Get a life
I went to Constance Adler’s reading last night of My Bayou, her book about her love affair with this neighborhood and the bayou. I’m in the book twice as a character – once on September 1, 2006 bringing ziti to Swirl around the time it had just opened and become a gathering/healing place for the people in this neighborhood and another time at Swirl, bringing my menorahs to light for Hanukkah since I wasn’t in my house yet. But I didn’t recognize myself in her chapter entitled “A Season of Miracles” – my cameo appearance suggests at that time, I was on top of things, so cavalier, so easily in the moment – which I must admit seemed/seems unlike me. Honestly.
I went back and read my blog posts from September 1st of that pivotal year and one was about a rat name Nick, one was about my friend Graham finding a Chihuahua in the cemetery, one was about my experience with the ziti that night (brewing underneath was a certain angst about men that was bleeding through the copious red sauce I had used in the dish).
A colleague told me once, “Rachel, at least you have a life” and I wonder about this statement every now and again. Those around me seem to float effortlessly through the daily grind, seem to make good choices most of the time, and don’t seem to be so misunderstood as much of the time that I am. Whose life is this anyway?
From My Bayou:
I took Lance with me to a wine tasting at the new shop called Swirl that had opened on the other side of Bayou Saint John near the Fair Grinds Coffeehouse. We crossed the Magnolia Bridge close to dusk. The bayou remained motionless. The evening felt like a light silk scarf on my skin.
At Swirl there was a crowd outside on the sidewalk. Beth, one of the shop’s owners, had set up tables and chairs. They held these wine tastings every week, and it had become regular social event for the neighborhood. Some of my dog-walking buddies were there. Les waved and shouted, “Lanque!” This is a pet name he had given Lance because Lance didn’t have enough pet names. Rachel, who has a Corgi named Arlene, was co-hosting the party and had made baked ziti. Beth poured a congenial glass of cabernet.
The party filled up the block, expanding to include the other shop fronts. Music drifted over to us from the Fair Grinds Coffeehouse. They still hadn’t opened for coffee since the storm, but they were open for everything else, music, hanging out, talking. Tonight featured a fiddle duet with Tom and Darren. Tom, who lives on Moss Street near our house, was barefoot. It looked as though he had walked to this side of the bayou, about ten blocks or so, over streets and sidewalks, occasional grass and mud, without the benefit of shoes. For most of the summer, whenever I saw him, Tom lacked shoes. This appeared to be a lifestyle choice, not absentmindedness.
Tom was also the constant companion to Pickle. “That’s Pickle singular, not plural,” Tom explained of his dog, a grouchy golden retriever/chow mutt. Tom did not take Pickle around on a proper leash, but a length of electrical cord with a frayed end. Lance was afraid of Pickle and hid behind my legs at the coffeehouse. Pickle barked a sharp reprimand at Lance each time she saw him on the bayou or here or anywhere. It seemed there was nothing Lance could do to mollify Pickle. She was forever rebuking him. We couldn’t figure out what he did to get on her bad side. I believed every side of Pickle was her bad side, but that’s just me talking.
Tom said he and Darren would play a Beatles tune. Turned out to be a tune from George Harrison, the sweet one, the baby Beatle. Tom put aside his fiddle and settled his guitar in his lap. He brushed his fingertips along the strings and sang in a low, gentle voice, as if to himself, “Here Comes the Sun.”
The song floated above our heads and hung on the air like the scent of sweet olive trees.
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here
. . .
Sun, sun sun, here it comes.My favorite Beatle and my favorite song. I have always been a bit embarrassed by how much I love this song, how quickly and deeply it moves me. Not awfully complex or revolutionary, this pretty song comes a hair short of mawkish. I’m embarrassed that such simple sentiment can put me under a spell. But then I guess the only sentiments worth having are the simple ones. That’s the whole point, right? That any one of us can be swept to pieces with a few well chosen words. One more item on the list of things I dread about being human.
“Happy New Year,” Rachel said and clinked her wineglass with mine.
New Year? It was a little early for Rosh Hashanah, wasn’t it? Oh, new year. I got it. Here in New Orleans we had a new New Year now. Today was September 1. We had just passed the first anniversary of Katrina without mishap. We were in a new year now, thank God. A whole new life stretched before us. Until we got to the next hurricane season. We’d worry about that when the time came. In the meanwhile . . .
“Happy New Year,” I offered back. Rachel slipped her arm around my waist and kissed my cheek.
I swirled the globe of my wineglass and breathed the fragrant wine. Didn’t all this hurricane drama begin a year ago with a wine tasting? Here I am again and glad that some things haven’t changed. I sipped the wine. Thank goodness we could still enjoy pleasures like these.
The evening was almost unbearably pleasant and simple. A palpable wave of goodwill swept through this small gathering of neighbors. Hamm and Theresa went for ice cream at the market next door. Beth came out with a new zinfandel she wanted us to try. Brianna was chasing the dogs, trying to make them take a ball from her hand. Normal things. Tom and Darren played on.
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
. . .
And I say it’s all right.Seduced again by a pretty song, I felt a rising in my chest. A bubble of something lighter than air expanded and made me drift upward. My head floated at the top of my spine like a lotus on the surface of a pond. I smiled at everyone around me. My face couldn’t help it. They smiled back. Warm and friendly, that’s all. Here on the street where we lived.
We had no way of knowing how long this feeling would last. As I looked around, I struggled to absorb this happiness for its own sake. This evening was just a small pause from our troubles. There was so much destruction behind us, and so much work still lay ahead of us. Yet this evening was the flower that bloomed in the crack between past and future to show us that some respite from suffering was possible. None of us had manufactured the moment. It had landed on us with the same arbitrary flip of nature’s whim as when the storm had descended on us. It was a gift.
Even as this pleasure rolled over me, I couldn’t ignore the hint of its leaving. I felt I had to take it in and hold it. I wanted to eat the evening, drink the clear air, and inhale the music. If I didn’t take this into my body and allow it to sink deep inside me, I would lose it. I had to memorize this time and this feeling. I was already losing it. No, I had it. There it was, coming over me in soft waves. Contentment. Safety. Ease of mind. Peace.
Later I was almost afraid to write it, afraid the act of capture would destroy it. Or that holding too tightly would smother it. Or perhaps I would over-imagine, make too much of it, and then be disappointed.
No, I’ll do it right here, right now. I’ll say it. We’re going to be all right.