Archive for 2020

Shut the front door

Saturday, April 4th, 2020

I went to sleep so peacefully. “Thanks,” was the last word on my lips.

I woke a few hours later with a vice grip closing around my throat. It’s all not alright. None of it. The project that has dogged me since last year is howling at the moon right outside my window – loose ends that have frayed my last nerve. There is no money coming in but there is money is going out. The lighted marquis at St. Rose de Lima still announces the St. Joseph Altar at 100 Men Hall on March 19th as a reminder that the world has been altered.

Unable to sleep, and two thirds of the way through Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts: Using the Power of Pleasure to Have Your Way with the World that my niece sent me, I picked up Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything: Notes on Hope that Kandi left on my doorstep. Three chapters into Lamott, I thought I had self soothed and could go back to sleep, but as soon as the lights were out, my brain reactivated its doomsday scenario.

I screamed. Lord Chill jumped off the bed. Stella stood up from her bed.

I came into the kitchen looking for a sip of water to calm my nerves and my phone was lit up with a message entitled Quarantune #3 – an mp4 of my friend, her husband and daughter singing I’m Happy To Be Stuck With You by Huey Lewis and the News. It made me smile.

Now, I’m going to take an Atavan, my last ditch effort to quell anxiety when my more holisitic remedies aren’t working.

I’m sure we will all be okay in the end and if we are not okay, then it’s not the end [quote from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel]. In the meantime, God bless my friends who send me missives of hope at just the right hour.

Loss and Found

Friday, April 3rd, 2020

FOUND: There is a dirty little secret about the COVID-19 pandemic – more time for everything. Long walks. Bike rides. Books. Movies. Time to chat and check in with friends – albeit at a (social) distance.

LOSS: The momentum of my business here at the 100 Men Hall. I was building an audience, a reputation, a community, sponsors, grants, a vision and now the rug has been pulled out from under me.

FOUND: A community. You never really know who your people are until trouble strikes and I learned this in the 2005 Federal Flood and I’m learning it again now – your people show up.

LOSS: St. Joseph Altar, My friend’s wedding, a fundraiser for the Bay Ratz, a Drag King show, Chapel Hart performing here. What will happen this May with two MEGA BLUES stars engaged to perform – will it be a BLUE MAY or a Blues May?

FOUND: Time to write. Time to contemplate. Time to meditate. Time to veg out. Time to space out.

LOSS: Routine, plans, investments, money, savings, revenue.

How I spent my quarantine

Thursday, April 2nd, 2020

My dear,

We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them. Don’t let them explore you until they’ve explored the secret universes of books. Don’t let them connect with you until they’ve walked between the lines on the pages.

Books are cool, if you have to withhold yourself from someone for a bit in order for them to realize this then do so.

Truly yours,
John Samuel Waters

Beauty is in the mind of the beholden

Thursday, April 2nd, 2020

My mother was an enchanting beauty with her jade green eyes and thick honeyed hair. She turned heads. My sister with her high cheek bones and muscular petite frame has my mom’s looks.

Growing up next to these beauties never fazed me. I didn’t compare myself to them or any of the other strikingly beautiful friends I’ve come to know over the years. I know beauty is luck and sometimes even a curse.

But I’m going to be honest, I’ve been hearing some really nasty comments lately about my looks. Verily, I tell you these comments are downright snarky and mean. They say I’m fat. They remind me I might have been cute when I was young but that’s gone (ahem) forever. They tell me I have no muscle tone in my thighs or arms. They laugh about the cellulite that outlines every inch of my thin, dry skin.

This mean mugging shoots straight from my lips. I’m a horrible person the way I talk to myself. And I should know better – damn it – I talked myself into believing bald is beautiful not too long ago. (Hint: I accomplished this by whispering I love you, Rachel every time I passed a mirror.)

So today I put on RED LIPSTICK. Woo Hoo! When I was young, my mother not so subtly begged me to wear makeup. I wouldn’t couldn’t. She shamed me into wearing lipstick. It stuck. But this quarantine life does not lend itself to even the minimum of decorum. So the jabs and barbs leak from my brain after days of wearing the same black yoga pants with their dog and cat hair design and those tortured looks in the mirror as I brush the same boring teeth set in this wrinkled mouth.

