Scents of Yesterday
Riding down I 90, the full moon lit the highway with a brilliance I had seldom seen. It was as if my journey was being watched by the Goddess. I could feel the culmination of many years of hoping and praying coming into existence.
Jimmy met me at the bus station and he had Melody with him. Turned out they had been hand fasted jus a week ago on Halloween and they were a site to see. Melody was definitely a character to behold. She had jet black hair with a bleached white pouf in the front. She wore all black and these high healed black leather boots. She looked like a caricature of Morticia Adams. I had to admit Jimmy had met his match. We drove to the apartment and we walked to the open market in the French Quarter. Even in New Orleans they stood out as unique. After lunch a tourist asked if she could take their picture as we walked out of the restaurant.
Jimmy had been lonely after his break up with the crack whore, so I prayed that he would find someone with whom he could relate. I chuckled to myself as I recalled how my mother would always say: Be careful what you pray for, you are going to get it.
My journey to epiphany had begun.
It was not but a few weeks before Mel revealed that she was pregnant. I felt some concern but also felt that a baby would help Jimmy find roots and perhaps settle down. I was supportive of her and so was our dear friend, Rita a dancer on Bourbon Street, and Mel finally decided to keep the baby.
The next 8 months were spent getting to know the person behind the mask of artist and creative and wild child that was my daughter-in-law. In the mornings Melody and I would often walk to the Café Dumond for coffee and begnets. The scent of the rich dark brew was stimulating and calming at the same time. As we sat by the lazy Mississippi we would listen to the sounds of jazz wafting on the air as street performers entertained the tourists for tips.
I made a new friend called Trip. Trip was a trust fund baby. His wild ways had driven his family to distraction so he was packed off to the French Quarter with a monthly allowance to indulge his chosen life style. I don’t know how he managed to run out of money toward to the end of the month with a ten thousand dollar stipend until I started to spend more time with him. Trip was representative of a long heritage in the French Quarter where wealthy families would ship the errant sons to the southern port of decadence in order to save family reputations. This practice had been going on for centuries and Trip was a pure example of a life of indulgence into the realm of the senses.
If not anything, Trip was generous because he liked company and was truly a lonely and lost child of the quarter even though he was approaching his mid-thirties. We would go to the bars and restaurants of the Quarter and I was able to experience some of the most delicious foods and wines that culinary genius could prepare. We would go to the bars on Bourbon Street where dancers would dance dollars and drinks.
The dancers were usually young girls who had run away from abusive homes. Many had children and had to support their babies by dancing to a dream with brass poles on small stages lined with mirrors. As I got to know the girls and heard their stories my heart would often break. Painted faced children using sex to support their lives of misery most only able to do their jobs by taking a bump of cocaine or smoking a rock of crack. Many a lap dance paid for a hit of crystal meth.
I remember one time at a strip bar, I asked Trip for a dollar. He thought I was going to tip a dancer. Instead I rolled up the dollar and lit it. I slowly waved the smoldering bill under my nose. A man who had been enchanted by the virginal vixen spinning dreams with a brass pole all of a sudden began to watch me. The chair he was sitting on was leather and comfortable and was on rollers. He watched intently as I took in the scent of the burning dollar and his chair rolled toward me. As he came close enough to hear me I leaned over and said to him in my best southern sultry voice – don’t you just love the smell of money?
The irony left me laughing again as I would often do during my times in the crescent city.
Coffee, begnets, sweating bodies, garbage pick ups in the summer, and burning money just a few scents of yesterday that come to me as I watch my family and friends trying to survive in a cesspool of what once was a land of dreams for many a lost soul. I remember saying to my son’s grandmother, I wish Jimmy would leave New Orleans and she wisely replied: Where could he go where he would fit in? That question is even more poignant after Katrina has destroyed the homes, the dreams, and the little hopes those who found safety in the arms of La Femme NOLA.
After thoughts: It was another full moon – in fact an eclipse at 5 degrees of Leo/Aquarius when I finally met my epiphany. My granddaughter Joliet Epiphany Morel May was born. When Katrina struck a dagger through my heart Saturn was conjunct the degrees of Joliet’s birth sun/moon. Saturn represents problems, loss, and in the extreme death. The sun represents the father and the moon represents the mother. I hope it is just difficulties and not death that this dear child has to observe and recover from like the many children that I see on the news.
