz, 1911-2004

The Shade of the Hawthorne

2004-08-09T22:44:00.000-05:00

The Hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age or whispering lovers made.
Oliver Goldsmith

I’m feeling a little raw this evening, exposed, vulnerable, overly sensitive to the heartbeat and breath of life. One of those times when the one less layer of skin is most apparent, when each twig broken with each step, each rustle of leaf in the wind, each blink of a star in the evening sky is a metaphor of profound significance. And each profundity brings renewed sensitivity to the bittersweetness of life.

Bella and I watched a curious scene this afternoon. Bella is a calico with short legs and a charming nick in her left ear that appears to be a sort of female feline embellishment. She is naughty and flirtatious and whimsical. All the right characteristics … for a cat. With a generous dose of the requisite curiosity.

This afternoon I was pulled from my latest art project - an attempt to duplicate a style of painting for my daughter with modifications that will make it compatible with her college room décor. (She may be overestimating my abilities, somewhat.) But it was a soft, almost imperceptible “cheep! cheepcheep!” that brought me to the foyer where Bella was already enthralled by the source of the chirping.

There, through the front window, we could see what appeared to be a mama bird calling her young ones from their nest. The mama sat on the front porch rocker, cheeping her gentle cheep, as one by one a smaller bird emerged from the Hawthorn bush planted nearby. As each came forward from the shade of the leaves, he first perched on the arm of the rocker, where he added some chirps of his own. Then mama flew to a branch in the Crepe Myrtle and baby soon followed.

With this bird safely in the arms of the Crepe Myrtle tree, mama bird would return to the rocking chair and call forth another bird. And the sequence was repeated. One after one they emerged, four in all. The last, as if reluctant to leave what he knew for the world that he didn’t, returned briefly to sit on the arm of the rocker once again. But mama was insistent, and baby very quickly flew off again to follow her and to ultimately seek the world beyond the shade of the Hawthorn bush.

Throughout this tableau, Bella sat, nose to the glass, with an occasional backward glance at me as if to say, “Do you see this? Are you watching? Can you tell me what it means?”

She seems to seek the metaphor as well.

My Name is on the Deed

2004-07-31T10:16:00.000-05:00

One of the things I learned as a child back in some social studies class in Memphis, Tennessee, is that bodies, in Louisiana, are buried above ground. That is and isn’t true, depending on the latitude at which one is buried as well as the money one has to spend on burial and whether one has had the forethought to buy/build a crypt. And most of those have a section below ground, which serves its own purpose.

Now, people here don’t usually talk about this. I can’t say that I blame them. Death is only slightly less offensive than burial. On the other hand, I learned, after moving here, that death is pretty much taken as it comes, right along with marriage and birth and whatever major milestones a life might have.

I had never been to a funeral or seen a person after death before I moved here. I grew up in the city and had few relatives in my life circle. Besides which, Granny would have thought it inappropriate to take a child to a funeral. Granny had some very specific opinions on what was and was not appropriate. For instance, you never, ever, for any reason went downtown or to a hospital without “dressing up.” Both occasions, regardless of purpose, were a call for “Sunday clothes” and nothing less. I can still recall the look on Granny’s face the time one of my older sisters arrived at the hospital to visit her after one of her heart emergencies. I thought the shorts and man’s t-shirt were going send Granny right on over. She rallied, though, to reign again and to often remind us of Sister Sue’s lack of respect.

I’m afraid that’s wandering off the subject . Besides which, Granny deserves her own space in this journal. Several spaces, to be sure.

Cemeteries here are filled with mausoleums and above-ground vaults. These vaults are built in rows, like condominiums for the dead, several “stories” high and a basement. Sometimes whole families own a vault and its levels and simply add folks to one of the sections as they die. In some of the more elaborate tombs, the skeletal remains are moved down to the basement to make room for the next one.

There are rules about all of this. These vaults are 10 feet long (deep), huge ovens, standing hot in the Louisiana sun, doing the work that ovens do. Under these conditions the process of decay is accelerated. Even so, law has it, corpses must decay for a year and a day before they can be pushed back to make room for more. Additional vaults are generally available for leasing for those who do not yet have space in the family vault.

I passed my husband’s resting place the other day and recalled a bit of information I discovered when making arrangements following his death. At some point in our marriage he had purchased, from his great aunt, a “level” of the family vault. My name is on the deed.

