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We woke up to pouring rain – no walks in the park, and quick dashes to the backyard by the dogs (who hate to be wet). Up here in the tower working, with the pouring rain, I wonder about my colleagues – in Poland, Germany, UK, Chicago, and California – we speak to each other via IM, Skype, telephone, cell phone, email but don’t have the shared experience of rain, sunshine, cold, hot. It’s snowing in Istanbul I heard. It’s beautifully mild in New Orleans. In Portland, the rain stopped briefly. 

We come to work with different sensibilities – speaking different languages – sensing seasonal fluctuations unique to our geographies – our personal lives dynamic – and yet we communicate. Is it freezing in Krakow? 

The sky is greyed over with cotton ball clouds giving the light this overexposed effect, sort of sepia without the brown tone. Walking through the park this morning everything had that sense of existing within an old time photograph. As we were midway into the park, I saw a leafless tree with seven ink black cormorants perched on the branches, their ropey necks slung low giving them a snake-like appearance even out of the water. Down below a giant snow white swan shook a tail feather as it glided across the still water. A man was coming from around the bend, hidden by foliage at first so I couldn’t see who it was. It was the Bayou Stone Fox, his charming dimpled smile the first recognition. He stopped me and took his earphones out and said, “they must have cleared out the back lagoon, look how beautiful” – and it was, some workers had been through and removed all the gnarly Katrina limbs and dead branches and now it opened up an expanse in the back of the water that created a view to the other side. 

As I came around the back, I thought about the BSF, the first person who caught my attention after all the major breakups of a few years ago. He still has his sweet smile, but not the same cache he once held in my imagination when I began my walks around the bayou. I thought about the man I now see every morning walking with his hand weights – he greets me with a big smile no matter how cold, how hot, how early, how late it is – he saw me walking with T the other morning, my arm slung low around her waist, hers around my shoulder and I saw him look twice, and I thought it was a scowl, a frown, or maybe just surprise register on his face. 

We are all here, overexposed, in this small world of ours – I can see the swan’s feet furiously kicking underneath the cool glide he maintains, can see that the BSF smiles and is generous with his thoughts of beauty when he is not threatened by me, and my fellow walker belies his imaginings of who he believed I could be and now his readjustment registers clearly on his face – and my smile, what Senem saw in my eyes the other day, what Beth sees in my face, what my mother says is telling on me, informs the world everything without my saying a word. 

My friend who just weeks ago admonished me with “carpe diem” warns me I’m “moving too fast” – my other friend leaves me a message to call him because he wants to speak to a woman in love since I’m the only one he knows who is – another friend sends me an email and says, glad you are having fun, but don’t forget to blog for the rest of us – yet another says wow, this is beyond the pale, it’s so exciting – mom says, I am so happy to see you happy honey – and all of the chorus on both sides nod in approval – mom, friends, family give the big thumbs up, their seal of approval, a vote of confidence I am not underloving, underliving, underdating – yes is what the universe says – nirvana is what I say back. 

We spoke the other night about not seeing each other – about being at a party together and you seeing my three friends and not me, in Puerto Rico marching in a crowd, at Swirl amongst all our mutual friends, and all around this small tiny town New Orleans – yet not ever seeing each other – then on Tuesday, a fortnight ago, in the midst of a sumptuous feast for our eyes – a woman dressed as a lamb, a man dressed as a knight, a man as a pony, a woman on stilts, two M&Ms, three angels, one piggy, a woman in rollers, a fairy godmother on strike – an orgy of people, a riot of color, a crowd that we could have easily disappeared within – I saw you and you saw me – and suddenly the crowd recedes and you come into focus and two weeks seem impossibly too short a time for knowing you like I know you and wanting you like I want you and having you like I have you – and love again? If Castro can step down, if the sun can rise every morning, if the pelicans know how to return to the bayou each November, if all of these monumental events can happen without fanfare, without the earth stopping its spin, then why not you and I finding each other on Mardi Gras day. 

T gave mom chocolates for Valentine’s Day – she was quite touched by this gesture. She called late yesterday and said “tell T I ate all of her delicious chocolates except for the frog. I was worried if I ate the frog a prince would appear.” And I replied, “And you wanted a princess?” Without flinching mom responded: “Honey, I can’t handle either right now.” 

This many years ago in my mother’s belly, her pushed against the window worried about my father who defied curfew in Havana and went out to “get food” – “check on my grandfather’s stores” – “see what was going on” (the story changes every time it is told) – my mother, eight months plus pregnant pushed up against the window trying to see the 14 year old soldiers “smacking their chewing gum,” “carrying rifles,” coming to get Batista’s large body guard – the sound of the body guard’s German Shephard pacing the long corridor.

Fidel Castro steps down today as ruler of Cuba – is it possible that forty nine years have gone by – that Cuba has been under his rule without interruption for nearly five decades – is it possible that it is over?

My lips are being bit daily – giving them a nice plumpness – and everything I have to say right now I’m saying to one person who is making me very very very happy. 

It’s been one week since my “date” and obviously a lot of change has occurred around the LaLa, like there is someone else here when I wake up in the morning and when I go to sleep at night – which is strange and beautiful – we walked Loca and Lucky in the park this morning and T could not help but notice the lush beauty that surrounds us here – the park with the fat moss on the leggy oaks, the birds in the bayou, the swans in the lagoon – the sculpture garden with my favorite, the horse – all of this is here, all of me is here, but suddenly she is here. 

The way Americans can be held up to the glaring light of the world tribunal – guns – again it is guns. NIU, our sympathetic sister campus – we have so many of our people at my company who came from there and yet someone took everyone’s confidence away yesterday by sneaking from behind a black curtain and destroying the lives of so many people, not just the ones he killed, but the ones he took something from – either a loved one, or a lifestyle – something is becoming so sickly typical American, it makes me believe we are sick from the inside out. He had more than one gun on him – casually purchased – we have the right to defend ourselves – yes, we do – we also have the right to say ugly things, but why? why? why?

You could choose to think of Valentine’s day as a farce – as some silly Hallmark gesture to get you to purchase greeting cards – but then you’d have to believe that Mardi Gras is ridiculous and catching beads and wearing costumes are garish customs, and that delivering flowers to a loved one is superficial and unimaginative, and you’d really have to be willing to let go of a lot of conventional rituals such as kissing at the stroke of midnight, kissing under mistletoe, kissing after the wedding vows are said – okay, I digress, I am talking about kissing – obviously you know where this is going – nowhere. 

I had a wonderful Valentine’s Day – inviting people to join us at dinner was a good way to open us up to eating, drinking and socializing and away from the focus on each other. She agrees with Steve that Valentine’s day is a construct – but she made me a card anyway from the fragments of our postcard perfect Mardi Gras photograph – and it was perfect – and she gave me a horse from Turkey and I gave her a horse from Whole Foods uptown – and we share dreams and real touchstones – Spanish, Turkey, friends, children, food, horses, but I digress… .

What was the intent of this blog today? To say that yes, Valentine’s Day is a foolish gesture, but why not be fools? Why not give cards with messages of love, and chocolates to be enjoyed, and why not take the opportunity to display hearts and flowers and love’s labors? 

Why the hell not, indeed.

I leave you with one thing we can agree on – she said when you love, you illuminate your lover – and this happens not on a designated day – it happens with no agenda, without warning, and when you least expect but are totally ready for it to happen. Lightness comes in, and darkness slithers out.