Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans

After the storm has passed

2005-10-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

All that is New Orleans is not just in New Orleans.

The people and the spirit of New Orleans exists not in the land or the buildings but in the hearts of the people who carry her energy forward. We might try to think that it is the ground where men and women settled more than 5 centuries ago, but the truth is that every person who was displaced from New Orleans but the storm and ravage carry in their hearts the energy and the signature soul of the Old Town.

To be a real citizen of the French Quarter meant that one had several important qualities:

A sense of individuality. Uniqueness applies to the citizens not just to the architecture.
An awareness of magic. One could not walk through the city and live there without feeling the magic that embues the vitality of the place. From voodoo to passion for fine dining... the magic continues.
A sense of history. When one walks through the town, history touches one around every corner.
A sense of play. Even when folks are suffering from day-to-day living there is always a sense of celebrating life. No where is the inner child more free to play than in the energy of this city

The important thing is to recognize that all of us have this energy of New Orleans in our soul. As a collective we all have the magic that was, is, and will be New Orleans.

The Promise

2005-10-19T12:16:00.000-05:00

The Promise
I am she who brings promise of birth
Because I am she who embraces death
I am she who promises the awakening
Because I am she who welcomes to you to the night to sleep
I am daughter, I am the mother, I am the grandmother
Because I am the crone and I am all in one
I am she who brings transmutation
Because I am she who recognizes the divine circle that is life
I am she who colors the spring, the summer and the fall
Because I am she who sleeps beneath the snow
I give you power
Because I remember the past, the present and the future.
I am she who manifests your destiny
Because I am she who recognizes your manifest divinity
As daughter, as mother, as grandmother,
As the crone the one who transmutes the three into reality.

Next encounter with Jaguar Soul

2005-10-19T12:13:00.000-05:00

As he reached out for me I felt a sudden rush of heat ... like those sultry nights on Isla Mujeres.

My heart was beating another rhythm that seemed to change not only my tempo but the frequency that connected me to the universe. For some reason or another I felt as if I were the physical manifestation of the divine goddess of love.

Adored.

Worshipped.

Recognized by all mankind as the source of passion and resurrection.

As I danced the dance

I remembered.

I remembered by awakening to the Cosmic Dance.

The embers from which I arise lift me to a sense of infinite awareness.

I am moving and I am totally still at the same time.

Adored yet distant in the magic of the moment.

There is no wrong. There is no right.

There is just pure and passionate awareness of the dance.

The Cosmic Dance.

de je vue

2005-09-19T05:32:00.000-05:00

Sitting in the courtyard of the Napoleon House, I am taken back in time. I feel the present slip away and I am once again in a courtyard of many centuries ago. This is but one of the first of many experiences that I would have as I lived, loved, and, sometimes cried in the Vieux Carré.

The heat and humidity was the first senses to awaken my memories of the life that I once knew as a girl of thirteen in old New Orleans. A child of France and poverty I was shipped off as an indentured servant. The Ursuline nuns took me under their wings.

The Ursulines were unique for their time. In the autumn of 1727 they admitted girls into their schools. Slaves and free, rich or poor, white or black., Indian or immigrant - all were welcomed by these women whose goal was to lift up women through education. In and around New Orleans was a group of women who created a confraternity and named themselves the Children of Mary. The goal of this group of women, under the guidance of the Ursulines, took upon themselves the holy mission to catechize their slaves.

Many young girls of poverty were shipped off to the New World to be servants, brides of man or God, or prostitutes. The Ursulines would be the clearing house for these young girls. Those who were deemed capable of being wives were married to the men of the settlement. Those who were attractive enough but not quite able to be wives, perhaps because of being criminals in the old world were to become prostitutes it is said in the brothel that is sang about as The House of The Rising Sun which is just across the street from the current Ursuline Convent. The least marketable became Nuns of the New Orleans order. The racial diversity of the Ursulines was unique for the time period and the literacy rate for women of that time in New Orleans was 71 percent and higher than the men. In the other colonies the literacy rate for women was half that of the men.

But I digress as I tell my story of my memories of a life when I was incarnated in New Orleans. As I sat in the courtyard of the Napoleon House, I was moved back in time. I could feel myself dressed in a loose white dress that was sheer and comfortable and allowed the air to reach my perspiring skin. I was older now and mistress of the house and ran it from my courtyard in the summer. I can see little children at my feet some black and some white. Children of master and slave playing in the heat with an openness that I often saw in the schoolyards in the Quarters as I would walk from Ursuline Street where I lived to up Royal to St. Phillips. Fragments of memories came back to me – smells, sounds of horses’ feet on muddy streets after the rains, rich dark coffee, and feelings of being trapped like a bird in a gilded cage.

Many times as I would walk through the Quarter in my modern reality I would know what house I would see before I turned a corner. I would get a flash of a memory, sometimes pleasant and sometimes sad but always everything new seemed like de je vue and I would be swept back in time again.

back in the life-style

2005-09-16T08:26:00.000-05:00

Michelle had a look of quiet desperation that seemed to fit her like a silk chemise even though she was always dressed in some kind of “what ever I can pick up off the floor and doesn’t stink too much” style. Tattoos adorned her body from various vantage points and she was festooned with cherries and dragons and a bit Celtic art. Her black hair was dark as a raven out of a bottle of Miss Clairol. Her favorite hobby was drinking and every time she would climb on her old bike and head back home you were thankful that somewhere a guardian angel was watching her.

Michelle was always there for her friends in need unless she needed a fix. It was not that she was irresponsible she was lost in the fog of alcoholism that seemed to keep her safe in her own reality. Working as a bartender at Molly’s on Decateur Street she managed to keep her bills paid and even when broke another bartender at any bar up and down the street would always make sure her glass was full. Michelle had come from a good family and her education was always evident in her conversations. Michelle left town one day because of a death in the family. Rumor had it she had inherited some money and went into rehab and then back to school where she completed her college education.

It was a few years later when I heard about Michelle again. She had been drawn back to the Quarters again and was back in the life-style. All her inheritance spent she was now caught back into her addictions. While at a convenience store near her home in the 9th Ward Michelle was attacked as she came out after buying a pack of cigarettes by a crack junkie. A claw hammer tore off half her face. She tried to get the owners to let her call the police or get help. They rushed her out of the place. Crawling, bleeding and in extreme pain for a couple of blocks and she found a pay phone. The police arrived and took her to Charity Trauma Center.

The doctors did an amazing job. Her face was repaired and there was only a scar at the top of her head which could be covered by hair. However, the deeper scars of fear and desperation could not be healed by the doctors only by spirit. The attacker was free on the streets and was going to find more victims. Every corner she would turn she thought that she saw him only to face the illusion of recognition that her fear put on a face.

I was also traumatized and shocked by this news about Michelle. I went to a group that I belong to on the net that is populated by shamans and light workers. When I told them what had happened, there was an immediate rallying of allies to discover and bring the perpetrator to justice. Using the tools of the magic trade shape shifting astral jaguars and dragons began to comb the city of New Orleans.

Two days later I received a call.

The perpetrator had been found and arrested. He had been using the same m.o. (modus operandi) and quite a few other women had been attacked and ravaged like Michelle. The police caught him in the act and arrested him. Bringing pictures to the house, Michelle was able to select him from a gallery of photographs. He would no longer be attacking those who walked the streets of the Quarter.

But in the wake of Katrina when prisoners escaped and created havoc on the streets and those poor souls who could not evacuate, one has to wonder – is he free?

Jaguar Soul -- a fable about New Orleans

2005-09-13T06:56:00.000-05:00

I could feel my body flush when I glanced from behind the bar and across the room at a young man who had just entered Sin City. I could feel that shiver rush up my body as I felt called to the hunt by the jaguar that lived within my soul.

Tall and dark, he seemed tense and ready to explode from carrying his power to close to his chest. As he sat down at a stool at the end of the bar, I felt myself walking toward him with a deliberate and sensuous movement toward what might be a very interesting prey.
My voice was almost guttural as I looked him in the eye with my body poised slightly toward him so that my breast appeared to welcome him and asked: “What would pleasure you today?”
He ordered a shot of Jägermeister. I bent down into the cooler and I could feel my nipples harden maybe from the rush of cold air or maybe from the rush of energy as I watched him throw back his head and swallow the cold, herbal elixir.

