Voices Carry
“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
– Edward R. Murrow
Friday T called and I told him to meet me later at Sip for Bastille Day then G and T joined us and we ended up back at G’s house. Sitting on the front porch listening to Damien Rice play from T’s car in the driveway, we talked about current events. T said she is having a hard time, she has suicidal thoughts all the time. We all chimed in and said “same here.” She said but y’all seem so positive all the time and we all agreed it has been a daily negotiation. The feeling like “go ahead car and slam into me” or “let the plane drop out of the sky” is ever present in our lives living in this Post-Katrina time. T said, but I have two children, I shouldn’t entertain thoughts like this. Yeah, but whatyagonnado?
Saturday I rode my bike home after waiting out the thunderstorm and ran smack into a ditch filled with water – it was almost like being in a swimming pool with a bike. I took it in but by the time they had fixed it, I was across town at Bacchanal. Talking to P & E there they said they want to move to Costa Rica – they’re selling their rental property and going to rent out their house and go. This was their plan pre-K and they are still considering it.
Sunday I walked around the bayou a little on the late side of the morning and we stopped in at the LaLa because Arlene dragged me over there. Yesterday when I went by to get my mail with G in the truck – N came running out to greet me and K wouldn’t talk to me. Total cold shoulder. I am so tired of this game. He billed 65 hours last week and I told Steve, my contractor, that that was too much. I don’t want him working 24/7 because he works himself into a state of frustration and he needs to take time to “sharpen his saw” – and I also told Steve I don’t want to do what we talked about doing – K working directly for me – I ratted out K and said he has been asking me out and I find that inappropriate considering our relationship – me the owner and him the carpenter. At one point I was going to let N come stay with me to get away from his father but then I realized I was taking care of two men again and I nixed that right away.
But back to this morning, it was already quite warm and as I crossed the footbridge and passed Holy Rosary, I heard soft laughter coming from a porch. I looked over and a woman was sitting in a rocker, bare feet up on the rail, laughing into a phone. It made me think of Tennessee Williams and how voices carry and are punctuated in the warm humid air. In the green house sat an elderly woman reading the Sunday paper. Then behind Cypress trees a man drank his ice coffee and read the paper. Turning back from the Dumaine Bridge jazz played upstairs in the house that has been bellowing moldy Katrina muck onto the sidewalk for months now.
H&T and I are cleaning up the bayou this morning. The Great Egret will appreciate his habitat being tidied up.