Then it snowballed! The red lipstick made me want to put on earrings – not my big hoops but a pair of my mom’s studs – 18kt gold studs with blue sapphires to catch the sunlight. Jazzy leggings with colorful socks. I even dabbed on my signature scent. Wala! Transformed! Project Runway here I come.

I flung open the door and strutted down the deserted streets of Bay Saint Louis as beautiful as a peacock.

At the end of desire, Joy

Thursday, April 2nd, 2020

The human corridor has expanded for many of us walkers because we have time. My 2-3 mile walks are now a meandering 4-7 miles most mornings. I find myself in new neighborhoods, waving to new people on their porches, and even today being followed by a new dog all the way to the Hall (spoiler alert: the owner came to get her).

On my walk this morning, I listened to a meditation that asked what I need right now? I thought about the usual suspects that are perhaps more poignant now than ever – money, security, health. A response came not from my thoughts, but from my entire being, the answer was nothing.

I do not need right now.

I felt full because I woke to a text thread from a group of gals I have had the immense pleasure of joining after my move to Mississippi. Each one more incredible than the next and their missives this morning were a resounding “I’ve got your back.”

I had other messages from friends – a dear friend who lost her shit yesterday for real and sent me a glorious good morning text today. Another text thread from friends sharing a meditation. Another one sharing a spoken word poem about Fear. Bounty, I tell you, is what I have, not need.

Then right then and there I felt it wash over me. JOY. Oh yes, I’ve known joy before, always unexpected, always an emotion that stops the clock, always a revelation with a surge of powerful feelings of being loved and loving in a feral, primal, no holds bar type of way. You don’t get to choose joy. It’s not its sister friend happiness. Unfettered Joy only comes when desire ends.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

I started writing this blog in 2004 when my mother’s health was declining and my desire to move home to New Orleans was all consuming. I wrote my way through one crisis after another until it felt like I had nothing left to say. Then 16 years later, the coronavirus slapped us all upside the head and I found myself looking for a weight to anchor my days.

As Carrie Fisher said, “Take your broken heart, and make it into art.”

In its heyday, I had 10k people reading my blog. I had wonderful experiences of being in another town and someone recognizing me. I had artwork sent to me by anonymous readers. I made friends with artists around the world. I had readers tell me I helped them through depression, PTSD from the 2005 Federal Flood, and others who just made a habit of coming here to read about the self actualization of one woman. I also had people judge me, reprimand me, and call me out for a thing or two.

I’ve learned it’s easier to write about the cracks than the whole because as Leonard Cohen said: The cracks are where the light gets in. So I welcome the return of darkness – my magnifying glass is back out again.

New Orleans as the epicenter of the coronavirus

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

I refer to Katrina as the 2005 Federal Flood – as many bloggers who covered the event do. After all, it was the failure of the levees built by the Corp of Engineers that caused the flooding. So it comes as no surprise to me the pandemic spread of the coronavirus points back to failure of the federal government to warn us properly.

January 2020 – US senators debriefed on the potential spread of COVID-19 sold stocks.

March 2020 – New Orleans declared epicenter for U.S. pandemic because Mardi Gras fueled its spread.

March 2020 – Louisiana senators debriefed with other US senators in January claims China is at fault.

I moved to Mississippi in the summer of 2018. This morning, the warm temperature dipped to the 50s, so I went for my walk later than usual. I saw something glittering from a tree and looked up to see gold Mardi Gras beads caught in the branches. Bay Saint Louis is so close to New Orleans, some refer to it as New Orleans East East. It feels like an Andy Griffith version of New Orleans. I stared at the beads – in February this year, I had marched down this same street with the Krewe of 100 WOMEN DBA for the Fat Tuesday parade.