Yes the hunt was definitely on.

I could feel my pupils dilating and my lids becoming more slanted as if I could focus more on sending him the energy that would call him to be mine. I rubbed my hands together with an instinctual sense of a well-prepared dinner waiting to be enjoyed till there was nothing more that I could do but collapse into the abyss of contentment that comes when a passion is indulged in fully.

It was midnight and my son was coming to take over the night shift at our bar. We had opened Sin City on St. Phillip Street in the heart of the French Quarter about a year ago. The name is not about Las Vegas but remembers Basin Street down by Congo Square where all the swells would go to find the best whores and jazz. Located in the building that was the oldest standing mortuary in New Orleans, we attracted our share of those men and women who liked to walk on the dark side – they are like those swells of old who wanted to wander down to Basin Street for a little of the other side of life. I had a feeling my young visitor would be very open to sharing that walk with me.

My young dark prey was still sitting on his stool as I picked up my things and walked out. I could feel that this was definitely the start of an interesting amusement. As I stepped outside the oppressive wetness of the air heated by August made me feel even more in the mood for a moon lit hunt. But, after all, I am the jaguar. I stalk and I wait and I strike with time is perfect. I had never lost a prey and I was not going to now in spite of the passion and desire that I could feel filling me to the brim waiting to be released.

Even though our apartment was upstairs over the bar and the balcony certainly was tempting on this exquisite evening, I decided to take a walk to cool down my passions. I wandered up St. Phillip toward the old blacksmith shop that now housed the Lafitte Bar. I could feel the ghosts of New Orleans walking beside me and keeping me company.

Priestess Miriam said that I was protected by Bridget, the loa or spirit of the bride of the Baron. They protected the cemetery where Marie La Veau was buried and were the only ones in the Voodoo pantheon that could walk in both the dark and the light. You could not live in New Orleans without the blessings of these ghosts of the old religion. You were either protected by them or taunted by them.

I went to my regular seat at the piano bar and it seemed that the piano man knew my mood. He slipped easily into the rhythm of That Old Black Magic. Every pore of my body was oozing the energy and passion of the dark magic that seemed to sometimes capture my spirit. And it had been evoked by that sensual young man who ordered his Jägermeister. I knew I would have no sleep tonight.

My altar called to me for a sacrifice to my loas. The ancients were demanding that I prepare to walk on the dark side.

It was easier when I was younger. 13 moons created 13 rituals. My blood ran warm and thick and smelled of the jaguar goddess. Now, while on the outside I appear younger than I am, inside I have joined the ancients. However, those old primitive rites, passed down mother to daughter, for centuries without end still have meaning even if the means to evoke the spirit may have changed with the times.

I put a CD on with ritual drumming which stirs my spirit even more. I light the candles and taking a sharp knife I quickly draw a line down my arm and allow the blood to drip down into a stone bowl. Just the smell of the warm blood heats my senses even more. I find myself moving with the drum beat and as I crouch down I can feel the jaguar mount me and take form. As we merge into one, I take my finger and dip it into the blood and mark upon my forehead ancient symbols that bring me into oneness with my matriarchy. I am the high priestess incarnate of the Jaguar goddess and my time for feeding has come. The pitch and fever of my dance rises. I can feel myself moving through the jungle of the Quarters and searching out my prey. He is sleeping in a hotel just around the corner from where I am evoking my power. I can feel his pulse in my soul and as I look at him resting but restless I put out my hand over him and he becomes calmer. I speak the words: “Give me your soul!” and then I find myself back in my body standing on the balcony overlooking Saint Phillip Street and I see over the roof tops a shadowy image of the jaguar formed as the moon plays against the clouds.

It is morning and while I may spin my web darkly at night, come day out walks a woman of the light. As my mother had taught me, I swept every corner and pushed the negative energies and memories out of the door. I lit my incense and let the smoke curl around the room bringing the clearness to the house. I make my coffee rich and dark with a little Chicory. I walk outside with a cup and offer it to the Damballah who resides in the banana tree growing on the balcony. My friend the Raven flies by and tells me good morning. I know that my magic has been accepted.
I am hungry so I quickly dress in a red silk shirt and jeans. I sometimes find it hard to believe that my body still is so lithe and sensuous. The silk feels good against my body and the naturalness of it handles the humid winds coming off the Mississippi delta. A pair of sandals and off to the pastry shop on Urselines where I love to sit in the back garden where I can smoke, drink coffee, and a fresh roll with butter. I got to turn left on Royal and suddenly change my mind and head down to Decateur Street and the Café Dumond. A little powdered sugar on a begnets never hurt anyone and I like to feed the birds.

A clown is making balloons for children. A saxophone horn warms up the scene with “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?” The gypsies and artists are lining Jackson Square. I find a seat and order. And as I look around seated next to me is the dark young man who drank the Jägermeister. I smile and inside thank my Goddess.

I look at him turning my head in that typical southern way and ask: “What would pleasure you today?”

That same energy begins to rush through my body as he smiles back and stands up and walks over to my table.

“It would pleasure me to spend the day with you.” He sat down and I knew the hunt was on for sure. Remember Jaguar wait till the right time to pounce.

“I am Marinette Chamani and I enjoyed having you last night – at my bar.” I could feel my eyes becoming slit again and I almost purred. My long red nails pushed my blond hair back from my face and I just listened to him never taking my eyes away from his.

We walked over to Jackson Square where the Goddess was giving readings. As usual there was a line of people waiting for her advice. My young man, whom I learned was Tony from Texas, sat down. The Goddess looked up at me and gave me a knowing look. Goddess was born in Haiti and was one of the few initiates that I knew in Haitian voodoun. She had him shuffle the cards and place them in three piles. She picked up the cards and started to lay them out.

First, she laid the Lovers Card on the table. Then she lay the Empress down. Then the tower being struck by lightening crossed the top. She was truly working her magic.

“Love is coming to you or is near you,” she said and continued: “You have in your energy an older woman who is powerful and is a part of your destiny. Beware there could be danger and you will never be the same again.”

As we walked away, I looked up at him, tossed my head as we southern women tend to do winked and said: “Sugar, are you ready for a dangerous older woman?”

Night was coming and the jaguar was about ready to strike.

With every joy there is a sorrow.

2005-09-11T07:56:00.000-05:00

There are times when we feel that life is slipping into a dark cave and we are trying very hard to find a handhold that will keep us in the light. But grasp as we might the joy keeps slipping through our fingers and we are drawn further and further away from it.

It is the comedy and tragedies of life that when we are in joy we worry about when it will end and when we are in sorrow we worry about when it will go away. Ever since I can remember the advent of what I call the New Age (and always with a smile on my face) presented a mantra that always repeated this chorus: Be here now! This almost seems to be the ultimate Zen of Life.

This morning I awoke and my mind would not leave me alone. It just had to go there. I said, hey Myriam, I have been there and done that. But Ms. Myriam would not listen she had to drag me down memory lane to painful issues so I realized that I can try and fight it or I could give in to these thoughts that needed to be healed.

It is all about being a mother and my sense of loneliness that my children and I do not have the fantasy relationship that I thought we would have someday. Some people are so lucky that they have moderately dysfunctional families where there are a few buttons implanted to keep one within a family norm but when one has mental illness in one’s families the buttons all seem to be bigger than life.

My son Jimmy who lived in New Orleans and is now a refugee in Texas with my granddaughter Joliet, his wife and Joliet’s mother is a drug addict. I want to figure it out. I want to blame me. I want to blame his mental illness. I want to blame my ex-mother-in-law the wacko from hell. I want to blame God or Goddess or Mother Nature. I am so into the blame game now but the truth is I am pointing fingers to keep from feeling the deep, deep sorrow that breaks my heart and stifles me from rising from that cave of depression into the light of joy.