Tends to be a sobering thought, a humbling revelation. Not one I am particularly equipped for, so I most often think of something else.

Hot, child! Summer in the City

2004-07-25T10:10:00.000-05:00

Lisa thought I should include “beer” in the title of this one, but 12 hours later I cannot remember why or what the other words should be. So, I am left to my own invention.

Yesterday was a day in New Orleans. I would like to write this as if I had spent most of the days of my life, since moving to Louisiana, prowling the streets of N’Awlins - but that is not the case. For some years I was intimidated by not knowing where anything is and the aggravation of not being able to get there from here, or vice versa.

The powers that be in “the City” don’t believe in the efficacy of communication. Or perhaps they feel if you don’t know where you are, how you got there and how to get back again, you should stay at home. And for years I mostly did, venturing forth only when I had someone with me who knew more than I did, or when I had detailed, foolproof directions. Until my husband died, I went mostly only as far as the airport and the Esplanade Mall, both really in Kenner, to the west of New Orleans and just as you enter the greater New Orleans area.

A time or two I ventured to the French Quarter with one or the other of my daughters, or One Canal Place or the New Orleans Museum of Art. But most ventures were accompanied by high anxiety and one or two panic attacks when I would discover - to my considerable chagrin - that the roads are not labeled or the signs indicating where one thinks she should be are ambiguous at best.

However, I have, in the last 6 years, made it my goal to overcome the anxiety and panic and venture forth more often. In doing so, I am discovering, in spite of the City fathers’ attempts to lose and confuse me, I can eventually find my way out again. And life is an adventure to be lived and not just read about.

Yesterday was a most pleasant afternoon of bookshops and window shopping. My friend, Lisa, and I began at the signing of a trite mystery novel by one of my favorite fluff mystery writers, Julie Smith. I say that with respect. After a stressful day of teaching and working with teachers or a tiring day of cutting too much grass, I enjoy nothing better than settling against several pillows with a glass or cup of tea nearby - cold in the summer, hot in the winter - and reading a fluff mystery. But even in my choice of fluff, I want something that is well written, with well presented, original characters. Julie provides this for me, most recently in her delightful character Talba Wallis - detective by day who becomes the notable poet, Baroness Pontalba by night.

This is made more enjoyable, to me, as Julie Smith, fair-skinned and red-haired, attempts the dialect of her major character, an outspoken Black female.

From the bookstore, Lisa and I walked the four blocks over to Magazine Street and proceeded to work our way from one end to the other. At least, that appeared to be Lisa’s plan. She was not a bit daunted by the mention of six miles of antique stores and boutiques - which translates to 71 city blocks. I think she seriously thought we could do all 71 in the heat of the day. It was 95 degrees, Fahrenheit, for most of the afternoon. In reality, we walked the nine or ten of those, in what is known as the Garden District, in one direction before crossing the street to return.

I think if we had not noticed “The Bulldog” - “Uptown’s International Tavern,” we might be walking, yet. But in that moment the temptation of a cold, wet beer was overwhelming. We crossed at the light, headed back in the direction we had come and slipped into the dimly lit tavern. Perching on stools at the bar we each ordered a half-pint of Abita Purple Haze. We were conscious of the many blocks we had yet to walk to where the car was parked and thought to make the journey more enjoyable by frequent stops along the way - to slake our thirst and refresh our demeanor. So, we started slowly.

We were met with disappointment, however, finding that the one block where the tavern is located is the only one in the whole of that section of the Garden District offering a beer break. Not being male in the least, we finally stopped and asked a stranger for directions to the nearest bar. Then returned to the car and drove there, parking within easy crawling distance.

Again we sat at the bar, quickly noting we were the only ones present not showing vast expanses of flesh graced with tattoos of varying quality. Some were quite detailed and ornate and others appeared to have been done on the street - or in prison, perhaps. Feeling conspicuous and a bit over-dressed, in conservative linen pants and blouse, I ordered a pint, this time, of Abita Wheat. (Abita Springs boasts a Louisiana brewery which produces a pleasant variety of beer. I am most familiar with their lighter versions, which are often my reward for a yard well cut.) Lisa went for a Hurricane, having never had one. I advised her to drink it slowly - which she did.

