Dangermond.org

Today we all three came out of the house to remove the last traces of Mardi Gras – Roy was on his side cutting down the big grass and almost fell in a sink hole in his neighbor’s yard. Jerri was pulling the beads off her wrought iron fence, emptying out the keg in my neighbors drain, and returning pieces of costumes, and I was throwing away beads, removing the spears, and chucking the yellow feathers from Loca sucking the Mardi Gras boa into her kennel and carefully plucking the yellow part till it was almost bare. 

Mom said the whole city was recovering from a Mardi Gras hangover. I backed up the truck and turned the stereo on and danced to “Eres Para Mi” and “I Second That Emotion” and “For Once in My Life” – all while the sun is shining, the pelicans are soaring, and life here in the neighborhood returns to some semblance of our normal. 

I have never seen a day as pretty as this day!

Recall, I’ve written about the transition period – the one where you are a trapeze artist and you are letting go of the bar you know and grabbing the one you don’t – and all of life is letting go or grabbing hold of – but the suspension is when most creative thought happens or most growth takes place.

I totally get it. I get it (read: she says jumping up and down). Again I get it, I might add.

I’ve pushed through some layers here or some scales have fallen from my eyes in the past few days – I say this because I was hung up – stuck for a short period of time – even though this time, without forcing it (because I was higher around on the spiral), I told myself to have faith that it would all work out as it was supposed to instead of trying to push a conclusion that was unnatural – and despite having longed for another outcome, the one that happened turns out to have been the best one for me because it left me open and in that transitional place, I saw details about my vision that I hadn’t considered, and the territory of my dreams enlarged and seemed more vast, and I realized yet again, as I have been accused of before – I was dreaming too small, I was boxing myself in, and I was not recognizing my own potential.

Great Leon Russell song by the way – Tightrope

I’m up on the tightwire

one side’s ice and one is fire

it’s a circus game with you and me

I’m up on the tightrope

one side’s hate and one is hope

but the tophat on my head is all you see

And the wire seems to be

the only place for me

a comedy of errors

and I’m falling

**Chorus**

Like a rubber-neck giraffe

you look into my past

well maybe you’re just to blind to – see

I’m up in the spotlight

ohh does it feel right

ohh the altitude

seems to get to me

I’m up on the tightwire

flanked by life and the funeral pyre

putting on a show

for you to see

Or so I’ve heard through the ages. This week started with Taylor dying first, then Ed Rubin (Steve’s partner from EHDD in San Francisco), and last Victor Elnecave (one of my Dad’s cousins in Cuba who I haven’t seen for eight years). I took a big sigh with the third one – hoping the cycle is complete for now. 

I saw this poem by Jane Hirshfield:

POEM WITH TWO ENDINGS

Say “death” and the whole room freezes–
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.

Say the word continuously,
and things begin to go forward.
Your life takes on
the jerky texture of an old film strip.

Continue saying it,
hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
it becomes another syllable.
A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.

Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
each swallows and swallows the world.

The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.

(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)

Last night J and I went to eat at Meaux Bar – we marveled over how this restaurant used to be the Golden Star and how I used to live at the Burgundy Inn and have those delicious burgers brought over by bellboys. The restaurant has come a long way from the lobster cribs and darkened windows and Joey – while the burgers back then were delicious, the fare now is delicious – a lyonnaise salad and ginger crawfish dumplings – big yum – I was not eating that 25 years ago. 

Then we walked down to Donna’s to hear Evan Christopher and Tom McDermott play. My MG girlfriend was there with her friends and had suggested it. I knew Evan was back from Paris but didn’t know he had a steady gig at Donna’s on Thursdays (go see him). Michael Skinkus joined them on percussions. The singer from Loose Marbles joined in – beautiful tattoos on her face and a voice that was nice and deep, then two Parisian horn players, not to mention other wind drop ins. It’s typical of Rampart Street even from when I lived there a few decades ago – the immediacy of musicians whose talents in any other part of the world would be seen in some huge concert hall with gold leaf ceilings, here they are simply tucked away for a few of us lucky ones to enjoy in a more intimate gathering. 

Again, only the blessed need apply. 

A friend emailed me about protocol with a computer related exchange. I wasn’t much help. But it got me thinking about how many people I still meet who are not familiar with what I consider second nature.

Texting – frankly texting is at new realm with pics and audio being sent along with the message. But what I was trying to explain to my friends the other day is that the art of courtship hinges on the ability to write pithy, short, coded missives. My friend G is probably in the top five on rapid fire repartee via texting. 

Social Networks – yes, who has time for this nonsense, but well, I do because I look at social networks as a form of new media (and hey, media is what I do) and the first venture into MySpace came about because all of my nieces and nephews were on there and I wanted to get in the groove with them. Then of course, had to get on Facebook, because that was the next new thing. But I think most people have at least some presence on a social network. Right?

