Home beneath my feet
L and I had a beer at the Houston airport and were talking about some details of the past. She made the comment that I had a California issue for a while back then. And I said, it was more a not being here in New Orleans issue and I just happened to be in California. I told her that if I was listening to a couple where one gets a job in another city and the woman said I don’t want to leave my home I might have said a long time ago – get over it – and now I know better. Some people fall in love with a city much in the same way they do with a lover – and for me New Orleans is that place. I smell it when the airplane is landing. The humid, fecund, musty, musky air coming through the tin.
I picked up Loca and drove down by the park and home. I wanted so badly to talk to mi amor and say all the things I have been thinking about and then I got angry at myself for wanting something – someone – that I don’t have. I thought of that time when I was returning from Krakow and S had come inside to get me. And I became angry at myself for not having been able to appreciate that moment, him, everything at that time.
Then I had to calm myself down – I’m weary from a trip that was short but wide and encompassing many conversations, many opportunities to bare myself to friends and near strangers, and many moments to wonder what comes next and marvel at what is now. So I realized the anger is the itch to know better – and the voice I answer myself with is the voice of love and kindness – forgiveness and knowing.