So, there we sat, two schoolteacher types in the midst. One fellow was having a birthday it appeared - as he sailed many times around the room singing, “It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday!” A couple of finer folk who were familiar with local traditions pinned a couple of dollar bills to what there was of his shirt.

By this time, I suppose, Lisa was beginning to feel too conspicuous, as she began to invite strangers in from the street. She said it was because they were dressed more conservatively and would make us look less out of place. I think it was the Hurricane.

Whatever it was, in came Susan and Sandy, who proceeded to talk to us as if we knew why they were there. It seems the ASPCA -American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - was sponsoring a fund-raiser that very evening in that very bar - Igor’s, by the way. We had happened into a Christmas in July celebration. As if on cue, the stereo began playing Christmas songs of the lesser know variety - “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” for example. Soon after we were offered a Chocolate Santa - the Godiva Santa. He was about six feet tall, wearing a Santa suit, with just a smidgeon of Black nose, cheeks and eyes showing.

He didn’t offer a single “Ho!Ho!Ho!” but he did steer us in the direction of the free Christmas dinner. Of which we partook. We chatted the evening with Susan and Sandy, she who rescues unwanted pets and he who tears down and rebuilds housing projects into something more desirable and sustainable - a mixture of subsidized and non-subsidized housing. We drank our beer and hurricane and sang along with the songs of Christmas.

Best of all we totally forgot, as I often do in my wanderings through life, of the many apparent differences in and among people. We are all pretty much the same - especially with a beer in our hands.

Now if this all sounds too surreal to you, the reader, I assure you it was not. It was and is New Orleans.

First You Make a Roux

2004-07-17T09:48:00.000-05:00

There were and still are many things to learn about living way down south, so near the Gulf of Mexico. But one of the first and funnest has been the way of cooking. I don’t, nor will I ever, consider myself a “great cook.” I'm certainly no master chef! I’ve never had that label and don’t expect to work too hard to earn that label. But I sometimes have fun in the kitchen. I make the attempt often enough and experiment enough to have learned early on when cooking a Cajun meal, “first you make a roux.”

A roux is a heavenly, full-bodied gravy that serves as the base for most everything else. You begin by putting flour in your pan and adding a little oil - some people do equal parts, but you can use less oil or even no oil at all, if you really must. The results will be functional but less flavorful. The trick is to cook that over a low to medium heat, stirring and stirring and stirring the pot. You want the flour to brown to about the shade of peanut butter without any bits of it burning.

You should have, standing by, whatever onions, celery and bell pepper you intend to add - chopped and ready to go. The amount, of course, depends on the amount of flour/oil you use, which depends on the size of your finished dish. I can’t tell you all that. I always check a recipe for an approximation before I begin. The secret, however, is in stirring and browning the roux. When it’s ready, when you have it as dark as you want - or as dark as can be without burning - you add the “trilogy” all at once and stir that in. The addition stops the roux from continuing to brown.

You still stir, more slowly, to cook the vegetables. You can be a little less vigilant here, but don’t ignore it for too long or it will not evenly cook. When the vegetables are cooked - if the onions are clear the rest are done - you add your liquid, slowly, stirring well so the base does not clump. The liquid can be water or chicken stock or fish stock, depending on what you’re creating.

This is the base for your finished dish, and the diligence and patience with which you prepare the roux makes all the difference in the world with the final flavor. No matter how you season the finished stew or gumbo or etouffee, if you have not taken time with the roux the taste will tell it. It takes practice to make a good roux, to get it just right. And with someone, such as myself, who does not have the background to be a great cook, it is often a matter of hit or miss.

I’m just sitting here reflecting early morning after the children have left to go back home to St. Louis. Raising children is much like making a roux. The effort we put in shows up in the final flavor.

Fortunately, however, when it comes to children, we sometimes get a special grace for our lack of practice and expertise, for our lack of background in preparing the base. If we are blessed - as I have been. A grace that sprinkles like seasoned salt over the finished dish, bringing out the full flavor - as if a master had created her with his own hands.

Just a reminder to keep stirring the pot, gently, with patience and with vigilance.

And pray for grace.

