In tune with nature
I think I gave Rita and Ike short shrift because they didn’t come here as hard as elsewhere but just like Gustav was a “miss” but a serious storm that caused a lot of damage (some people still don’t have electricity from Gustav), sometimes bad is relative. I feel for all those people in Texas, especially along the coast who are not able to get home – getting home is almost imperative for most of us here in the Gulf South.
Staying home is like a dream come true. I walked through City Park this morning and was thinking of all the small parks I drove by in Atlanta that had a plaque up saying Frederick Law Olmsted had designed them. There was something so tidy widy about those parks that fit the landscape of Atlanta’s almost sterile environs. City Park is not so tidy – it has trees that have cultivated their own space and dimension, a lagoon that rises and sinks in accordance with nature, and a whole host of creatures and birds make their home there.
After Gustav and Ike, the park staff rushed to clean up and pick up fallen trees, limbs, signs, and even this morning all of the grass was mowed and the park’s serenity enveloped me and Loca on our walk. Snowy white swans with their heads in the water, herons and egrets perched on branches; it was as if harmony had been restored to our neck of the woods.
It helps that fall is in the air. My calendar says that autumn officially starts next Monday, September 22nd. But fall started yesterday here in New Orleans. The birds know it. The dogs know it. Humans feel it. And although nature threatens and challenges us at every turn down here in the Gulf South, it is in nature where I take sanctuary and find respite from the grind.
Fall is my absolute favorite season. I feel an overwhelming sense of myself and my connections – at this moment in my life, my heart is bursting with love for T, for my life, for my friends and family, that all of the nonsense of Wall Street seems so far removed from my psyche.
The pelicans will be returning soon.