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Last night we went to the opera to see Verdi’s Requiem and we both took a long sigh when the beginning started with may they find eternal peace. Big sigh, big long sigh. We left the opera, I was feeling a little forlorn, not much in the mood to go anywhere. We almost went by Meaux Bar but I had just been there the night before with a friend, and then we ended up just stopping in the Spotted Cat. Great mood lifter – the Cotton Mouth (Jazz Viper members) were playing and as they got in their groove in walked a very tattooed young girl and a tall thin guy with a long beard – they took off their coats and started jitterbugging like in the movies. We knew we had found our right groove – you mourn, you grieve, you move onto life and dancing.

Thank god for New Orleans.

I found that after Tatjana and I moved into together, I gained about 6 to 8 pounds which seemed to stick, latched on for dear life. Then my mom got sick and I noticed that I would go through the house and graze on whatever was around because I couldn’t seem to satisfy this hunger that was almost unnatural as I would eat and feel hungry minutes later. That was about 10 pounds worth of fretting and stress. Then two months of no exercise after adopting Tin and what you have now is a woman who feels like a bloated tick. That’s the best way I can describe myself. So I wanted to just quit eating from now until the rest of my life but I decided I need to take it slow. Someone said as long as it took you to put it on it takes that long to take it off – two years? Jesus. I think I need quicker results than that.

My horoscope today:

January 23, 2010

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

   You woke up this morning, looked in the mirror, and decided there was something about you that you’d like to change. Well, good for you. You can do it, and you know it. If it’s a physical change, start planning your new regimen and remember, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps. And what about getting an exercise buddy? Isn’t there someone you’d like to get to know better anyway?

I’d give to you a day just like today. We began on the porch with Tin’s bottle, rocking and waving to neighbors who all called, “Good morning Tin!!!” The sun was shining, the birds were flying, the fish were jumping out of the bayou. My 8 year old neighbor came by and asked if she could play with Tin. I asked her why she wasn’t in school, she said she was not feeling well this morning but suddenly felt better. “Uh huh,” I said. Where is your brother? I asked her, “Fishing, she said. “Did he not feel well this morning either?” No response.

Then she joined me and Tin on our magic walk along the bayou and to City Park. We stood under the wind chimes and listen to the magic of the music. Then we walked around the big lake and made our way back home trying to keep Tin awake so that he could nap when he got home. I put him in his crib and he went magically to sleep.

Then T1 came home and T2 woke up and we went out to the front porch and sat outside and enjoyed the magnificent weather and watched the fishes jumping out of the water.

Later I took Tin visiting while T1 napped – we went to see Maria and then we went to the Maple Street bookstore and got a Mother Goose book, then we went to the clothing store and I cashed in my store credit I had been holding onto for so long. Tin fell asleep in the truck so I bought a Times Picayune and laid back in the front seat to read it with the sun warming my toes.

We made it home in time to sit on the porch for his 4:30 bottle and our friends and neighbors to stop and chat and comment on how happy Tin looks. Then T, T2 and our young neighbor all made another loop around the bayou with Loca in tow.

Tonight T and I are headed to Verdi Requiem at the Opera House. Appropriate in some huge way.

I’ve got a problem that I readily admit, I am like a wind up toy, you wind me up and I just do do do do do till I fall over like the Energizer bunny. Meanwhile, I watch people around me relaxing, enjoying, and generally not getting all whipped up about everything like I do and I wonder how they do it. Well age is helping, I’m mellower because I don’t have the physical capacity to do 24/7 but I still do way too much.

T came into my life to help me on my path to enlightenment. I need to slow down. I need to let others do things for me. I need to be able to ask for what I want and to want things for me.

T2 came into my life to demonstrate that there is some great big mystery in the world that is what I worship and am inspired by. I read recently there is a new movie about Darwin, not the scientist, but Darwin the man. The commentator was saying the movie was sure to rile many religious factions because it advocates atheism. Why advocate anything? There is a greater mystery in this world than could ever be explained by me, by Darwin or an atheist or any religion for that matter.

How did the universe provide me with people in my life who was exactly what I need to continue my path as an enlightened and happy soul? It was not a random coincidence.

Yesterday I went with friends and Tin to the Zoo. We’re blessed here in New Orleans to have one of the most premier zoos in the world. There was a while there where I couldn’t fathom zoos – the animals in cages sort of broke my heart. But yesterday with Tin seeing an elephant and a giraffe and monkeys and a zebra and sea lions all for the first time, not to mention the peacock that kept gliding by, I just saw the brilliance of teaching children about animals and the world.

I wondered though how is that giraffes and elephants and zebras don’t need breeders to keep being beautiful and the peacock, no one is culling the herd or breeding them to be so awesome. Why is that people insist on breeding dogs and cats to be mutants?

Later we walked around the swampland and got a feel for the vegetation that is home to Louisiana flora and fauna. What a wonderful world.

About twenty years ago someone asked me what I wanted and I said I wanted to move home to New Orleans, have a child and be a parent with someone I love, and live in a beautiful home. Check.

Of course, nowhere did it say just how difficult all that would be to attain but, hey here’s my victory lap.

That same someone said I didn’t dare to dream big enough.

So now the dream is that I live in the LaLa on Bayou St. John and Tin inherits it after I go, and I figure out some way to pay it forward whether here in my community or globally, I want to be more than a hyena – if they are determined enough to help feed all the young-uns in their group, how come we can’t feed the ones in our group?

#53

The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.

When rich speculators prosper
while farmers lose their land;
when the government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn–
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.

I woke early this morning and was up at my desk having finally gotten much needed rest. Last night, I was unable to go to the gym because Hollywood had blocked my egress and ingress on the bayou. I was frustrated yesterday having had no sleep both listening to Tin coughing and having underwater anxiety over how life was going to really work – school, mortgage, career, etc.

This morning my dear friend sent me an email that simply said, “I quit yesterday.” I wanted to jump up and down for her. She has been beleaguered by this job for almost two years and finally, she can now get a good night’s sleep.

The balmy breeze that blew the bayou gently towards the lake this morning was unforgettable.

There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.  ~John Mortimer