Celebration

2004-07-14T05:49:00.000-05:00

I’m enjoying the company of my older daughter and her family this week and have so much less time to write. That is not a bad thing, just a comment on the nature of life, I suppose. It is as my mother always said it would be. As we grow older our children become a different kind of joy that adds dimension to the aging process. And grandchildren! Well, that is much more than just a dimension - it is a whole ‘nother world!

This past Sunday we all went to the Catfish Festival in Des Allemands, Louisiana. First, my apologies to the vegetarians. Cajuns eat everything. Fried fish is one of the more “usual” delicacies. Add crawfish and alligator to that list, along with the usual seafood, all cooked up in gumbos, etoufees and court bouillons, and you begin to sense a flavor of the richly seasoned repast.

Cajuns also celebrate everything. Des Allemands (most commonly pronounced “dez zalmonds”) claims to be the Catfish Capital of the Universe. Appropriately, they named a queen and a court of ladies to accompany her in spreading the word and celebrating the event. My granddaughter had her picture taken with the queen with whom we chatted for several minutes and who is not only a beautiful girl, but a very gracious and poised young lady, even after a grueling weekend in the high summer heat.

The tradition of Catfish Queen is a long and proud one, as noted by the photos of past queen’s lining the walls of the church hall. Her duties, apparently, are pre-advertising/campaigning for the weekend of celebration, with requisite photo-ops and local media involvement. This culminates in the weekend event when she is expected to walk around the parade grounds in casual wear - to accommodate the heat - wearing a sequined sash and a crown emblazoned with rhinestones of various colors all intertwined to set off a striking, blue rhinestone catfish to commemorate the impressive BlueCat.

Besides food, and quite a lot of it, this fair had the requisite music, rides and craft booths. And, as we say around here, all things considered, “I passed a good time, sha', me!”

Sister Sue

2004-07-08T17:23:00.000-05:00

I’m feeling bloggish ,which is to say there are words that want to be on paper , appearing to be trapped under the skin, writhing in that unrelenting way they have when too long ignored. They are not nice words or pleasant words or 'look at me and see how socially correct I am' words. They are words of disillusion and impatience and need. And if I could name the need , or had some hope of accomplishing useful alteration, there would be no drive to put it all on paper. So, instead I write. About other things, mostly.

At 6:30 am this morning the heat index was between the mid to high 90’s - that’s in Fahrenheit, not Celsius. If you need to, you can figure the conversion and understand just how daunting that information is, coming so early in what otherwise appears to be a fine day. Then, of course, if you lived here, you would also know that around about noon, almost on schedule, the clouds came back through and the skies opened back up to dump a bucket load of humidity. Great large torrents of humidity, spewed from some unseen fireman’s hose, extinguishing a fire before it started.

But the heat remains.

I found myself sitting on the swing, a tall, wet glass of iced tea at hand - lemon, lightly sweetened - wondering what in the world women of a century ago did on a day like this, encumbered, as they were, under layers of linen and lace. Then, unexpectedly, I recalled when, as a child, I had no bed of my own and instead shared a bed with one or the other of my sisters.

Southern nights before air-conditioning - for those of us not wealthy enough to afford the installation of ceiling fans - were heavy and clinging, smothering you in your own bed, suffocating you before you could find the sweet release of sleep. I always preferred sharing a bed with sister Sue. I would lie with my back to her, and she would turn toward me, softly lifting the hair from the back of my neck and blowing gently to cool me until I fell asleep.

There was enough of an age difference to create the usual childhood squabbles and disagreements and disharmony by day. But by night she was, once again, my sweet sister.

Feelin' Figgy

2004-07-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

The figs are ripe. Not just ripe, but plump and sweet and in abundance. I have two trees which produce, I am told, a reasonable number of figs. I obtain this information second-hand because both trees are difficult to get to, involving treks through tall grasses and standing at odd angles on the levee running down to the bayou. Places where snakes and the occasional ‘gator like to roll about in the sun. Places I am not anxious to frequent.

But these trees are plentiful in Louisiana, earning the name “Louisiana’s Backyard Fruit.” It’s difficult to find a yard that does not have it’s own tree.

So, I freely offer the fruit of my trees to a friend of mine. And I go elsewhere, where the pickings are easier. Yesterday I picked the first of the harvest from the tree of another friend. By tomorrow I should have enough to justify the work of making fig preserves. Not that it is so much work, but from fig washing to final clean-up this will take most of an evening. I tend to make a production out of anything to do in the kitchen.

