Dangermond.org

At the River

One night that summer my mother decided it was time to tell me about
what she referred to as pleasure, though you could see she felt
some sort of unease about this ceremony, which she tried to cover up
by first taking my hand, as though somebody in the family had just died—
she went on holding my hand as she made her speech,
which was more like a speech about mechanical engineering
than a conversation about pleasure. In her other hand,
she had a book from which, apparently, she’d taken the main facts.
She did the same thing with the others, my two brothers and sister,
and the book was always the same book, dark blue,
though we each got our own copy.

There was a line drawing on the cover
showing a man and woman holding hands
but standing fairly far apart, like people on two sides of a dirt road.

Obviously, she and my father did not have a language for what they did
which, from what I could judge, wasn’t pleasure.
At the same time, whatever holds human beings together
could hardly resemble those cool black-and-white diagrams, which suggested,
among other things, that you could only achieve pleasure
with a person of the opposite sex,
so you didn’t get two sockets, say, and no plug.

School wasn’t in session.
I went back to my room and shut the door
and my mother went into the kitchen
where my father was pouring glasses of wine for himself and his invisible guest
who—surprise—doesn’t appear.
No, it’s just my father and his friend the Holy Ghost
partying the night away until the bottle runs out,
after which my father continues sitting at the table
with an open book in front of him.
Tactfully, so as not to embarrass the Spirit,
my father handled all the glasses,
first his own, then the other, back and forth like every other night.

By then, I was out of the house.
It was summer; my friends used to meet at the river.
The whole thing seemed a grave embarrassment
although the truth was that, except for the boys, maybe we didn’t understand mechanics.
The boys had the key right in front of them, in their hands if they wanted,
and many of them said they’d already used it,
though once one boy said this, the others said it too,
and of course people had older brothers and sisters.

We sat at the edge of the river discussing parents in general
and sex in particular. And a lot of information got shared,
and of course the subject was unfailingly interesting.
I showed people my book, Ideal Marriage—we all had a good laugh over it.
One night a boy brought a bottle of wine and we passed it around for a while.

More and more that summer we understood
that something was going to happen to us
that would change us.
And the group, all of us who used to meet this way,
the group would shatter, like a shell that falls away
so the bird can emerge.
Only of course it would be two birds emerging, pairs of birds.

We sat in the reeds at the edge of the river
throwing small stones. When the stones hit,
you could see the stars multiply for a second, little explosions of light
flashing and going out. There was a boy I was beginning to like,
not to speak to but to watch.
I liked to sit behind him to study the back of his neck.

And after a while we’d all get up together and walk back through the dark
to the village. Above the field, the sky was clear,
stars everywhere, like in the river, though these were the real stars,
even the dead ones were real.

But the ones in the river—
they were like having some idea that explodes suddenly into a thousand ideas,
not real, maybe, but somehow more lifelike.

When I got home, my mother was asleep, my father was still at the table,
reading his book. And I said, Did your friend go away?
And he looked at me intently for a while,
then he said, Your mother and I used to drink a glass of wine together
after dinner.

A woman enters
Patron box lifted up high
Then dancing ensues

I couldn’t spend even a minute today crystalizing even one thought. My friends had arrived on a redeye – that was the most I remembered because their visit went by in a blur. I had spent Sunday morning at the hospital listening to a doctor tell me what I already knew about my mother – he was personable, his words filled me with more sadness. I spent Monday like most Monday’s bewilderly busy and wondering how I was going to leave on my trip the next day with so much that had to be done before I could sleep. Then I had a moment to write and to think and my mind just stood there – not thinking. So I read this poem and found it compelling in the way perhaps a Mark Strand poem can be compelling:

A Slip of Paper

Today I went to the doctor—
the doctor said I was dying,
not in those words, but when I said it
she didn’t deny it—

What have you done to your body, her silence says.
We gave it to you and look what you did to it,
how you abused it.
I’m not talking only of cigarettes, she says,
but also of poor diet, of drink.

She’s a young woman; the stiff white coat disguises her body.
Her hair’s pulled back, the little female wisps
suppressed by a dark band. She’s not at ease here,

behind her desk, with her diploma over her head,
reading a list of numbers in columns,
some flagged for her attention.
Her spine’s straight also, showing no feeling.