The recent events in New Orleans has not only flooded the Old City, but has flooded my mind with images of people that I met and knew there. I have realized today that each one of those lost souls that I met also had a mother. Many of those mothers are probably feeling the same sorrow that I am feeling as I look at how easy it is to loose a child perhaps to an act of nature but often to just the circumstances of life which can be the rampant drug abuse in our community, the increasing rise in diagnosed mental illness, and the social pressures that are changing us at an accelerated pace.

I think rather than lost souls, the folks I am remembering are wounded souls. Perhaps we are all wounded and the magnitude of recent events are a clarion call that it is now time to heal ourselves individually and collectively so that we can finally climb out that deep pit that has kept us from becoming the manifestation of good that was planted within with our birth.

Voodoo Mambo

2005-09-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

On Patrick’s first visit to New Orleans, we wandered over to Rampart Street to visit the Voodoo Spiritual Temple. I was surprised because it reminded me more of one of those storefront churches that I remembered from my childhood. This place was totally different than the voodoo shops through the French Quarter that were basically built to cater to the tourist trade. There were hand packaged herbs, hand made gris-gris bags, cowry shells made into necklaces, and amulets of various descriptions. An impressive black woman dressed in a hand sewn extremely colorful dress and head cover walked out of the back room to greet us. It was Priestess Miriam. We all chatted a bit, and Patrick and I bought some magical potions and left.

Outside, Patrick turned to me and said I now know the Black Mother Miriam and the White Mother Myriam. Little did we know that my knowledge of the temple would grow over time through some interesting coincidences and that my respect and knowledge of fusion religions would forever be changed.

A week later, I met a French spitfire that was a friend of my son. Claudine was a tour guide in the French Quarter and did a voodoo tour in the afternoons and an evening ghost tour. She offered to let me go on her tours free which I gladly accepted.

She met the tourists, me included, at a small bakery and we began to walk through the voodoo history of New Orleans.

As we walked Claudine never stopped talking but with her accent and rapid-speed delivery I didn’t understand half of what she said. Her hands moved as fast as her lips as she pulled us through the Quarter pointing out places of interest from the classic tourist traps of the area but then she started walking toward to the edge of the Quarter and paused in front of a house that had been the home of Marie La Veau. She then began to spin the story of this famous scion of New Orleans’ voodoo.

Marie La Veau was a free woman of color who worked as a hairdresser to the wealthy and often offering them advice, potions and spells to handle the problems of love, health and business. Apparently someone had tried to take away Marie’s home and she cast a spell that caused him to get into dire circumstances. The final resolution that to have her remove the spell, he had Marie’s home returned to her.

As we continued our walk we arrived at Congo Square, now called Louis Armstrong Park which is located across from the Voodoo Spiritual Temple and Priestess Miriam.

It seems that Marie was definitely more than a hairdresser and helper of the wealthy elite. In New Orleans, slaves were given Sunday afternoon’s off because – well because it was a way to allow the slaves to worship. Voodoo to those not in the know or perhaps those in the know preferred to think that the slaves were just Christians but beneath faces of Saints lay the spirit of the loas and teachings of the African religion that the slaves brought with them to America.

On Sunday afternoon till six in the evening the slaves would gather on Congo Square where Mare La Veau was their Priestess. They would drink rum, smoke cigars and seem to be apparently just having a little steam release from the pressures of life. What was going on was the rituals of the old religion. The beating drums would intensify as the day wore on and Marie would be seen in the center of a circle dancing and expressing her passion for her spirits. There were often sacrifices of live animals, usually chickens and the blood and rum would flow and the drums would beat out the passion of divinity. As Marie would intensify her dance, she would be ridden by a loa with messages for the people. To be ridden by a loa is to have one’s body taken over and to become a channel.

As we left Congo Square we walked to the cemetery. Before we entered, we heard the story of St. Bridget and the Baron – the bride and groom of the cemetery. These are the loa that can exist in the underworld or the black side of magic and in the upper world which is the white side of magic. Upon entering the cemetery for protection, one would place coins at the entrance as gifts to the loa for protection. As we walked around we stopped at the tomb of Marie La Veau where one would see flowers and gifts placed as at an altar. There were red crosses marked on the tomb which were thanks for petitions that had been granted through the intercession of Priestess Marie.

As we walked through the cemetery, Claudine told the story about how widows would come at night with lamps and walk around the cemetery to listen for bells. At a time where people were sometimes buried because they appeared to be dead, but actually might be in a coma bells were tied on the fingers of the corpses and widows would come and walk and listen for the bells. People in the tour stopped and then heard tinkling bells. I looked down and remembered that I had on some bells that I carried as talismans that came from Malta and were considered protection from St. Christopher. We all sighed in relief and proceeded to the end of the tour which was the Voodoo Spiritual Temple on Rampart right across from the place where Marie La Veau conducted the rituals of her people.

We entered the storefront where I had first visited with Patrick but there was more to see. Priestess Miriam invited us into the temple which was in an adjoining room. It was filled with colorful and interesting altars in the name of various loa where one could make an offering to the divinity that is Voodoo. The gifts were simple. Cigarettes, a cup of coffee, some cornmeal, a bottle of rum, were some of the examples we saw. Each loa had a Saint’s name and the saint would have similar energies as the loa whom they masked.

At the back of the temple was a simple area with a bench, a table and some chairs. It was here that Priestess Miriam would do readings for the faithful and the curious. I noticed a cage which housed a snake which I was informed was Congo which Priestess Miriam would dance when doing rituals for her congregation in the same manner as Priestess Marie La Veau had done some hundreds of years ago.

I don’t know how to explain this but I felt at home. I felt a kinship with Miriam that I seldom feel with another person. It was not but a few weeks later through the help of Claudine that I came to work with Priestess Miriam or as some know her Mambo Miriam.

They called her Rita... She was a dancer

2005-09-09T08:50:00.000-05:00

I first met Rita when she was around 18. She was friends with my son Jimmy. They were both into the grunge Goth thing. I thought she was probably one of the ugliest girls that I had ever seen. She had her hair shaved except for this giant Mohawk that was died some god-awful colors and was wearing black and bedecked herself with black leather with spikes sticking out as a choker around her neck. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl and her skin was rough and blotchy.

The next time I saw Rita was 12 years later. She had moved to New Orleans and shared a house with her sister and her sister’s kids. Well it wasn’t her sister but Rita had adopted her. Rita had adopted Jimmy when he moved to New Orleans and gave him a place to live as he learned to survive in one of the toughest areas in America. As I was to learn later Rita was always adopting stray young people who showed up in New Orleans looking to find the dream of the Big Easy.

This was definitely not the same Rita. Her hair was long and lustrous and the natural light brown color shined with highlights. Her make-up was perfectly applied and her clothes were simple but stylish. Her home was in perfect order and well-decorated on a small budget. I never did figure out what caused the change.

But Rita still had an edge; it was just packaged in style and elegance. I now realize that even in her grunge Goth stage Rita wanted attention. She craved love and wanted to know that men especially loved her. Rita had been badly treated by an alcoholic father and it scarred her for life. She was like many of the young women I met in New Orleans who had came looking for love and were finding it in all the wrong places.

When I moved to New Orleans, Rita was 35 and she was one of the oldest strippers, pardon me, dancers on Bourbon Street. I had never seen her dance and so she invited me to come to where she worked and when I arrived she introduced me to all the girls. I learned how they worked the room and earned their money. Even though the sun glared brightly on a hot sunny day, it was dark and cavernous in the bar.

A small stage was surrounded by mirrors and a brass pole went from floor to ceiling. Around the stage was a bar with chairs and there were about ten tables in the room plus another bar with a bartender. I sat with the bartender as Rita now went and put some money in a jukebox and made her selection. The place was mostly empty with just a couple of guys drinking beers sitting in front of the stage. I watched Rita as she went to the two steps that went up to the stage.