To bolster my mood for all this work, I sat and searched for more information about this culinary treat. I discovered, as expected, quite a lot. Did you know, for instance, that God Hates Figs? And have you ever once considered the truly bizarre sex life of a fig? I have it on good authority, however, that Louisiana figs do not engage in such practices. I learned that the fig tree is related to the Ficus tree, and the figs in California must be pollinated by wasps but not the ones in Louisiana. The varieties range from “Celeste” to “Lalani” to “Brown Turkey” and our own locally developed “LSU Purple” and “LSU Gold.”

Figs are a healthful snack, being nutrient dense and high in fiber. According to the LSU Ag department, fig puree can be used as a sugar substitute or as a fat substitute in some recipes. They also suggest chopping figs into a green salad for sweetness, adding them to oatmeal instead of raisins, and combining finely chopped figs to low-fat cream cheese to spread on your bagel.

My own favorite delicacy is fig preserves on a hot biscuit - with fresh, hot coffee on the side, of course. But I’ve found recipes for Fig Cake and Fig Ice Cream and Fig and Pecan Pie and … well, the possibilities are as limitless as the imagination. And the fruit of the fig.

So, to quote a friend of mine, if you find yourself feeling a bit of a sweet tooth, “Have a fig!”

Summer Awakening

2004-07-05T10:53:00.000-05:00

Well, the rain has stopped. For now. I’m not sure how many days we had rain unceasing, as I was out of town briefly at the beginning of June. But I returned on June 12th and know for a fact it rained every day since, up until yesterday. In all honesty, the rain Saturday was but a mist, not enough to deter me from cutting the grass that had grown like - well, like weeds.

The down side to that is now we will have unrelenting heat. At least the rain cooled things off, relatively speaking. As I cut grass, I found myself anxious to make the round and get back to the shade under the trees - a respite all too brief, as I made that curve and headed back, once again, into sunlight‘s beating heat. Sunscreen is a daily necessity when living this close to the equator. We are subtropical, you know - as I remind my children.

The upside is I can plan outings that do not involve umbrellas.

This week the plan is to go with a friend of mine to Grand Isle for the day. We will sit on the beach and discuss The Awakening, by Kate Chopin and how it does or does not apply to life in general and our lives in particular. We will contemplate the ways in which “the voice of the sea speaks to the soul” and discuss the difficulty of living a life in response to our own senses - one that does not necessarily conform to tradition; senses that are not dulled by the demands of convention.

I will continue my contemplation of the role of females in this 21st century South, and wonder if, really, women have come so far from the days of plantations and pantaloons. Or if many are still struggling to breathe underneath the corsets.

And we will let the breath of the sea refresh us.

Water, water everywhere

2004-06-28T12:19:00.000-05:00

I know this is supposed to be a site about the oddities, eccentricities, and specialties of a very unique environment. What it is not supposed to be is a journal of my daily life. I cannot imagine anything much more boring. Of course, when I retell it, I try to offset the boredom with exaggeration. Nevertheless, it is rarely something to write home about. Or to write blog about.

However, I am in the middle of a refurbishing project which is occupying way too much of my time and all of my somewhat limited homeskills. Since that is all I can think of, that is what I will write of.

I tend toward being somewhat … single-minded. Some would say stubborn, but I prefer resolute. I truly believe I should be able to do anything. And I become more than a little frustrated when I cannot. My latest venture is to replace the faucets in my bathroom. Two sets. One is simply incredibly unattractive - having lost all of its shine from years of improper cleaning - and the other really should match; therefore, both need to be changed.
Now, I have already changed the piping under one of the sinks as it was totally rusted through. It took some determination and the invention of new vocabulary, and, at the very last, a man with muscle to tighten the last joint - but, it is installed and not leaking. However, in the process another rusted part was discovered - a part that has to do with the stopper bobbing up and down in the drain when the doohickey is lifted at the top. It broke clean off. No part, no stopper, no using the sink because it will not drain.

Since I am readying the house in preparation to sell, I really need to fix this. I cannot sell a house with dysfunctional parts. There is probably a story in that. (What a metaphor!) But not the one I am telling today. No, today is the story of how the bathroom, bedroom and part of the den came to be flooded.

