Almost over
This is the last day of Jazz Fest and the last day of the internal chaos that has formed from IT not being like it used to be, ME not being like I used to be, and certainly no one would look to whether going to the Fest and having a good time as a sign of the times, but I will look through that lens if only for a moment. I think I’m done with Jazz Fest or at least done with the Brass Pass that gave me entry to all that music, food, crafts, and what used to be utter enjoyment and excitement. Now I can’t wait for it to be over.
The reason – I think I’ve come to crave intimacy from music more than I ever have in the past. I like those solitary moments when I’m enjoying music as its wafts over and through me, and the idea of sharing that experience with 100,000 people who are eating fried food in the hot sun while trying to keep vigilant watch over a 3-year-old is, uh, I don’t know, passé.
I’ve missed everyone’s Jazz Fest party this year – I even cancelled a babysitter I had miraculously lined up for last night when I had hoped to attend a friend/neighbor’s bigger than big backyard bash. Why? Because I simply don’t have the energy or the wherewithal to show up and be present.
I instead finished The Power of Habit which I had been reading and decided to skim that last two chapters because it had become boring and repetitive. There is nothing new (or at least not in that book). Yes, we are all habit and tomorrow I’m kicking one – this smoking gig that I’ve been on since my hair started falling out. Even that has grown tiresome.
Tomorrow I intend to start new habits – and begin my new life in not a wholesale shedding of my past life, but in a way that pleases me.
I thought about this long and hard on my terrace last night staring at the Super Moon. I had gone out to the bayou to watch it rise above the oak trees and in seeing it come while listening to my Puerto Rican friends strumming and drumming, I realized that my issue is one of presence absence. I find it hard to be here, because I’m always there. So as this big round honey hued orb began staking its claim in the night’s inky sky, I realized that even the moon sheds its past while renewing itself every 30 days. So much for the 10 year cycles that had been coloring my life.
A new moon carrying its own stark beauty, less dominance, more mystery, will be rising soon. This morning I flipped through the New York Times – boring, not interested, expensive and ridiculous, oh so yesterday, and I was struck by how MEH is the tone of my season. The week ahead has work to be done, a session with yet another friend turned life coach, a making of new habits, and also a chance to get it right, again.