She was elegant. She was beautiful. She was wearing a long black dress with sequins that she had hand-sown herself. She had on five inch spike heels in black suede with a red dragon emblazoned on the platforms which took her from about five foot three to about five seven. She started to move to the music. I was witnessing a spiritual dance dedicated to the Goddess. As she moved in perfect rhythm to the music she was not in that bar. She was someplace far away – perhaps a temple of Erzulie, voodoo goddess of love. I could not take my eyes away as she sacrificed each item of clothing to ecstasy. Totally naked except for her heels, the tempo increased as she wove herself around the pole like the boa used by the priestesses of voodoo in their sacred rites. She slowly slid down the pole until she, in orgasmic relief, lie on the floor as the music came to an end.

She picked her dress up off the floor, exited the stage and walked back to the women’s restroom which also functioned as the women’s dressing room. She emerged in tight black pants and a halter top but still wearing her spike heals. Impeccable, she sat with me at the bar and had her traditional Bud in a long neck bottle with no glass. Somehow, it was extremely sexy and up until then I never had been able to accept that women drank beer if they were ladies. I changed my mind about a lot of things that day.

In a dark, smoky strip club in New Orleans, I learned that spirit can be evoked and love can be shared and sometimes girls just want to have fun and as I wrote earlier, “Ain’t nobody’s business if I do.”

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

2005-09-07T09:19:00.000-05:00

They'd call us gypsies, tramps, and thievesBut every night all the men would come aroundAnd lay their money down …

Cher

Before I moved to New Orleans and would just come to visit to listen to jazz, eat good food, and play, I loved to go to Jackson Square. The artists were lined around the tall black wrought iron fences. Psychics set up little shops on the sidewalks and would do readings. I always had to have a reading when I went to the French Quarter. Musicians would play great jazz on the square and pass around a hat to collect money. Performance artists would do everything from balloon animals to magic shows to being an angel statue that would only move if a tip was placed in a bucket. It didn’t change much over the years.

When I came to live in the French Quarter, I wanted to be one of the psychics on Jackson Square. I didn’t quite no how to do it because when I do astrology I use a computer and some checking around and I found out that the police were less tolerant of astrologers so I got a deck of Karma Cards. These are really cool cards to do readings and have all astrological symbols on them so I was able to read cards and I was determined to do it. I had my cards; I had my attitude so all I needed was two chairs, a table, and some decorations for the table. Of course, an umbrella was needed because it is hot in the Louisiana sun and the rains can come without warning. Miss Maxie loaned me a cart to drag all my stuff from Sin City to the square. It was about 4 or 5 blocks. My first morning walking to the square I was scared but I was excited. I have to tell you I am not the most coordinated person in the world and I am not the strongest and I must have looked like a hoot in my long black dress and straw hat trimmed in black ribbon.

I looked around the square as everyone was setting up. I wanted to set up next to someone who looked safe and comfortable. I made one of the best decisions of my life on that steamy morning. Sitting directly in front of St. Louis Cathedral was an amazing looking woman. She was tall, thin, blonde, and was wearing the most amazing broad brimmed hat. I thought I like the way this broad looks. I went and put my stuff next to her and began to set my stuff up.

I smiled.

She smiled.

I met Goddess.

It was like we had been friends forever. She was truly mi hermana del alma or soul sister. Goddess was and is a trip through fantasy land. She was living in the Quarter and helped support her son who was an aspiring musician. (He formed a band with Jamie whom you can read about in the Jamie Show http://maytorena.blogspot.com/2005/09/jamie-show.html ) She was suffering from a disease that was potentially terminal and was in constant pain and could barely afford to pay for her medications and support she and her son. She had been married to a very wealthy man and had been, in effect, a trophy wife but he ex-husband traded her in for a younger model and paid nothing toward the support of Goddess and her son. Goddess had been born and grew up in Haiti. She is the only white woman that I have ever known who was initiated into Haitian Voodoun. On her stomach which was flat and firm even at 50 something (never asked something when or what) was a tattoo celebrating the loa Erzulie. She had style. She had class. She was truly a goddess of the French Quarter.

Goddess attracted clients with magical charm. She would take a magic wand with tinkling bells and shake it at the tourist and wink and say she was sending them a little magic dust. She would call them over and do readings using Tarot cards. I have to tell you right now Goddess didn’t know shit about Tarot but with an IQ of 160 she did a great reading and a great show that the tourists loved. She would charge 25 dollars for a reading and would often be tipped another 20 or 25.

Many of the other psychics on the square resented the Goddess or they were jealous. Many a gossip was shared with me warning me of her. I can tell you this about her she became my mentor and made it possible for me to be a successful psychic on the square. She introduced me to a homeless man whom I would pay to come and retrieve my things in the morning and take them back to the bar in the evening. He became a protector and would keep an eye on me so that I was not ripped off or harassed by the many beggars and con-artists that filled the square especially when the tourists were there.

His name was John and he was an older man. He was black and had been released from prison a year ago after spending 25 years in prison. (Oh, and like every ex-con I have ever met, he was not guilty.) He had lost his family. He had lost his dreams. He had not lost his kindness or humanity. John would do what ever work he could pick up in order to survive, eat, and buy a pint of bourbon every night before he went to sleep in the homeless shelter. No matter what he did or what he had to do, John was always there to help me in the morning and the evening.

I remember one evening after midnight I was walking from Sin City to our shotgun house on Urselines. I ran into John and a friend who both were a bit toasted. We were having fun and chatting when a van pulled up and a very clean cut gentleman asked for directions. I talked to him and went back talking to my friends. I said, I wonder what all that was about. John and his friend burst out laughing. The guy who asked directions was an under cover New Orleans police officer and was concerned that an upper class white woman who could be a tourist was talking to two drunk, black, homeless guys on a street in the Quarter.

I met Sonia at Sin City. I would see her in the bar trying to con a patron out of a drink or pandering for money on Jackson Square. She was thin, emaciated, with sunken lost eyes. One afternoon Sonia came into the bar with a neatly dressed man and two young children, a boy and a girl under the age of six. The little girl was hanging onto Sonia and the little boy hid behind her with big eyes starring at me. She wanted to introduce me to her husband and children. Sonia was a crack addict and her husband took care of the children and lived in the 9th ward. She never went home because she was always scamming for a rock so she could survive the pain in her life. He worked and took care of the kids and sometimes when she was a little bit under control he would bring the kids to see her.

The next day, Jimmy, Mel and I were sitting at the bar. Jimmy was having his usual bourbon and coke, Mel was drinking ice water and looked like she had two watermelons in her stomach as she was in her 7th month of pregnancy, and I was drinking coffee waiting for John to pick up my stuff so I could go to work. Sonia walked in and was chatting us up. While we were diverted by her conversation, she grabbed a twenty dollar bill off the bar that belonged to Jimmy. She left before we even knew it was gone. I was furious. I told John not to bother taking my stuff to the Square as I was not going to work today. I paid him what I would have paid him anyway and I walked toward the square.

I started circling it looking for Sonia. I was furious. I was enraged. I kept focusing on Sonia. I saw her kids. I saw her life. I saw her desperation. I, now, can forgive her for stealing the money because I understand what drove her better. Then, I felt betrayed and I was to the boiling point. I kept sliding my beads through my hand and as I touched each bead I visualized the police finding her and arresting her. I finally went back to the bar and had my traditional vodka and tonic. Three hours later, John came to find me.

He said that the police had arrested Sonia for stealing money from a tourist. She was off to jail. He told me that with her record it would be a long time before she was back on the streets. I thanked him and I thanked spirit because I knew while jail is hell, the hell of crack addiction is even worse. I realized that her children would go and see her and she would be clean for as long as she was locked up. I prayed it would be longer.

A Patchwork Memory - The Quilt Shop

2005-09-06T07:47:00.000-05:00

I was walking down Decateur Street one cool Monday morning after a cup of coffee at Café Dumond. I was bored. Hard to believe, I am living in the city known for Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, fun and frolic, and I was bored. Well you can only drink so much and sleep too little and be involved in the rush and mania of this town – after a while one is no longer a tourist. Looking in the shop windows at the glitch and gewgaws that provide a major source of income for the residence of New Orleans, I found myself looking at some beautiful handmade quilts. I had discovered the Quilt Shop of New Orleans. In the window was a sign: Help Wanted! On impulse, I walked in and applied for the job. I filled out the application and Donna, the woman in charge, asked me to wait a minute. I went and sat on the bench outside the store and watched the world go by. After about five minutes, she called me back in and offered me the job. She apologized because she could only offer me six dollars an hour. I said that was fine, I was a bored grandmother and needed something to do.

