This weekend kicks off our Mardi Gras in earnest – Krewe de Vieux marches Saturday night. For now, today was a day to get the plumbing fixed from the last freeze, to get a friend to come over and do some honey do fix-its, and to take a deep breath and read Ten Tiny Tadpoles courtesy of our neighbor.
Goodnight moon.
Goodnight Mimi.
Goodnight Elephant.
Goodnight NOLA.
A friend has found some solace on antidepressants. Actually too many of my friends have found solace on anti-depressants. I say this because I’m not sure of Lexipro, Celebrex, and Zoloft as the panacea for dealing with heartache, paranoia, feelings of failure, self-esteem boosters, and whatnot. I am not saying I know the answer. Today in yoga Michele spoke of having a well of joy inside all of us that we can tap into as good and bad times come and go. I’d have to say that mental illness perhaps runs in my family. My father was full of rage, my mother was full of terror, my brothers swing from passive to too aggressive and my sister is a whole other story – a study in paranoia and anger. My own mood swings of euphoria to depression have been ameliorated by an ever increasing overwhelming feeling of joy that began in 1989 when I left New Orleans and struck out for the frontier – California – and changed my life.
Impending joy.
It’s an issue because sometimes I wonder where it comes from and whence it might go. But for the most part it stays, and it accompanied me on my hero’s journey from California to New Orleans through flood and fallout, and it surged once passed my troubles and remains my constant companion. Where does joy come from – does it exist in all of us but we just need to tap into it? Maybe it’s more likely that meds and fear keep a lid on joy because it keeps us from feeling the whole range of our feelings like sadness, despair, longing, and anxiety. Perhaps we can’t feel joy if we don’t feel its opposite.
Impending joy.
Today I woke with an overarching sentimentality – I missed my mom, I wanted to call her when I heard the moon lullabye. I walked around the bayou and was just sort of dumbstruck by how beautiful my surroundings are and how transient good days and feelings are. I looked at Tin and he looked older and it made me ache. Loca had red eyes from her traipsing in the bayou one too many times and I looked over and saw this guy I have seen every day since moving here – he walks stooped over even though he is not old and he walks a Jack Russell Terrier and is hyper cautious about anyone else walking by. Today, the dog had stopped, too old to walk that much further, my heart lurched out of my chest as I thought about losing Loca one day and having lost Arlene and Wolfie within a year of each other. On the other side of the bayou, I turned Tin towards the LaLa and said, that’s our house, the LaLa, over there.
Impending joy.
My mom used to tell us this rhyme when we were kids – “I see the moon, the moon sees me, god bless the moon and god bless me.” I was playing a list of nursery rhymes that a friend gave Tatjana for Tin and heard, “I see the moon, the moon sees me. The moon sees the person I hope to be. God bless the moon and god bless me, and god bless the person I hope to be.” It was an a ha moment – that is where that comes from. I always thought my mother made it up!
Today in yoga, laying back for shavasana, I thought of that rhyme, my mom, and my early memories of her singing lullabies to me as a child and missed her with an ache in my heart.
I can’t tell you how many times people look at Tin and say what a lucky boy he is – really? – I think they are overlooking the obvious, what a lucky mom I am! It reminded me of a song I heard one time when I was crossing the Jackson Street car ferry to go to Gretna to the courthouse when I worked as a paralegal for a law firm in downtown New Orleans. It is by Kathy Mattea and if you have never heard it, it is sure to make you cry as it did when I heard it on that sunny day as I glided across the muddy Mississippi.
When I’m looking into Tin’s eyes I think of this song.
Someone recommended we read the book the Happiest Baby on the Block, which is about how to get your child to get in a good sleep groove. This morning I gave Tin his bottle while we sat on the porch because the day was over the top gorgeous and then we had breakfast and took a walk while I sang to him – Glory Glory Glory Hallelujah His Truth Keeps Marching On – I don’t know why I was thinking of that song, perhaps it was the Saints’ victory last night but ever since I started singing along to opera arias on Sunday morning and when Pavarotti sings Nessun Dorma and gets to the end, I throw up my arms and sing VINCERO, VIN CER O! Tin has gotten in the habit of throwing his arms up in the air when he sees the bayou or hears certain music. So this morning with the sun glistening on the bayou, a slight chill in the air against the warmth of the sun on our heads, Glory Glory Glory Hallelujah just seemed boomed out of my heart and on cue, Tin threw his arms up in the air.