And that’s it. The whole story. You may fill in the rest however you will. Details are superfluous. I am sitting here now, having mopped and sponged for quite awhile, wondering if it is safe to turn the water back on.

I am alone in this, if one discounts Moose the Beagle and Bella the Cat. No one to run outside, turn the handle and wait for me to yell whether or not to turn it off again. Only me. I would have to schlog out to the outside cutoff, turn it, dash back in, listen for the gush of water, and be prepared to rush back out to the cutoff to turn it the other way. And to be quite honest, I am tired, now. Just that.

Tomorrow’s another day, etc. There is probably some analogy one could make or some irony of water in an already saturated landscape, but I don't have the literary zeal for such ponderings at this point in the story. Make your own. About all I can handle at this particular moment is to wonder how long I can “hold it” - as they say in southern Louisiana.

2004-06-24T22:22:00.000-05:00

Rainy Days and Thursdays

Wild Life

2004-06-24T22:13:00.000-05:00

Just about the time I think I know everything, I learn something new. It’s a good thing. Keeps me humble. This time the new thing had to do with hair I saw growing on the old oak tree. Not hair, actually, but a tiny, green fern. Lots of it. I’ve never seen anything like this before, on my tree or anyone else’s, for that matter; so my first reaction was, understandably, concern.

I am the sort of person who becomes rather obsessive about the living things under my care. I feel personally responsible if anything happens to harm them in any way. And since this was something new, I wondered if it might be akin to a fungus, something harmful and debilitating to the wise, old oak. Yes, I should have known better. I never give myself high marks in logic about those things over which I am highly emotional. What I did do was make a note to find out just what this was invading my tree.

As it happened, while in Lafayette a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go canoeing with a group led by a noted local naturalist. He had hoped to take a bunch of those less enlightened into the swamps and show us a variety of nesting fowl - wild life, if you will. Unfortunately, those of us in the canoes were wilder than those in the nests. Flocks of fowl flew before us as we canoed our way around that lake, laughing and guffawing and making all manner of inappropriate remarks regarding our inability to guide a canoe and spot critters.

The only creatures we saw were those nested around the area where we put into the water. There were Snowy Egrets and Roseate Spoonbills, feeding nests full of baby birds; a couple of alligators, one of which we got a little too close to, but quickly backed away from when he headed for shore, right in our direction. Yep. We say lots of wild life before we got into those canoes. After that, I’m sorry to say, we were a pretty sorry bunch of bird watchers.

And canoers. One of the group decided all ships should have names. His was “Pinball Wizard,” aptly named for bouncing off every cypress stump in the lake. Ours was “Star Trek” for going “where no man has gone before.” Our leader eventually gave up his attempts to enlighten us. We suspect he may find a new profession altogether.

He did, however, assure me that “Resurrection Fern,” as it is called, is quite normal on the larger trees in our area. It’s an air plant named for its tendency to turn brown and appear to die during dry conditions and then burst forth with full, green fronds again with the first drop of rain. That seems pretty wild to me.

2004-06-24T22:12:00.000-05:00

Resurrection Fern

Longevity

2004-06-19T12:35:00.000-05:00

I saw a dear, old friend at the gas pump today as I was getting fuel for the grass-cutting that I have delayed longer than the optimal ‘one week.’ Old not in the sense of age, as her spirit is and will forever be young -old in terms of longevity of friendship. Maybe because of the moving around so much when I was younger, I don’t have many friends from the days “before Louisiana.” I have my sisters, four of them, who flow in and out of my life, and I have one tried and true friend who has been a part of my life for almost thirty years. He and I marvel at this in our intermittent phone calls and infrequent visits. We are both amazed that we have maintained the closeness, neither of us being particularly adept at the nuances and responsibilities of friendship.

However, this is another thing I have learned in my ’retraining’ for this environment. Families and friends here last for ages and ages. Having been raised in a city in a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, I marvel at that. There is a certain sense of sacredness in knowing the people I interact with every day have known each other since before they were born. Something comforting and at the same time strangely unsettling - to the outsider, at least - that the folks at the 35 year high school reunion quite likely started school together as far back as the first grade.

A trip to the grocery store must always allow for time to visit with the neighbors and friends one will surely meet. I think sometimes about what it would be like to go to the store and never see anyone I know. I have only vague memories of that and am hesitant to choose that way to live, again.