I started the next morning. I can tell you this Fibromyalgia and standing on concrete floors for 8 hours does not work well together. By the time five came, I trudged back up St. Phillips to our bar Sin City and ordered an orange juice and vodka. After three of them I went to bed and thought about the events of the day and how I hurt. I fell asleep to awaken the next morning wondering what to wear in my new adventure as shop girl. This became my routine for the next three months as I learned about quilts, how to sell to tourists, and discovered another side of New Orleans.

Living in the south is a different environment that cannot be explained. And living in New Orleans is different than any other place on earth. I was used to being the majority and not the minority and even in the French Quarter I mostly had found myself surrounded by white folks. The Quilt Shop changed all that. Donna the woman that hired me and I were the only two white employees of the shop. The other women were black and born and bred in New Orleans. The owners, the Garrets, were transplants from Arkansas but were still “suthen” and proud of it. Mr. Garret wore suspenders all the time and you never called him by his first name which I did not understand. Most of the people I know didn’t have a last name or if they did I had never known what it was. It seemed rather pompous to me and I think, in retrospect, it was and designated him as “the man.” The Quilt Shop marketed the works of the women of Mena, Arkansas and Mrs. Garret was especially proud of the Crazy Quilts that she had designed and had her workers make. In fact, she had designed the stage curtains at the House of Blues. She would often sit and embroider on a quilt in progress as she watched her girls take tourists on a tour of what the shop had to offer.

I soon learned that I was not a shop girl, but a gallery tour guide. I learned more about quilts in this job than I had when watching Aunt Gracie doing her piece work or Mom tacking her quilts for good warm covers for winter. This shop was a gallery of women’s art and was truly fascinating. I still keep a couple of works in progress for doing my own original crazy quilts.

The crazy quilt, I learned, was actually inspired from the 1800’s when Japan came to the United States and did an exposition of their beautiful needle work. The fractals and geometric designs are amazing. American women soon adopted this work and would embellish it in the new world way.

On one wall hung an exquisite bright yellow quilt that was over a hundred years old. An uptown family of “quality” was down on their luck and discovered the quilt in the attic and sold it to Mr. Garret where it was proudly displayed with a price ticket of 7000 dollars. I later learned he had paid $250 for the masterpiece that represented a quality of stitchery that would be hard to duplicate today. I would often just stare at it and imagine the thousands and thousands of small perfect stitches being sewn by a fine lady was she supervised her servants from her sewing room.

It didn’t take me long for me to learn what Mrs. Garret meant when she said “quality” people. She asked me if I knew any “quality” people who would be interested in working at the shop. I said what do you mean? She replied in a confidential whisper, “You know people like you and me.” It finally dawned on me that she meant white folks.

When the master is away, the slaves will play.

The Garrets were often away from the shop. They had a business office in the apartment complex where they lived. I have to admit while I liked her stories and found his Big Daddy of the south demeanor amusing, it was more fun when they were gone and I got a chance to really know the women with whom I worked.

Linda was tall, black, and fearless and could sell a $2500 quilt to a tourist better than anyone. She liked those $25 commission checks. She was also ruthless. She would steal a potential client away from me with the smoothness of good bourbon sliding down the throat. I learned in time and she was rather surprised when I confronted her and got my commission on a particular sale. I had proven not to be such a wimp and she began to like me or at least show a little respect. When she found out that I was a psychic and astrologer, I became even more interesting to her and the other women that worked there. She held out her hand and asked me to read for her. I loved her hands. They were strong and deeply lined and etched with character. I remember having a dream one night and I came in the next day and said to everyone something has happened to Linda. There has been an accident. It wasn’t five minutes later that there was a call that said she would be late, she had been in an accident and her husband had been killed. The woman, who answered the phone, told her that they knew because I had had a dream.

When she returned to work a week later, we became better friends and so did the other women and I. This brash black woman was even more powerful than I realized. She now was the only provider for her children and did not have time to mourn. We would often talk about her life and her children’s life and what it was like to be a widow at such an early time in her life.

Kathy was sassy! She was also tawny, skinny and always styling. I don’t know if she ever wore the same outfit twice. On lunch break, she would have a couple of screwdrivers and play video crack. She was a trained accountant but jobs were hard to come by so she was a shop girl like me. The Garrets had her come to the office to help with getting their books in order and clearing up some tax issues. I also ended up doing some work there also.

It was then that I had another epiphany. New Orleans afforded me many of those. All of the women who worked at the quilt shop except for Donna and I made $5.50 an hour. Now that didn’t make sense to me. I finally thought well Donna is an assistant manager and I had a couple of college degrees so that must be the reason. Boy was I wrong.

At my bar there was a young girl who would often come in for a drink and to have fun with the other Quarter Rat locals. Her name was Lisa and she was about 21 or 22 but I do remember she was a Leo. She was a painter and had come to New Orleans to pursue her art. She ended up painting murals on the wall of the small hotel across the street. In need of money in order to survive, she wanted a job. Now Lisa was eccentric which the norm for my social circle was and is. She had a shaved head and wore shabby chic clothes – in other words what ever she could afford from the thrift shop. I said they have an opening at the Quilt Shop but I don’t know with your head shaved. She borrowed a wig from a dancer and put on some conservative clothes and showed up to apply. She was hired immediately. She started out at six dollars an hour. Mrs. Garret thanked me for finding such a “quality” employee. Lisa was soon not wearing her wig and wore more and more of her thrift shop designs and used her artistic temperament to explain the art and creativity of women’s art or quilting.

Mrs. Garret had Fibromyalgia also and understood my physical limitations. She soon made me head cashier and put a stool behind the counter so I could rest. While I appreciated her kindness I was beginning to be more and more concerned about the apparent racism that no one, black or white, thought anything about.

I decided to quit. My journey into the world of selling to tourists on Decateur Street was coming to an end. I convinced Mrs. Garret that Kathy was the best person to take over my job since she was trained in accounting. Before, I left, I asked Kathy to go to lunch with me and I explained to her that I was infuriated that I was paid fifty cents more an hour just because I was white, and that when Lisa was paid that also it made me even angrier. She just smiled at me in a sad but knowing way. I said now that Mrs. Garret is going to give you my job, I think that you should ask to be paid the same that I was paid.

She gave me a hug. I never saw her again. I often wonder if she got that raise.

The Jamie Show

2005-09-06T06:28:00.000-05:00

Marylyn Manson aside, it was strange to see a tall lanky kid with black hair dressed in a sequin dress, army boots and make-up tending bar. Jamie was a Goth of New Orleans.

Jamie came from Texas and could not consider if he were heterosexual, homosexual, or bi-sexual. He just knew he was sexual in his own way. He lived on his crazy check and went to see his psychiatrist when the voices and madness got to be too much. It was hard for him to keep a job because his madness could often drive him over the top when he worked at local bars getting paid under the table. Most of the time, the Jamie show was amusing if a bit more manic than one could stand if one did not have at least a couple of drinks under one’s belt.

Jamie adored my son Jimmy and looked up to him as an older brother, family and mentor. Madness mentoring madness! Only in New Orleans - well only in the French Quarter.

Many a morning I would wake up to see Jamie passed out on the floor and waking him up was impossible so I learned to step over him as I went about my day.

Jamie was first institutionalized at the age of fifteen for psychiatric treatment and at 18 was recognized as mentally disabled and released from the hospital armed with delusions, a monthly check and a prescription for anti-psychotics. His mother, always loving but unable to cope with his madness had come to peace with his illness, and maintained a toll-free telephone number so he could check in with her so she knew he was alive and so he could talk to her when the madness became to much for him to handle.