No one taught me how to care for my body.
You grow up watched by your mother or grandmother.
Once you’re free of them, your wife takes over, but she’s nervous,
she doesn’t go too far. So this body I have,
that the doctor blames me for—it’s always been supervised by women,
and let me tell you, they left a lot out.

The doctor looks at me—
between us, a stack of books and folders.
Except for us, the clinic’s empty.

There’s a trap-door here, and through that door,
the country of the dead. And the living push you through,
they want you there first, ahead of them.

The doctor knows this. She has her books,
I have my cigarettes. Finally
she writes something on a slip of paper.
This will help your blood pressure, she says.

And I pocket it, a sign to go.
And once I’m outside, I tear it up, like a ticket to the other world.

She was crazy to come here,
a place where she knows no one.
She’s alone; she has no wedding ring.
She goes home alone, to her place outside the village.
And she has her one glass of wine a day,
her dinner that isn’t a dinner.

And she takes off that white coat:
between that coat and her body,
there’s just a thin layer of cotton.
And at some point, that comes off too.

To get born, your body makes a pact with death,
and from that moment, all it tries to do is cheat—

You get into bed alone. Maybe you sleep, maybe you never wake up.
But for a long time you hear every sound.
It’s a night like any summer night; the dark never comes.

LOUISE GLÜCK

I’m an overachiever and consummate multitasker and the problem is that I am always busy. Last night, we went by our friends’ new house and I sat at the bar and let them serve me champagne and yummy artichoke dip and I could have just sat there all night. Today, I woke to a headwind of work and the painters arriving to paint the sections of the house that had to be resealed because of the lame painter who did it the first time and the washing machine repairman was a no show but kept me tethered waiting for him all day and whew – I looked up at some point and just said whew!

I have declared myself an ambassador for this great city, and I’ll tell anyone who wants to know how great the charms and ways of New Orleans are. After Katrina, I decided the least I could do is proselytize about a place that has me thoroughly under its spell. So when Tom & Matko came from Croatia and one of them is an architect, I made it my business to put together a walking tour around the bayou that dates and gives an historical background on the houses that surround this body of water and make up my neighborhood.

Yesterday, I was giving a driving overview of the city to my girlfriends that began with us leaving Bayou St. John and driving to the lakefront – we went down Wisner because I thought we should pass the Spanish Fort, the Greek Church, and the new bike path that was installed after Katrina along that part of the bayou, but honestly going down Marconi is way better because you pop out at the lake and it has this sense of awe when you see the enormity of Lake Ponchartrain suddenly glittering in front of you. That is the route I took Doug & Carl on when they were here and we were on our bikes – it was then that D decided he wanted to move here and buy a boat. He’s a boataholic.

Then we drove back through Fountainbleau and I told them about how there were three neighborhoods that were devastated by Katrina that rarely get play in the news and writings. The 9th Ward is certainly the most tragic as a way of life ended with Katrina that will never recover. But there was also Lakeview (land of the wealthy who mostly did not return or relocated Uptown to what we call the Isle of Denial as their storm effects were minimal), Broadmoor by Fountainbleau (a citizen recovery success story) and New Orleans East (still appearing to be teetering on the verge of recovery).

We then hopped over to Carrolton Avenue and followed the trolley car route around the River Bend and then went by the university area – Tulane, Loyola – Audubon Park on the right and then uptown where Napoleon Avenue meets St. Charles Avenue and where most of the best parades on Mardi Gras begin and where I used to live next door to Anne Rice’s St. Elizabeth’s – an enormous old orphanage that she converted into her party house and office.

We continued into the Garden District turning down one of the number streets to find Anne Rice’s old mansion and then back up through the muses – to get to Downtown and the Warehouse District – the enormous D Day Museum that my professor Stephen Ambrose spearheaded and the Ogden Southern Museum that hosts Thursdays music conversations in its lobby and packs the locals in to share our rich musical heritage and then Lafayette Square home to Wednesdays free summer concerts and the greeting of Kings and Queens of Mardi Gras.

