The light is fading softly and the air is still cool as we are about to enter May and New Orleans’ long hot summer, but something about the right now feels so precious I want to stay in this moment a little longer.
It’s approximately 24 hours till T returns after leaving for 24 days – that is half as long as I knew her before she left – well not really, we spent a lifetime getting to know each other and just happened to have met now – what’s time anyway, just a linear equation, right? Then why did 24 days feel like eternity? Because it’s like taking candy from a baby – a BIG BABY – and she’s my sweets and when she went away, I cried like a baby every day so now it will be R minus tears.
I was talking to M today and she said that she has always been a crybaby and I said so have I. I cry when watching a Tampax commercial! It borders on ridiculous – all these emotions and they are profoundly deep and yet right on the surface and there is always a tempest working its magic inside, which manifests itself into “drama” as T calls it – but hey, whatyagonnado?
The most exciting thing about T coming home is YOU dear reader don’t have to listen to me whine anymore about T minus this or that because soon it will be T plus this and that – instead we can go back to talking about New Orleans and other exciting news like the fact that a few women of Lesbo are suing a gay rights group for referring to themselves as Lesbians.
Or of more interest, it’s the second weekend of Jazz Fest and not only have they added back Thursday to the second weekend but Stevie Wonder decided to play on my birthday. How cool is that?
And there are Jazz Fest parties galore – a neighbor is boiling crawfish, a friend is right now ordering a ton of crawfish and someone told me there is a grotto that was put up near the Fairgrounds called Our Lady of Perpetual Crawfish – I like that – I love Jazz Fest and I super love that T is coming home (finally) – because she loves me and I love her – how great is that? Like Tony the Tiger always says: It’s GREAAAAT!
A friend was telling me that she has relied on her looks most of her life and fears as she ages she will lose what has been her signature – I told her she is wrong – dead wrong – she may feel this way but others don’t perceive only her looks – beauty is as beauty does – we see beauty in deed as well as what meets the eyes. Look at Cesoria Evoria in this clip that Ivette sends me – she is beautiful, her voice is beautiful, the song is beautiful. Beauty is as beauty does:
The main reason I ran out to see Gal Holiday last night is this – at dinner Monday night my friend told me that her friend had just died of a heart attack at 49! Yikes, I thought, as Friday I will be 49 – I must seize the day (or the night). The thing about that is this – my dad lived his life in perpetual carpe diem mode – indulging his gypsy urges by dragging his children to and fro to live in hotels all over Central America and moving from city to city in the US. He lived like there was no tomorrow and he died young – 62 – so maybe there was no tomorrow. But isn’t balance better? Or is balance overrated? I swing from pole to pole – I’ll sleep when I’m dead to an intense feeling that I ain’t living long like this. What’s a modern girl to do?
They say you can work out religiously but if you stop for a period of two weeks you will lose it all – the cut, the ripple, the tautness of each muscle – gone, vanished.
A friend of mine asked once, “where does love go?”
No need to question “does absence make the heart grow fonder?” – I know the answer.
This morning, the reality that we have been too long apart is palpable across the globe – no memories of how we kiss? – a moment of routine disrupted produces anxiety, heart-pounding need – this absence will not stand – “get used to it, that is T, she is always leaving, traveling” plays in my mind as I crawl in bed without sending a goodnight email – my head hurts this morning.
I wait for my tea to steep and read the lines taped to the window – YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
Went to Chickie Wah Wah on the spur of the moment last night with G to see Gal Holiday and Ingrid Lucia – saw Gal (her signature bleached blonde hair now subdued into a sultry brunette) but didn’t stay to see the band play because it was almost midnight and the second band hadn’t even started and well, it was a school night (sigh)!
Joe stopped by today to replace two gardenia bushes – they are the latest and greatest “frost-free” gardenia bushes that look like shit, so I am replacing them with the tried and true ones – he asked me if I had heard of the shooting yesterday – “some kid got half his head blown off with an AK47.” I asked him what the hell is going on and he said it’s “beefing” –
Rachel – Beefing?
Joe – When I live on one block and you on the other side of the street and I come over and shoot your brother and you come over and shoot someone.
Rachel – What the hell for?
Joe – Dunno – old men like myself can’t sit on the front porch and enjoy ourselves because the young boys, no more than twenty or so, are messing it all up for the rest of us.
Rachel – Why don’t all you old men get together and do something?
Joe – Can’t do nothing. You hit them, the police get you. You shoot them, they’ll come shoot you. Police never come until the last minute, after someone already shot and dead.
Rachel – Doesn’t make any sense.
Joe – No, it sure don’t.
There is a great article in the WSJ this morning – the psychobabble is that some people succeed because they figure if they keep trying they will succeed. Duh. The best point in the article is how to manage failure and not to let it sideline you – as my friend J is want to quote “your best play, is your next one.”
Psychologists call it “self-efficacy,” the unshakable belief some people have that they have what it takes to succeed. First described by Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1970s, self-efficacy has become a key concept in educational circles, and is being applied to health care, management, sports and seemingly intractable social problems like AIDS in developing countries. It’s also a hallmark of the “positive psychology” movement now sweeping the mental-health field, which focuses on developing character strengths rather than alleviating pathologies.
Self-efficacy differs from self-esteem in that it’s a judgment of specific capabilities rather than a general feeling of self-worth. “It’s easy to have high self-esteem — just aim low,” says Prof. Bandura, who is still teaching at Stanford at age 82. On the other hand, he notes, there are people with high self-efficacy who “drive themselves hard but have low self-esteem because their performance always falls short of their high standards.”
Still, such people succeed because they believe that persistent effort will let them succeed. In fact, if success comes too easily, some people never master the ability to learn from criticism. “People need to learn how to manage failure so it’s informational and not demoralizing,” says Prof. Bandura, who signs many of his emails, “May the efficacy force be with you!” (“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. That’s why I succeed,” Michael Jordan has said.)
I had lunch with a friend last night at Vega – we had a delicious bottle of Spanish wine and tapas – and we got caught up. She said, “You seem like you’re in a good mood.” I said, “Thursday!” She smiled with her whole face, eyes, mouth, nose all wrinkled because I was smiling in the same way.