Jamie was intelligent and creative. Many years of prescription meds and self-medication had not damaged his will to express himself. In many ways Jamie, like many of the Goths, I met in the Quarter was a living performance art. Their lives are their art. They express their pain in ways that others can see and often fear. The self-mutilation, tattoos, and piercings, dressing in ways that no one expects except that there will usually be black painted nails and torn and worn clothes.

I remember one time he was sitting on the floor talking with me, when he brought out his portfolio. Jamie created cartoons and made a monthly magazine that he printed at Kinko’s. It was a black and white chronicle of his pain and observations. Visions of madness and the irony of life perceived by a mad man that had the soul of that fifteen year old boy that first entered the institution painted a story of the suffering of many of his contemporaries. His joy in creating his comics could not be denied but more important than the creating was his distribution of his art. Like all creatives Jamie felt the drive to be recognized and to appear bigger than life… Jamie’s life was the Jamie show.

The last time I saw Jamie he was wearing smeared bright red lipstick, torn red fishnet stockings with his army boots, and black shorts and black torn t-shirt. He was hanging at Jackson Square with some other Goths trying to scam some money for something to eat or at least a drink. He was now living in an abandoned house with his friends. He was homeless. He was intensely and passionately manic. He was still deeply into hope. He was still the Jamie Show.

Emily

2005-09-05T15:04:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that I had never been to an art gallery opening before so when Jimmy, my son, suggested that we go to his friend’s gallery for some free champagne and to see the folks who were acting uptown while downtown I agreed.

He put on his black suit and tied back his hair. His nails were painted black and rings lined his fingers. His earrings needed polished but he was styling. I found a black skirt and a black top and off we went. I must say I felt out of place. I wandered around the place, accepted and vodka and tonic and found a seat on a very expensive divan and had my first look at the creatives of New Orleans.

One woman walked in dressed in red with a hat that would make every woman in the Red Hat Society jealous. She waved her gloved hands and looked like it was her time to be courted so she would spend her money on the featured artist. I was both appalled and attracted to her at the same time. Her face was like a painted caricature and she had more bling-bling jewelry as tacky as a rhinestone collar on a Chihuahua. It had to be worth more than I had made in ten years. Funny, I don’t even remember her name but I remember her southern decadence and neuvo riche style.

The curator, owner of the gallery was blond and over-the-top as she polished up the buyers and created the buzz around the artist. You could tell she was a Leo and she was queen of her artistic domain. Alexandria, a southern belle and dreamer, I would learn had Cancer and was maintaining her business while trying to heal. Jimmy would often come and fix her hair for her and add her hair piece so her Leo ego would not feel compromised. Maxine liked to keep young men around to do work and wait on her but I never thought she was sexually interested in them - maybe because of her age or maybe because of her passion for her divorced husband an art dealer in Europe.

All of a sudden I heard this voice. “You look just like me.” I looked at this amazing woman with blond hair dressed in black with an accent that sounded all too familiar. This was my first meeting with Emily Adams. We sat and talked for hours as others did their gallery schmooze. Turned out Emily’s family was from Ironton, Ohio about an hour from Athens, Ohio where I had lived before I came to New Orleans. A friendship was forming that lasts till today, although, I have no idea where she is after the blowing forces of Katrina.

Emily lived in on Jackson Square in the Pontalba Apartments. Alexandra had lived there until some politician’s daughter wanted her apartment and she did not have her lease renewed. The Pontalba Apartments were exquisitely beautiful. They were finished in 1850 and the architect the rich Baroness de Pontalba. The oldest apartments in the United States and, probably, the first designed and built by a woman. The Baroness ordered cast iron to be made in New York and shipped down the Mississippi. Her maiden name and her last name began with an "A" and a "P" which are winded in the railing which can still be found on the buildings. The beautiful row houses were intended to serve as both very nice residences and fine retail establishments, which they did until August 29, 2005 when Katrina shook up the old city.

Emily was an interior designer and was, like our mutual friend Susan, a woman who had one foot uptown and one foot downtown. Emily and I would often sit on the balcony of her apartment, drinking chilled white wine and watching the gypsies and artists plying their trade on Jackson Square. Emily’s spirituality was amazing. She had studied Buddhism for years and was also an amazing channeler. It would sometimes freak people out when she would all of a sudden start speaking in tongues. Emily knew colors, she knew design, she knew antiques, and she knew people. She knew how to party but she often did not know when to stop.

I remember sitting in the Blacksmith Shop over on Bourbon Street. Emily and I were chatting up with the folks, when Emily ordered a Jack Daniels. I knew it was time to leave or experience some hell on the streets of the Quarter. Emily could really get mean. People who have lived with her knew to go to the back of the apartment and lock a door and not come out till morning when Emily was into her drinking. The cops around the Quarter would watch out for her and she always made it home except for one night when she was standing outside my bar, Sin City on St. Phillips Street. Emily was attacked by a street kid and knifed and robbed. I did not hear until a few days later after she had returned from the hospital that she almost died.

Emily, like all veterans of the French Quarter knows how to survive. Fortunately she knows how to survive both uptown and downtown. I never quite got the knack of southern society but she had it down with style and glamour. I don’t know there is something about pretentious rich folks that get on my nerves. Maybe I just haven’t hung around them very much. People like Susan, Emily, and Alexandra were all right but the others gave me a sense of being in the presence of Queen Elizabeth on crack and with a southern accent.

I do thank Emily for sharing some important information with me. Noni Juice is the best hangover cure in the world and when you live in New Orleans you appreciate such knowledge.

I hope Emily was able to save her beautiful horse and is safe somewhere probably in Texas.

Charity in the Quarters

2005-09-05T14:05:00.000-05:00

I first met Dr. Fred when he was a resident at Charity Hospital. He was a typical play child of the Quarter when he wasn’t working. He could create more chaos and indulge in more pleasure than the average Quarter Rat. Yet, he would disappear sometimes and be working at Charity Hospital. But his charity did not stop at the hospital.

There is many a poor person in the Vieux Carré, which literally means old city. Sure there are plenty of tourists with their American Express Gold Cards and insurance to cover any accidents when they are whooping it up in the Big Easy, but the folks who live and exist in the quarter, the service people, the dancers and bar tenders, the tour guides, the homeless wouldn’t know Blue Cross if it hit them in the face in front of St. Louis Cathedral. Many survive at less the poverty level doing everything from selling paintings to tourists, doing performance art, leading tourists through the mysteries and histories of New Orleans and cooking and cleaning and driving horse-drawn carriages and more.

I think the French Quarter is the only place that I can remember a doctor coming to my house because I was ill. It is the only place I can remember a doctor coming to the house when my granddaughter was running a high fever and her mother didn’t know what to do and didn’t have money for cab fare to the hospital emergency room. That was Doctor Fred. When my husband’s blood pressure shot through the roof, Dr. Fred showed up with samples to keep him alive when we were broke.

When I listened to the stories of the horror at Charity Hospital during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, I thought of Doctor Fred. I wondered if he were there or if he had gone elsewhere or if he were up in the attic of some house with waters rising waiting to be rescued. I don’t know. I just know that when time has passed and many folks get back to a semi-normal life, Dr. Fred will be whooping it up and creating chaos and fun and perhaps a bit of debauchery (no a lot of debauchery), but he will still be proving that charity begins in your own neighborhood where folks will still not have insurance, still will not be able to afford medication, and some will still be experiencing that old-fashioned concept of a house call from a friend who is also a doctor.

Ain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do.

2005-09-02T06:58:00.000-05:00

It was about 3:00 AM and the heat of the summer was still lying heavy on our bar Sin City on St. Phillip Street just a couple of blocks from Bourbon Street. The building was old and was the location of the old mortuary of New Orleans. Ghosts abounded both in this dimension and in many others. The walls were lined with religious candles and around the bar were hung memories of life that celebrated fun and angst. The dark wooden bar back was ornate and through smoke stains a mirror reflected the life coming awake after the tourist bars had closed.

I had my usual seat at the head of the bar right next to the cigarette machine. I was wearing my auburn wig which made me sort of look like old pictures of Anne Rice. Paul walked in and ordered a drink and bought me one. How you doing Anne Dirty Rice? I smiled. I loved the way that this old queen had given the honor of a drag name.