Googling – when you meet someone new, particularly someone you might be interested in, don’t you google them? Dude, of course you do. I was about to go on a blind date with someone who turned out to have been arrested for domestic violence several times – what if I hadn’t googled? Have you ever googled yourself? Of course you have – no, don’t tell me you haven’t! Good grief – you are a neophyte. Google yourself, but don’t stop there, google images too. You never know what will turn up. My friend was being set up on a blind date and she googled the guy and turns out there was a photograph of him front and center wearing a banana hammock at some swim race. 

Last night, we were talking about films, books and poetry and all things interesting as we sat on the porch. Here in New Orleans on February 7 (Chinese New Year btw), we are experiencing incomparable temperate weather and star washed skies. As we talked about these things, I thought about how I’ve been steeped in revelry for a while now, and suspect I am due some film time, novel time, poetry time to recover the riches spent. 

We went to bed early and I woke at 2AM preoccupied with character – mainly mine and a few of those around me – in this play we are all in at the moment, this moment in time – and I was trying to catch a glimpse of what I might look like to those around me – and I thought of someone who has her head in the clouds and doesn’t seem to live in the concrete world that I inhabit – I thought of someone else and wondered what character they were playing in this drama – and I thought about the absurdity of ever knowing that our actions are going to lead to a desired outcome – how can we know? – we only say afterwards, we are lucky, or cursed, depending on which way the drama unfolds. 

This morning, I ran into Gomez and he suggested another book to me – On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan – netting it down to how there is that one moment in time when your path takes a slight turn and everything is different.

Again, we don’t want a divining rod to tell us what is next, it will all be revealed as J is want to say, but you want to understand why you were moved off center by someone, and it can’t help make you cautious when someone else moves you, and you start wondering why you seem so movable to begin with as if you are flimsy or overly tuned to changes in the current – as if chemistry were your own lab experiment and you keep mixing all this stuff together in the big vial and BAMMO or WOW or whatever the alchemy is what comes out of it – you’re suddenly transformed and a slight step to the left or to the right finds you veering in a new direction, with new thoughts, and new hopes, desires, dreams – but what about all those thick dreams that woke you crying in the past, or left you longing in the early morning (the madrugada), or tugged and tugged and tugged till you felt that you had a ball and chain you had to drag around. And you felt conspicuous, as if everyone knew your weakness or knows it now. 

What about the dream the other night that someone had stolen my briefcase with all my important papers and identification? Identity theft – now who are you dreaming about? Who are you tipping towards and away from? Who are you really – this flimsy character? Or a big strong girl with big beating heart unbreakable, resilient, bending towards the light? For survival.  

Here was my affirmation today:

Today I embrace the darkness and I willingly bring light into the dark places of my life. As my light expands, I stand more fully in the truth of my wholeness, and the seeming darkness is dispelled. I always have access to light.

This year Mardi Gras came early – it was the third consecutive Mardi Gras I’ve been to since leaving for California in 1990. I came out in ’05 before moving here late May the same year. 

2008 was a great Fat Tuesday – my band of angels were the perfect companions to travel the streets with and negotiate a crowd. 

I wasn’t ready for Mardi Gras this year – it was coming too early and I had just recovered from a holiday season that bar none beat every holiday season thus far (but was exhausting in its revelry) and then the Puerto Rico trip came suddenly and with San Sebastian Festival happening and friends here and there to dance with, well, again there I was, so I came home thinking, Mardi Gras, so soon? 

I wearily went to see Muses even after it was changed to Friday and then for Endymion, I was still looking for my groove but on Fat Tuesday morning, I found it lickety split and hit the ground running. Maybe it was the primer the day before with the second line impromptu in front of the Mother in Law lounge, maybe it was Ivette dancing on the front porch as if it were her stage and the bayou her adoring fans the night before, maybe it was all the champagne before 10AM, or, who knows, maybe it was my MGS – hard to say – I’m digging this reinvention of the holidays I got going on here – u heard?

But now there is the post-MG realization that it’s over and wont come again till next year and that Jazz Fest is a ways a way and so it’s nose to the grindstone, tuck the wigs back in their boxes, black and white takes over from the purple, green and gold, and there is no real reason to be drinking a daiquiri before 10AM. Sigh. Big sigh. 

Naturally, your affirmations are supposed to be about bigness, grandness, openness – but today on Ash Wednesday, this affirmation seems wow:

Today I release old concepts of who I am. I open to see myself through the lens of the infinite. Limitless possibility lies before me. I allow myself to be drawn forth by a greater vision for my life.