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Tin is frequently called out for being disruptive in school. I know his invisibility in a class of 27 students, seven with special needs, fosters some of his behavior. He wants to be Seen. Heard. Touched.

Here in our home school, his rhythm is the antithesis of my “get r done” process. I go after a task as if it were my sole purpose in life. He flits in and out of his tasks as if it is killing him to have to do it.

Yesterday’s art class was to make a collage from a self portrait. He refused. He said, “I’m not good at art.” He has learned this from his school where he draws and draws and draws and draws and is overlooked when it comes to awards and prizes for being talented.

He told me he got an F for his last collage and that his school mate X always gets the teacher’s attention. So it took a lot of cajoling to get him to come into the Hall with me yesterday, get the magazines, the paper, the scissors, the glue, and begin the collage project.

He refused to do his self portrait so the collage was a photo of Lord Chill. He worked at it diligently, cutting each small piece of paper and showing me each time he glued a few on. Look at me. See me. Look at what I’ve created.

After a few squares were pasted on, he’d need to go stand on the front porch and look around, move around, take a break. His process is so different from mine. I’m thankful for this quarantine which is making room for him to learn at a his own pace, in his own way.

His grade at the end of the day: I am somebody. I am valued. I am capable.

I went to Costco yesterday. I had my N95 mask and rubber gloves. I wanted to get power greens for my smoothies. I got a list of needs from a neighbor and also wanted to get power greens for another friend.

On the drive over to New Orleans, I felt a touch of apprehension about going to Costco but last week when I was there it was virtually empty. I let it go and felt comfort in having a mask and gloves.

Then I arrived and saw the line going out into the parking lot. People standing 6 feet apart with masks and gloves. I left.

I went to Whole Foods. There was a line there last week, but this week nothing. I got bananas, power greens, chips, and most of the items for my neighbor. Nearly all of the people there had on masks and gloves, but a few didn’t.

When I got home and put my bags on the kitchen table I had an incredible feeling of remorse. I didn’t need any of it. Yes, I wanted to have a menu plan for the week since I will be making breakfast, lunch and dinner on the daily. But we still don’t need any of it.

Spending money to buy more food while we are not turning on the a/c, using gas or water frivolously, and conserving other resources makes absolutely no sense. It seems to belong to a pre-pandemic state of mind where a stocked refrigerator equals security. There was more risked walking in a Whole Foods than an empty shelf in the fridge.

The pandemic has already affected how I value time. I need to let it reset my expectations of what is enough food and what is hoarding.

My friend Alicein shut down our beloved Mockingbird Cafe yesterday and oh what a difference to us. This morning, she brought over some of the kitchen produce and I was cooking my mom’s cabbage dish and needed tomatoes and Wala! Thank you, Alicein, for giving during tough times.

Yesterday, my friend Kat left books for me and Tin on her porch steps along with two containers of homemade chicken soup. On top of the box was The Yellow House – a book on my list. I had a bowl of the soup for lunch and it was divine. Thank you Kat for thinking of us.

The day before Kandi left a bag of books on the Hall’s front porch and on top of it was Anne Lamott’s recent book Almost Everything: Notes on Hope. In the midst of last night, I pulled it from the stack to soothe me to sleep. Thank you Kandi for responding to my universal need for books.

Each afternoon at 6PM, my friend Ann organizes an hour long social distancing bike ride that has been the true highlight of this captivity. Every day, I sip my tea and look at Sterling Bell, a piece of Ann’s artwork that speaks to me of time travel and mirthful confidence. Thank you Ann for your magic.

Today, I got out late for my walk because I didn’t sleep last night and then slept through midmorning. On my walk, I could hear my mother telling me that I’ve got this, that I’m so organized, that she’s so proud of me, that my confidence always amazes her. When I thought about how my mother’s words to my younger self could still comfort me in these trying days, I had hope for my son. I might be doing some parenting right. Thank you, Mom, for putting your loving hands on me.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.