Old George was drunk on the money he had made selling ice cream from his cart on Jackson Square. He took some quarters and was playing video crack. George had lived in the Quarters for about 15 or 20 years. He scurried around from place to place looking for odds and ends to do to make money to feed his demons that had taken an accountant from a top firm to a drunk killing himself with each shot. He had brought me a gift that evening – a bracelet from the 40s set with semi-precious stones. I loved the glitter and jangle of it. I felt like a diva from another time.

Bob wandered in and ordered his usual gin and tonic. A retired sea captain, Bob loved to come to his local bar and see what would show up to entertain him for the evening. Soon he was joined by a younger man named Mike… Mike’s make up would put Julie Newmar to shame. His arched brows and pouting rouged lips accentuated his feminine features. Bob wandered back to the men’s room. Mike soon followed. They returned after awhile noses a little stuffy but with smiles on their faces.

It was about time for Susan an uptown girl from a wealthy family that was about my age to show up. She was comfortable in a smoke-filled bar filled with the regular folks of the Quarters or at lunch with her socialite friends at Galitoire’s or Antoine’s. She was ready for an extra-dry dirty martini and I got up and went around the bar to shake one up. Susan had brought in two martini glasses just for her and me to indulge in one of Mother Myriam’s martinis which she considered the best in New Orleans. She had her companion, a young man who was entertaining her at the moment, to go put on a little Billie Holiday. She was dressed in an expensive cotton sundress and she took her shoes off, leaned back against her boy de jour and stretched her long shapely legs out resting her feet on the barstool next to her. It seemed that since Susan was diagnosed with brain cancer, she was just going to do exactly what she wanted to do despite the expectations of those up-town friends. Of course, it was pretty obvious that she had always walked on both sides of Canal Street.

The tours were over, the tour guides in their make up as vampires, ghosts and gallants were gathering to count their tips and unwind with a shot of Jagermeister. Dancers from Bourbon Street joined them make up removed and dressed in the usual garb of most young girls. A couple of lesbians who had just spent the last eight hours feeding the fantasies of males willing to pay for a drink and a dance, went to the jukebox and played their anthem. Funny it was the same song as Susan had played earlier: Ain’t nobody’s business if I do. Now they danced for each other filled with the jubilance of youth and an understanding that in the Quarters no one was going to judge their lifestyles.

My friend Rita wandered in. On Bourbon Street they called her old Rita because she was in her mid thirties which is very old for a dancer. I knew Rita was ready to spend the next few days drinking Budweisers from a long neck and chatting up the crowd. Rita could stay drunk for days and never spend a dime. Her boyfriend Mo showed up. Mo was president of the local motor cycle gang and was a true Cajun and lived over in Chalmette. He knew it would do no good to try and make Rita go home so he could hang around for the journey to oblivion or head home. Rita also knew it wasn’t anybody’s business what she did and she did what she wanted when she wanted and how she wanted. Just like all the other folks who were regulars at Sin City.

The seat beside me would be filled by different folks over the night. Stories to share. Hearts to be healed. Memories to be re-created. Dreams to be re-affirmed. It was just another night in the Quarter when most of the tourists have wandered to their hotel rooms and the people who walked the walk that is New Orleans at night gathered to feel not so alone. And as Billie sang out over the sultry air - ain't nobody's business.

Scents of Yesterday

2005-09-01T07:27:00.000-05:00

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.

Book Shop

2005-08-31T05:26:00.000-05:00

For the first time in my life I felt strange walking into a book shop. The Used and New to You Book Shop was located on Main Street between Rinaldi’s Pizza and the Greenery Bar where all the local college kids came to drink and mate on Saturday night.

I had never sold a book before. I was used to buying books, reading them sooner or later, and letting them collect on shelves as representations of my collective works of knowledge. I still had my first college text books… A Survey of Astronomy, Introduction to Statistics, Psychology: An Introduction, and some stupid math book. I felt like I was sinning as I talked to the owner Jake, a slightly more than 50 man with a balding head and a goatee retained from days of love ins and sharing joints with idealistic friends in the sixties. I need to sell some books I said. He looked up at me and I could almost see pity in his eyes which made my guilt even stronger.

I rubbed my forehead and turned down my eyes. I was not used to being a part of the over-educated, out-of-work poor. My stomach rumbled and my hunger brought back my resolve to divest myself of that which I could not eat. Better to sell a book to pay a bill then burn a book in the fireplace to keep warm.

Let me see what you have, he said.

I lifted up two heavy shopping bags and Jake methodically checked them over. He placed them carefully in stacks according to some system only he was aware of and finally after what seemed like an hour, looked up at me and said: Do you want cash or credit? I cleared my throat nervously, and replied: Cash.

Seventy-Five cash or a hundred twenty five in credit… sure you don’t want credit?

I shook my head. He opened the cash box and handed me 3 twenty dollar bills, a ten and five ones. I took it, walked out, and head lowered, went down the street to the A & P and bought some cheap white bread, a pound of bologna, some instant coffee, and some generic dry cat food for Lucky.

What was that my dad said: Get an education. They can never take that away from you.

Well, tomorrow I will have to apply for welfare. I think Jake and I are going to be seeing a lot of each other. I wonder if a stupid old math book that is 10 years old has any value rather than sitting on my bookshelf reminding me that my life or perhaps all of reality is just the proof of Voltaire’s quip that God is a cosmic joker with an audience that refuses to laugh.

Alone by the campfire

2005-08-30T05:51:00.000-05:00

Campfire

Tonio had died and we all had traveled to the Yucatan as a final memorial. Half of his ashes would be kept in the United States and half would be buried in Mexico. It was so fitting as he had always lived with one foot on each side of the border.

He was young when he died – only 65. He was a fusion of the blood that run through Mexico. His maternal grandmother was of Spanish descent and grew up in the comfort of Haciendas and education and social sophistication. His paternal grandfather was descended from Yaqui shamans. Tonio came to the United States to be educated and obtained his degrees in modern languages and eventually became a full professor at the Ohio University. He and his family would spend summers in Mexico and winters in the United States where he would teach and write and paint.

The storms were raging and roaring up the storms on the waters of the gulf when we settled into the casa that sat back from the sea. Mark and I would walk along the beach and feel the deep sadness that only the wildness of nature can evoke. Behind a dune, we gathered driftwood and started a fire. Slowly the other family members gathered around. I pulled back from the fire and watched the family as they did their morning in the ways of our primitive ancestors. The waves crashed and the fire crackled. Silhouetted against the sea stood Tonio’s wife Jane, his daughter Laura, his sister Lucilla, and Grandmother Ona they held each other and were seemingly caught in a chant of mourning for a time that was passed.

As I watched them I had never felt more alone. The vast emptiness of the night sky reflected the hole created in the soul of this family with the passing of their patron.

I felt mesmerized and seemed to fall into some kind of trance. I could feel the coldness of the night and the hearts around me. A glow seemed to be forming behind them as if rising from the sea I saw a golden orb. It grew bigger and bigger until it illuminated the darkness with a mystical glow. And then, it faded away.

The campfire burned down. Hand in hand the women walked back to the casa. I sat alone in the night with my back against the dune.

I Never Loved Her Anyway

2005-08-29T07:19:00.000-05:00

When Jimmy was caught in the agony of separation from Melody and his daughter, Joliet Epiphany, he told me about Mel… I never loved her anyway.

Now I sit watching TV as they report on the approaching and increasing danger of Katrina and I wonder did Melody leave New Orleans in response to the mandatory evacuation. I wonder did Jimmy leave New Orleans in response to the mandatory evacuation. Did they have enough sense in the drama queen brains to take Joliet to safety?

I was in New Orleans when the last threat came through and Jimmy and I were alone then … it was before Joliet was born. We refused to go to the Super Dome knowing it was going to be hell. The storm moved and moved over to Biloxi - The morning after we went out to search for food. I know my son. The odd of him changing significantly so that he would seek safety is minimal. Melody might have enough sense. But I don’t know.

