Walking home Easter night, it had rained most of the day and yet three parades rolled, the Pigeon Steppers second lined and people in fancy hats and sherbet-colored pants roamed the streets. I heard at least three different bands playing in the cool mist including a DJ absorbed in an electronic soundtrack.
It was a vibe.
Let me come back to some joy.
It’s been a weekend of events. A new friend’s birthday lunch and pause for a bridal second line. A protest and march. Danny Barker Festival set up and an afternoon enjoying music and vegan food at the Congo Square Rhythm Festival. Sitting under a tent in the balmy afternoon, listening to two tired baby dolls recount their stage introductions of the high school bands as music filtered through the air, it was as pleasant a day as anyone could wish. On the way home, the Italian-American parade, with dance troupes and beauties on floats.
I will say the Hurricane Katrina, 20+ years later, is still a constant topic of conversation. A wound, not a scar. After talking about the mental health and economic issues left in the hurricane’s wake, new friend Andrea advised me to look at YouTube videos recorded by survivors.
I’m just getting started.
I remember going to a protest during the Iraq war and a speaker, an elder in a wheelchair, said, These are terrible times. And I was taken aback. I was mad about the war, feeling disenfranchised and frustrated, but overall my life wasn't affected that much.
Did I take the time to consider the bigger picture?
Not really.
During the 2020 protests I lived right in the middle of CHAZ, then CHOP, saw neighbors get beat up and MAGAs run around the local park with weapons. I realized far too late that my little cocoon of skin color and money and education needed to burst. I needed to educate myself. To listen and read and learn. To decolonize what I was reading, my movie and TV watching, to listen to friends and co-workers who have long experienced harassment, brutality, micro-aggressions.
As we get squeezed and the misogyny is normalized and enshrined in state and local and even federal laws, my instinct is as always to get the fuck out. Go live in a big blue city in a big blue or purple state, to surround myself with like-minded folks. To take advantage of the yes-I'll-say-it privilege I have to take my toys and go--home?
It's been a lot of change lately. I moved from an apartment I loved to one I flat out hate. Had health scares. Relationship frustrations. Felt alone and uncared for. My friends and my sisters have listened, reached out, tried to help.
Where is the line between existential despair and privileged frustration? I don't know. I'm trying to feed my soul with music and nature and beauty and connection, to do what I can and rest when I can. And know when I can't carry the burden any longer.
If January felt like years, like getting sucker-punched daily, February went by in a flash, like a hit-and-run.
I'm writing as best I can.
The horrors are deep and sickening.
Canadians boo USians. (how!?)
We are not who we were 1.5 months ago, not who we thought we were or imagined we could be.
At a parade the other night we watched yet another suburban krewe sashay by to tired '50's tunes. "The good old days," someone commented.
And a friend turned, with a studied look. Good for whom?
*
Family has been familying. I got an unexpectedly sweet thank you from a niece; and then a strange greeting card and even stranger email from other fam. We are all losing it, quietly, desperately, and with a mightily-summoned measure of dignity.
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| screenshot from The Metaworker |
New poem alert!
"Dadless," published by The Metaworker, is my first poem. I feel like it's more of a creative nonfiction flash.
Whatever, it's short and deeply personal.
I'm scared to put it out into the world but even more scared not to.