Now the press is having a field day with New Orleans. The City supposedly threw care to the wind to have its grand outdoor party. Sadly, the people we allow to govern us – like the Corp of Engineers who intentionally did not follow specs to build the levees – or the Louisiana senators who could have used the information that prompted their colleagues to sell millions in stocks to stop Mardi Gras – failed again.

So here I am jumping back into the blog after a long hiatus. What shall I call COVID-19 + coronavirus + pandemic? The 2020 Federal Mislead? The 2020 Federal Blindside? Like a true Southerner, I’m looking for that perfect nickname that most accurately describes another mess the federal government has gotten us into.

What you resist, persist

Tuesday, March 31st, 2020

I was talking about the pandemic to a friend of mine who is a sculptor. I’m not sure we called it the “pandemic” but why not.

My friend has been steadily busting her ass in all different directions – a state of the art gallery, multiple moves, art work, all of it, and now it’s all come to a grinding halt. I told her I had returned here to write and record. She said she too was going to do a deep dive in her art having neglected it for too many other tasks.

The world has been too much with us. A long time ago, I memorized a few poems in case I was ever on a desert island and one of them is by William Wordsworth:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

I’ve resisted slowing down. I’ve resisted the siren’s call to be. I’ve resisted the muse whispering to write. In its place, I have WORKED like I was running out of time. WORKED for little to no money. WORKED while on a shaky foundation. WORKED to keep us afloat. WORKED hoping for miraculous bounty. WORKED praying for a break. WORKED dreaming of travel. WORKED till I lost all sense of play and mirth.

I did not memorize Thomas Merton’s The Violence of Overwork – I didn’t have to – I’ve committed this violence for longer than I can remember:

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom, which makes work fruitful.

The pandemic has changed things. We’ll see how it changes us.

Don’t Touch Me!

Monday, March 30th, 2020

We are all learning social distancing. This morning I ran into Ann wearing the same 100 Men Hall tee shirt as me and said, “Hey, let’s take a selfie so I can put them online” and then I went to stand next to her and she reminded me to distance. Then later the same day, I was in my car and saw her again, and she came towards the car and I immediately pulled my head back. She said, “Did you just back up?” And I said, cringing, “Yes.”

Just weeks ago, my friend Laurie came from New Orleans to visit and we took a long walk, and when her dog needed to rest, we both went to sit on the curb and I sat too close to her. She moved over and said, “Sorry.” Then I said, “Sorry” and moved further away.

Nothing eases our discomfort like human touch.

Nothing feels more natural than getting close to someone we love.

This afternoon the radio was ablaze with news of mounting deaths, crowded hospitals, burned out medical workers, global pandemic, and I, who had been on my way to the grocery to get bottled water, turned around and came home.

Home – where you are not a receiver or a giver of germs.

How to not take yourself so seriously in these serious times

Sunday, March 29th, 2020

At 60 years old, I’m redefining fun for me. It’s surprising how hard I’ve had to consider what is fun since it changed without my knowing it. I came to the conclusion a few years ago that fun for me was a hike in nature or a good long walk on the beach, a bike ride through a beautiful neighborhood, writing in a group, a gathering of gals with spirits and apps, a yummy dinner with a man or boy, and texting with friends who make me laugh. I still love dancing, but I find I have to make dancing happen.

I could add traveling, gardening, a meandering conversation with a good friend, reading a good book and watching a good movie to that list.

Before I would have said going out with friends. Just out and about, and drinking and dancing, and listening to music, and ending up the night in the early morning hours perhaps stopping for food on the way home at some all night joint.

I want to know more about fun. I have a friend who makes a joke out of everything – even dead serious stuff. Sometimes it annoys me. I have a son who wants to make me laugh so badly he tells corny and ridiculous jokes. Sometimes he annoys me. I have a friend who knows how to make fun out of just about anything. I wish I had her gift.

What I know about myself is I am a serious – have always been way too serious – and it was a very dear friend who told me, “Rachel, you have to find the humor in the moment.” And a light went on. Have. More. Fun. — Laugh. More. — Don’t. Take. Yourself. So. Seriously.

In these days of quarantine, pandemic, and social distancing, I’m going to have to work extra hard on my fun quotient.