Jimmy met me at the bus station and he had Melody with him. Turned out they had been hand fasted jus a week ago on Halloween and they were a site to see. Melody was definitely a character to behold. She had jet black hair with a bleached white pouf in the front. She wore all black and these high healed black leather boots. She looked like a caricature of Morticia Adams. I had to admit Jimmy had met his match. We drove to the apartment and we walked to the open market in the French Quarter. Even in New Orleans they stood out as unique. After lunch a tourist asked if she could take their picture as we walked out of the restaurant.
Jimmy had been lonely after his break up with the crack whore, so I prayed that he would find someone with whom he could relate. I chuckled to myself as I recalled how my mother would always say: Be careful what you pray for, you are going to get it.
My journey to epiphany had begun.
It was not but a few weeks before Mel revealed that she was pregnant. I felt some concern but also felt that a baby would help Jimmy find roots and perhaps settle down. I was supportive of her and so was our dear friend, Rita a dancer on Bourbon Street, and Mel finally decided to keep the baby.
The next 8 months were spent getting to know the person behind the mask of artist and creative and wild child that was my daughter-in-law. In the mornings Melody and I would often walk to the Café Dumond for coffee and begnets. The scent of the rich dark brew was stimulating and calming at the same time. As we sat by the lazy Mississippi we would listen to the sounds of jazz wafting on the air as street performers entertained the tourists for tips.
I made a new friend called Trip. Trip was a trust fund baby. His wild ways had driven his family to distraction so he was packed off to the French Quarter with a monthly allowance to indulge his chosen life style. I don’t know how he managed to run out of money toward to the end of the month with a ten thousand dollar stipend until I started to spend more time with him. Trip was representative of a long heritage in the French Quarter where wealthy families would ship the errant sons to the southern port of decadence in order to save family reputations. This practice had been going on for centuries and Trip was a pure example of a life of indulgence into the realm of the senses.
If not anything, Trip was generous because he liked company and was truly a lonely and lost child of the quarter even though he was approaching his mid-thirties. We would go to the bars and restaurants of the Quarter and I was able to experience some of the most delicious foods and wines that culinary genius could prepare. We would go to the bars on Bourbon Street where dancers would dance dollars and drinks.
The dancers were usually young girls who had run away from abusive homes. Many had children and had to support their babies by dancing to a dream with brass poles on small stages lined with mirrors. As I got to know the girls and heard their stories my heart would often break. Painted faced children using sex to support their lives of misery most only able to do their jobs by taking a bump of cocaine or smoking a rock of crack. Many a lap dance paid for a hit of crystal meth.
I remember one time at a strip bar, I asked Trip for a dollar. He thought I was going to tip a dancer. Instead I rolled up the dollar and lit it. I slowly waved the smoldering bill under my nose. A man who had been enchanted by the virginal vixen spinning dreams with a brass pole all of a sudden began to watch me. The chair he was sitting on was leather and comfortable and was on rollers. He watched intently as I took in the scent of the burning dollar and his chair rolled toward me. As he came close enough to hear me I leaned over and said to him in my best southern sultry voice – don’t you just love the smell of money?
The irony left me laughing again as I would often do during my times in the crescent city.
Coffee, begnets, sweating bodies, garbage pick ups in the summer, and burning money just a few scents of yesterday that come to me as I watch my family and friends trying to survive in a cesspool of what once was a land of dreams for many a lost soul. I remember saying to my son’s grandmother, I wish Jimmy would leave New Orleans and she wisely replied: Where could he go where he would fit in? That question is even more poignant after Katrina has destroyed the homes, the dreams, and the little hopes those who found safety in the arms of La Femme NOLA.
After thoughts: It was another full moon – in fact an eclipse at 5 degrees of Leo/Aquarius when I finally met my epiphany. My granddaughter Joliet Epiphany Morel May was born. When Katrina struck a dagger through my heart Saturn was conjunct the degrees of Joliet’s birth sun/moon. Saturn represents problems, loss, and in the extreme death. The sun represents the father and the moon represents the mother. I hope it is just difficulties and not death that this dear child has to observe and recover from like the many children that I see on the news.
posted by Myriam Maytorena at 7:27 AM
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