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Obama came to New Orleans for a four hour stop and he told the people of New Orleans that we will rebuild stronger than before. He drove around and he saw houses vacant, schools dilapidated, roads in need of repair, and what I want to know was that pre or post Katrina? Never you mind, the important thing is that everyone – Obama, the Louisiana politicians, and the rest all focus on the Gulf Coast – that’s what needs to be protected before the rest can matter.

For those of us who toil in a room alone most of the day and have our victories and defeats that play out on our little stage – I say take a break! Chill out for a moment. Quit reading electronic media. Close your eyes or look up at the clouds and relish this one moment where you are breathing and feeling alive. Surely there is more to life than getting and spending.

I saw a hawk circling the sky from my office this morning. It was another restless night at the Ok Corral as life out of rhythm continues to be my late night theme. I do fine in the getting to bed, read a little, then out like a light, and next thing you know the churning wakes me up and I have no where to hide in the blackness of my room.

I watched the hawk circling and circling its prey – focused – intent on capturing what was in its line of vision.

There is a moment when you let your breath out and decide to move on and soar through the open sky but that doesn’t mean the shackles have been taken off your ankles (yet).

It’s hard to put aside the expectations that have accrued out of past experiences and desires and replace them with a new and improved version of dreams and desires based firmly in the present. But it happens. Joseph Campbell said we have to be prepared to set aside the life we had planned for the one that presents itself. But there is still a full archive of regret. I thought this was happening, or I believed my life was going in this direction, or I thought I was making the right decisions for my future – poof – all gone. How to deal?

Well plain and simple is what was isn’t what is – so get used to it.

And all those old dreams and regrets and desires, go ahead and lay your burdens down because you don’t need to be carrying that baggage to the next bus stop, they just drag you down.

This is my thought of the day – what was is not what is.

When we were trying to get pregnant, friends stayed at our place and accidentally got pregnant while we were out of town. An unwanted but now welcome child. As we drum our fingers on the table waiting for someone to call us about adopting a baby, we are nervous about how to respond, if they will choose us, and most of all about finally meeting the baby we have been dreaming about.

I like to tell our friends their baby was supposed to be ours. They say we can rent her anytime.

This morning as I headed to the park, I was thinking about removing, erasing, censoring some of the negative loops that play out in my mind. Interestingly enough today’s yoga was about nonviolent confrontation, even within yourself. I was wondering how you edit your loop when you are still faced with the very negative issues that you are trying to override.

But I digress, this morning, on my way down the bayou, I saw a pelican cruising the water and then diving down for a tasty treat.

My heart soared.

Obama is expected to be in the 9th Ward on Thursday addressing an elementary school there and then he will have a town hall meeting at UNO. One of the few drawbacks of not getting the local paper anymore is missing this information – I could have registered and possibly gone to see him speak in person.

In the meantime, I did just pay $17 for a new bumper sticker – it’s the Shepard Fairey image that says Yes We Can! – they were selling used ones on Ebay – which might be where my stolen one went to – $11 for used.

Olympia Snow, one of the few Republican politicians I respect, has come through with backing for Obama’s health care plan. Excellent.

The New York Times wrote:

Senator Snowe, a Republican, Backs Health Care Bill

Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine indicated that she would support the Finance Committee health care bill, although she withheld support for future versions of the legislation. She is the only Republican senator to have voiced support for the bill.

I came home last night from the gym in a downpour that rivaled any rain I’ve ever seen in my life. The streets were flooded in minutes and my truck was barely skating through the deep water. I came into the house – ready for some R&R, ready to plop down and read my book, the second in the trilogy by Larsson, and instead found myself waiting on someone who was supposed to come and never showed and as I walked around in circles – I felt a big puddle of water in my hand and I looked up to see the ceiling is leaking in exactly the same place it had been leaking last year when I paid for the roofer, the contractor, the painter to fix it all like new.

I ambled over to the sofa and lay there transfixed by the ceiling fan that was on full tilt as the thick air outside had made it unbearably hot in the house even with the a/c on. Then I walked out to the porch and looked at the light across the bayou behind the showers of rain.

And now, a moment from Mark Strand:

The Night, The Porch

To stare at nothing is to learn by heart?
What all of us will be swept into, and baring oneself?
To the wind is feeling the ungraspable somewhere close by.?
Trees can sway or be still. Day or night can be what they wish.?
What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfort?
Of being strangers, at least to ourselves. This is the crux?
Of the matter. Even now we seem to be waiting for something?
Whose appearance would be its vanishing–the sound, say,?
Of a few leaves falling, or just one leaf, or less.?
There is no end to what we can learn. The book out there?
Tells as much, and was never written with us in mind.