Then to the French Quarter and across Esplanade through the Marigny where Frenchman Street has chock a block of music venues that singularly define the rich musical life of New Orleans and then to the Bywater where we got derailed at Sound Cafe by a Second Line parade that had spontaneously gathered the multitudes and so we backtracked and made our way down St. Claude and across the Industrial Canal looking down to the our left at where the barge had breached the levee and where the lower 9 was completely annihilated – but now there are many houses from Make It Right – Brad Pitt’s (who should be mayor) pet project to restore housing to the families who lost everything in Katrina. Then passed Fats Domino’s house and back up and to the Backstreet Cultural Museum in Treme – the oldest black neighborhood in the country.

At one point, my friend asked me about some historical facts that I didn’t know – what year was the Louisiana Purchase (May 2, 1803 – my birthday, I should at least remember this date, the US purchased from France 828,800 square miles for $11,250 and the cancellation of $3,750 worth of debt*). Wikipedia offers a nice overview of the other facts – the French and Spanish settlements prior to the land purchase. The Indians who lived here before the Europeans arrived used the bayou as an important trade route – then traders arrived in 1690 – and the City of New Orleans was founded in 1718 by the French – in 1763, New Orleans was ceded to the Spanish hence the very Spanish architecture that dominates the French Quarter, in 1800 Bonaparte, reclaimed Louisiana under French rule hence the neutral grounds and the Napoleon House, where I sat with my friends having a Pimm’s Cup in the courtyard, which was built to accommodate Bonaparte on his travels here.

*Napoleon Bonaparte said, “This accession of territory affirms forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a maritime rival who sooner or later will humble her pride.”

There is something about New Orleans that makes a girl want to wear a tutu and a wig. I don’t know what it is but it’s like it just makes so much sense when you are here. And last night at the Gimme Me A Break party my girlfriends who are in town for the weekend found out why New Orleans is a city of good spirits – you can walk into a party where you know nobody and suddenly have 20 best friends.

A friend was telling me about a friend of hers. Married for years to a man who didn’t want children. Divorced after 20 years. Met a man 7 years younger. And at 56, with donor egg, and his sperm had twins. Now at 58, happy as punch.

Had some girlfriends come in on the redeye last night – one has never been to New Orleans – let’s see what is there to do? Hmmm.

French Quarter – lunch at Stanleys

Sit on the porch

Swirl’s Friday night tasting

A “Gimme a Break” party thrown by friends

Next day:

Breakfast at the LaLa

Tour of Garden District – then 9th Ward

Frenchman Street for Music

Then dancing at Mimi’s to Soul Sister.

What to do, what to do?

In 1959, the year I was born (ahem, a vintage year) women were allowed to order drinks for the first time at the Sazerac. Up until that date, they had to have a man order for them. To commemorate this occasion the Roosevelt is having a Storming of the Sazerac night. So ladies, belly up.

This will start at 2PM on Friday, September 25th and go into the evening.

In keeping the best and throwing out the rest theme, The Roosevelt has reopened in grand style. The old grand dame was purchased by Waldorf Astoria and it just makes me smile to hear people talking about the Blue Room, the Sazerac lounge, and even remembering many early morning – like 3 or 4AM – meals I had at Baileys, which is now John Besh’s Dominica.

In 1983, when I was marrying my first husband, we began planning our wedding and the Roosevelt or what we still called the Fairmont at that time, was one of the few that would cater a kosher wedding – at the time it mattered. Well, when we tallied what our wedding would cost, it was about $15,000 and my father offered me $10,000 in cash and a wedding in my brother’s backyard for 50 people. And like any good business woman, I took it.

Then about a few month later, my brother married his long time girlfriend and they had the wedding I had planned. Ice sculptures, big band, food a plenty and the cocktails flowing in the Blue Room. He got up on stage and sang “Chances Are” by Johnny Mathis to his bride to be. The food, the pulchritude, it was a night of magic that I’ll never forget – and thank god it wasn’t my wedding because I got to enjoy it.

The Roosevelt is looking for old photos from past experiences and I just wrote my sister in law to see if she could send me a photo that captured that night and the magic.