On the other hand, there is an awareness of each other, a degree of knowing, that keeps the outsider forever on the outside. It is not an intentional effort. I have found the people of this area to be warm and welcoming and even surprisingly tolerant. And while they have always shown great kindness, there is too much unshared between us for me to ever feel “one of them.” Or, perhaps there is still too much the eccentric in me.

I do find, nevertheless, a great deal of comfort living here, at the edge of their lives. Only rarely, anymore, do I feel the intruder. And always that is something from within and not from without.

Swingin'

2004-06-17T11:15:00.000-05:00

Summers in Louisiana are not much different from winters, not so much as you would notice unless you had been here for both seasons. Winter is long and wet, with the sort of dampness that gets into your bones and lies there with a chill that just won’t go away. A chill that makes one dread the setting of the evening sun and long for the sweat of summer.

Summers are long and wet, with a humidity that wraps around you like a stuffy, old wool blanket. But it doesn’t start out that way. Before turning downright sultry, summer here starts out with a freshness and a reassurance that one more winter has fallen behind and lighter, brighter days are before us. The sun beats the mildew from the corners where she’s been lurking all winter and exposes her to cleansing light. You begin to feel as though you can take a full breath of air without choking on the mold.

That's just an illusion, of course. One can never inflate the lungs completely in the heaviness of the south Louisiana air. Humidity defines our days and is the gauge by which we discern the good from the bad. I soon learned the subtleties that distinguish days of 100% humidity, and no rain on the horizon, from those of a mere 85.

To fully enjoy my summers here, I soon learned the joys of rising early to sit in the cool of the patio swing, anticipating the slow invasion of the morning sun, lighting up another day; and the pleasantness of dusk after a day in the sun, when life slowed down to sort itself out again.

Those moments, now, for me, are of the nature of bittersweet. I ofte recall my mother, on her too infrequent visits, sitting here early morning, enjoying her coffee with the jays and the wrens and various species of waterfowl. We’d laugh at the acrobatics of the squirrels and the occasional insistence of a red-headed woodpecker. We said very little in those moments, having said too much, already, and having learned, with age, how truly vacuous words can be.

And evenings … well, evenings, too often, are a reminder of the folly of dreaming out loud. My husband and I would sit on that patio swing and discuss the day’s work - what went right, what went wrong. Mostly we made plans to do things differently … tomorrow.

Sometimes tomorrow never comes. Now, I cannot sit here without some sense of their presence and their absence and more than a little sense of regret. I don’t know if even the brightest summer sun can chase away all the shadows of winter.

2004-06-17T11:13:00.000-05:00

"the cypress swing"

Summer Patterns

2004-06-16T08:51:00.000-05:00

It was early summer, June in fact, when I unloaded the truck, hauled the boxes up the stairs and first looked out the kitchen window. I saw green. Lots of green. Green and bayou and shimmering air and the flicker of sunlight through the leaves. I had moved into an upscale tree house. Upscale not because the apartment was new, with the latest appliances, gewgaws and gimcracks - upscale because it was quite comfortable and livable and inviting. And protected by nature’s own canopy. Yes, this could be home.

The apartment sat right there on Bayou Lafourche, “the longest street in the world” or at least in America, with trees hugging the banks and shading our lives. I quickly learned the local pronunciation of “by-yoo”, that the trees growing in the water were cypress and humidity dripped from every stem, leaf and over-hanging branch. And while I respected the warnings of wildlife and ‘gators, serenity was overwhelming.

I had never for once considered that southern Louisiana is sub-tropical nor what that might mean. What it meant was rain and lots of it. That first June, I remember, it rained everyday, starting about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and ending about 5. If you had no pressing appointments that demanded obsessive attention to detail, you could have set your watch by it. I did learn pretty quickly to arrange my life around the afternoon rains.

Clothes drying, grass cutting, errand running was all scheduled around the rain. Although Memphis had its own fair share of the wet stuff, I recall “up north” we mostly waited it out. If there were things to do - other than going to work - that required being out in the elements, we simply waited another day to do them. Here, if one waited, things would never get done. It took me some time - years, actually - but I have now grown accustomed to working around rather than waiting out the rain.