Later we got home and Tin just didn’t want to get out of the pouch so I got the Moby and put him in that as I did some housework. We went outside to clean the front windows and my neighbor and friend was riding her bike by. She’s around my age and statuesque, with beautiful blonde hair and she was wearing gorgeous large Hollywood style sunglasses and she had a dozen roses in her basket. She and her husband, a jazz pianist, are always in a sunny mood. They walk or ride their bikes around the bayou and always have big smiles on their faces. It almost makes you wonder what they are eating because they seem so damn happy all the time.
She told me she had on a whim booked a flight to Delhi with her sister-in-law and they were going for two weeks to stay in tree houses in a tiger jungle and then they were going horseback riding in a leopard forest. Wow, I said, no wonder you’re smiling. And then I went back to cleaning my windows with Tin in my pouch. He started laughing every time I swooped down to clean the lower part of the glass.
Happy is a state of mind.
To the answer, where did you get him about Tin – we got him in Indiana – to the question of where his allegiance is as in Indianapolis or New Orleans – duh! Who dat say Tin ain’t a Saint?
I took Tin over to friend’s house to watch the game but on the way he fell asleep in the car and so I waited outside and walked into the game media res but it didn’t matter because the game continued the way it started till the end – tied – and then, and then. My friends were loud and everyone was in high spirits so it took a while to calm Tin down when we got home and get him his bottle and get him to bed.
And then, he fell asleep and we turned the game on and I almost had a heart attack. I was up and off the couch screaming and jumping and I think I died and went to heaven when that field goal was kicked. Saints in the Superbowl. It has a great sound doesn’t it?
Black and Gold – our colors can run!!!!
The strangest questions that people ask when they meet Tin in order of most frequently asked:
1) Where did you get him?
2) Do you think he knows who you are?
3) Do you think he is handling the transition okay?
4) Was it hard to adopt him?
A friend of mine said he has an early memory of a flood in Cincinnati, where he was standing by the front door and watching a boat go by on the street. He was two years old. Most people can’t remember anything from before four or five years of age. At least I can’t. I can barely remember anything these days. My mind has become a sieve.
When we were at the zoo, Tin was mesmerized by the elephant and giraffe and monkeys, but I wondered if he would actually be building a memory of them yet. We have talked about telling Tin his story about how he came to us, but we haven’t started yet. We did make a book of who he was before he came to us, but it was loosely based on what we know about him before. I remember when we went to the clinic on December 7th, the nurse practitioner pulled me aside and said the good news is that “he won’t remember any of this.”
Some quick research online brought up controversial opinions about when memory is first born. Some believe two years old marks a radical departure in a child being able to memorize. But Tin remembers how to high five, and he remembers his drawer in the kitchen with the Tupperware that he gets to play in, he also knows the meaning of no when we tell him not to touch something, but most books say he doesn’t.
I hope that when he scans his earliest memories they are of sitting on the front porch of the LaLa and watching the bayou and of being loved by his mothers, and of all the wonders that surround him here in New Orleans. He is about to be introduced to Mardi Gras and soon Jazz Fest, surely these are memorable events. I wonder though if he will remember being carried in my pack and turning his gaze to meet the sound of the giant wind chimes under the oak tree in City Park.
The death toll in Haiti is nearing 200,000, which is unfathomable. This little country will need a lot of healing in the coming years.
I got up this morning and read the New York Time and then got my butt on my bike for the first time in many days of not riding. I tuned my Ipod to Schumann as it is the centennial of both Schumann and Chopin. I rode to the lakefront and my body felt like it had never ridden a bike before – I was stiff in places I shouldn’t be, the saddle felt like razors, and my back was rigid.
I only rode 15 miles but it felt like 150.
Oh well, baby steps.