Sundays with the road underneath
I did things in reverse this Sunday, reading the New York Times before I went for my bike ride out to the lakefront. The sky was grey like Denmark and moisture has returned to the air here in New Orleans. I saw a dead possum and then began my road kill list – a dead orange cat – a dead sparrow. When I got to the boathouses along the point, I counted the boathouses that are still not fixed after Katrina, the entire restaurant section is still desolate, and I quit listing things in my head and wondered about all the anxiety I’ve been feeling lately – do you know that anxiety is not caused by stress, anxiety is an outcome of stress and it comes much later than stress, it comes from accumulating and accumulating stress and then one day when the world stops spinning out of control, people like me stop and take stock and anxiety bleeds out of every pore at odd hours like 3:30 am and catches you unaware and then you have to stop and remind yourself constantly that everything is going to be okay. And you make lists of what is right and beautiful in your life, and you focus on those as you pave your way into the now unwritten future. About the time I was able to take a deep breath I was riding on the little spit of land that goes out to the point and seagulls and pelicans were flying all around me, and the big salty lake was in all around me, and Louis Armstrong came on my iPod and sang, “I see leaves of green, red roses too… “