Summer is a special challenge, beginning with the early spring rains that accompany the northern snow thaws, we anticipate frequent flooding. Not here, right where I am. My bank is part of the natural levee that keeps Bayou Lafourche in her place. But by the time the summer rains come full force in June, the land is so water-soaked there is just no where else for all that rain to go. Roads flood and yards flood, and some of the lakes get real impatient with their own space and push on over the levees and into the homes of those folks who love where they are too much to ever move. So they get out the sandbags and the determination, and they just stick it out.

And when the sun breaks through the dark storm clouds, they mop up, sweep out and get ready for the next one. It is this, this strength of determination that I saw first in the faces of the Cajun people. The rain may come and batter the hell out of the land and the homes and everything they have worked for, but the rain cannot beat their spirit. Their jaw is set and their focus forward, and they rise above the high water mark.

And all this excess humidity is great for the complexion!

Tomorrow ...

2004-06-15T22:29:00.000-05:00

... and the rains came.

2004-06-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

"If I could bottle the smell of cypress ..."

On the Road, Again

2004-05-30T09:12:00.000-05:00

My friend, Eileen, says it is the families of “the South” who put the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional.’ Research says, in order to resist repeating the patterns of childhood one must move at least 250 miles away from where one was raised - from one’s childhood environment. Twenty-four years ago, after having all the ’fun’ I could stand, I moved lock, stock and U-Haul from Memphis, Tennessee, to a town in southern Louisiana so small it is easier to describe by location than by name. Somewhere further south than either Baton Rouge or New Orleans and about equal distance from both.

Single and with a ten year old daughter in tow, I rolled through the rich delta land of Mississippi, past miles of kudzu threatening to suffocate highway I-55 South. I drove right on past the exit signs for towns of blues legend like Clarksdale, and within spittin’ distance of Civil Rights landmarks whose names and reputations had sparked sometimes volatile family dinner conversations during my rebellious, adolescent years. The Tallahatchie River, where they dumped the body of young, naïve Emmet Hill; Jackson, where Medgar Evers was shot outside his own home. I rode past rivers and towns named by or for Native Americans who once, rightfully, claimed this rich portion of earth as their own - Tupelo, Yalobusha, Tillotoba, Grenada, Winona.

And I kept on rolling. Right into a land I knew next to nothing about - the land of the Cajun, of whom I had been forewarned. Everyone I knew, who had also never been to Louisiana, eagerly shared their experience and advice. I was told more than once not to make a Cajun angry with me. Supposedly the fuse was short, the memory long, and the families ties infrangible. I could find myself floating down some bayou one morning with my feet bound and my hands tied - at best. I was somewhat known for being too outspoken, so the warnings were well intentioned.

For all that, I had no idea, really, what to expect. I am and have long been a practitioner of the "what's the worse that can happen?" school of thought. I concluded the worse that could happen is I could always go home again. But home was somewhere I was leaving in my quest to find another way to live, another person to be, and to get away from familial expectations - which always seem to get in the way of self-discovery. I intended to stay at least long enough to find out where I really wanted to be.

The move was easier than you might expect. I wasn't raised with a strong sense of family tradition or ties to place. We moved so often I can’t recall the time I didn’t know how to pack my own suitcase. Sometimes we left one home for a “new” one and never returned to collect what we’d left behind - toys, clothing, furniture, relatives "by marriage"; sometimes we never even said goodbye to friends, classmates, teachers. I learned early home is something you carry inside. Maybe part of me was looking for something more to carry with me.

****************************

I didn’t show up on the bayou without a plan. I came here as a teacher and fully expected to find teaching pretty much the same wherever it occurred. I did not expect to fall in love with the bayou, the people, and the slow, easy passing of one day into the next. Coming to southern Louisiana from anywhere else in the United States is like leaving your home country to visit another. It is more than the climate - the humidity and the hurricanes and the oppressive summer heat. It is more than the geography - the bayous (by-yooz), the cypress, and the Spanish Moss dripping from the Live Oak trees. It is more than the multitude of accents that distinguish one Cajun community from another. These are so varied and sprinkled with archaic French expressions that becoming accustomed to the dialect and speech patterns in one small town does not ensure you will understand what is being said “down de bayou.” It is much more than the music, the fun and the spirit of “laissez les bon temps roulez!”

And it is more than I can tell in one day. But tomorrow is another day, Scarlette.