Funny how we go through life and we survive the emotional storms that can devastate us… well we survive but we are still wounded. Our souls become fragmented and damaged. And as I watch the news streaming in from the storm area, I think that perhaps he did love her even if to protect himself he had to say: I never loved her anyway.

Friday – A Freedom Hard Won

2005-08-26T08:01:00.000-05:00

For American woman the battle for freedom has been long and hard. Equality while it is coming more and more into balance in certain segments of society and pockets of the globe is still not a reality. The war against injustice has not been won. Some battles have been won. Some rights have been established. And, yet, it seems that sometimes the greatest enemy for women is the attitudes and conditioning of other women.

When we as women, or men, do not celebrate the success of women and support their desire to succeed and make their lives and their children’s lives better, we set back the quest for freedom as surely as sexual harassment in the workplace, as surely as less pay for women versus men, as surely as every sexist joke that is spoken in thoughtless jest.

I have seen miracles in my lifetime in the changing roles of women. Powerful women create a powerful nation and a powerful world for our daughters and sons yet to be born. Condoleezza Rice, Oprah Winfrey, Hilary Rodom-Clinton, Martha Stewart, Meg Whitman, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Anita Hill, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Cassatt, Gertrude Stein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Julia Child, Dorothy Parker, Anais Nin, are but a few and the list goes on and on and gets stronger and stronger.

Today, on Women’s Equality Day, I celebrate woman. I celebrate the warrior goddess that empowers us to continue until every woman has the right to be who she is by choice and not by expectation.

The best protection any woman can have is courage.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The Monkey Mind

2005-08-25T06:46:00.000-05:00

The Monkey Mind

My mind is restless jumping from here and there. It is hard to concentrate on nothing. It is impossible to still the monkey mind.

I have always been a Monkey. I was born in the year of the monkey in the Chinese Zodiac. And, as a totem, there is no animal more intriguing then the monkey.

The monkey is the trickster, ready to play with your mind and tease you and pull you into a sudden collision with the dichotomies of reality.

For those who follow the rules or create the rules, the monkey is rather a disturbing creature because even when caged he looks at you and mocks conventionality. You want order, he brings chaos. You want to cry, he makes you laugh. You want to frown, he will turn upside down.

It is the business of the monkey to be in constant action and to find pleasure in the small and the absurd.

The monkey is our mirror reflecting our desire to be more than just another hairless ape.

On a more serious note, in meditation the goal is to quiet the mind. Some teachers have called this quieting the monkey mind. It is in the stillness that the writer can find the form for his or her writing.

A monkey sees a shining sphere in a deep pool. The excited creature reaches out precariously to grab it, but can’t reach far enough. If the monkey lets go he will fall into the dark water. Yet if he pulls back into the trees, the quest will have been abandoned.
You don’t need any special powers to discover that light seen in the reflected moon is real.
http://meditationproject.com/Monkeys.html

The monkey running rampant in our mind, doing its business of thinking distracts us from the form of reality. To understand reality we must understand being and not being. We must understand movement and stillness. When we think too much, we sense less than is possible. When we stop the monkey mind we move on to be the sage who is observing and is witness to the world. It is this observation that brings insight and not the thinking about what is happening. Thus when we learn detachment the monkey goes to sleep and we are one with the Tao.

Thus the business of the monkey is to let us see the reflected light of reality, but then through detachment we discover that whether reflected or direct the light is just the light.

pomelos rose

2005-08-24T08:08:00.000-05:00

Today I have traveled from Roanoke Virginia to France to China to Spain to Mexico and then to my memories in search of an illusive pomelo rose. You might say I have circled the globe to find this succulent globe that is not only healthy but its roots go back 20 million years. So I have not only traveled through space I have traveled through time... who could ask for anything more.

2 pomelos roses (ou pamplemousses)3 avocats pas trop mûrs1 cuillère à soupe de moutarde au citron2 cuillères à soupe d'huile d'olive1 cuillère à soupe de vinaigre de vinQuelques brins de ciboulette fraîcheSel, poivre blanc

PréparationPelez les pamplemousses à vif au dessus d'un bol pour en récolter le jus.Puis "déshabillez" les quartiers de pamplemousses de leur peau et posez-les dans un saladier. Coupez-les en deux s'ils sont trop gros pour être mangés d'une bouchée.Pelez les avocats et taillez-les en gros cubes. Placez-les dans le saladier.Dans le bol avec le jus de pamplemousse, réalisez la vinaigrette en ajoutant la mouarde, l'huile et le vinaire. Salez, poivrez.Versez la vinaigrette sur l'ensemble, remuez très déicatement. Clairsemez un peu de ciboulette fraîche coupée et dégustez immédiatement.

Pour des raisons esthétiques, il est conseillé de préparer cette salade au dernier moment sinon les avocats s'oxydent et noircissentOn pourra ajouter quelques petites crevettes qui complètent bien l'ensemble.

A grapefruit by any other same is pamplemousse or pomelo

How does one become a rose of the grapefruit? By being a red grapefruit

Does a red grapefruit by any other name taste as lush and rich and filled with promise? Well it does have the promise of health...

Red fruit are loaded with beneficial plant compounds called phytochemicals, which preserve your health in several ways. These phytochemicals can keep your brain agile as you age, guard against heart disease and cancer, ease arthritis, and ward off urinary tract infections and ulcers. Many phytochemicals are antioxidants, which fight off health-damaging free radicals. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NAH/is_4_32/ai_85174715

As I began my journey I traveled to france and saw a painter - a very intense middle-aged white man who painted with an african flare. I traveled further to find out that he was painting a woman with a grapefruit with a ruby red inner flesh. His symbology became more interesting.
Then the recipes in French and then studying the citrus from ugly fruits (grin) to sour or bitter oranges in Mexico which were imported by Spain.
Which reminded me of a story or two.

When I married my husband I found a poem written by his father where he wrote (translated) "my son is a bitter orange."

I did not understand his symbolism until today. What a wonderful adventure free write has given me.

I discovered that in Mexico the bitter orange is used for medicinal purposes.

Sour orange juice is antiseptic, anti-bilious and hemostatic. Africans apply the cut-open orange on ulcers and yaws and areas of the body afflicted with rheumatism. In Italy, Mexico and Latin America generally, decoctions of the leaves are given for their sudorific, antispasmodic, stimulant, tonic and stomachic action. The flowers, prepared as a sirup, act as a sedative in nervous disorders and induce sleep. An infusion of the bitter bark is taken as a tonic, stimulant, febrifuge and vermifuge. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/sour_orange.html

And I remembered traveling the Yucatan and I would visit with Aunt Lucilla who told me of using bitter orange (a sour orange with a red sour flesh reminiscent of the pomelos rose which brought me to this memory) to heal so many different health issues in the Mexican culture. You see my husband Mark is descended from a long line of Yaqui shamans and thus when his father wrote about his son being a bitter orange, he meant the birth of his son was his healing.

Did you know:
citrus grew in Asia 20 million years ago?

citrus was first mentioned in literature in 2400 B.C.?

the first varieties of citrus were bitter and not edible?

each person in the U.S. eats about 12.5 lbs (5.6 kilos) of citrus per year!!!

citrus is the most widely grown crop in the world!

Brazil produces the largest amount of oranges and grapefruits in the world!

in Florida there are approximately 10.3 million citrus trees on 853,000 acres of land!

there is more fiber in an orange than in most other fruits and veggies!

Florida oranges may be greener than California oranges because the night temperatures in Florida are warmer, which causes more chlorophyll to migrate into the peel; they are still ripe and sweet though.

British sailors used to be called “Limeys” because they ate citrus to prevent scurvy on long sea voyages.

if you plant a single seed from an orange you will probably get more than one plant growing from it.

immature growth on most citrus trees will have sharp thorns. These tend to break off as the wood gets older.
Myriam Maytorena, M.Ed.Life with Mother;A Journey of Love, Death and Rebirthhttp://lifewithmother.com/ http://manifestreality.com/http://myriamsmuse.blogspot.com/

Tuesday - An ordinary day

2005-08-23T12:29:00.000-05:00

It was an ordinary day. But in my world, ordinary days usually turn out to be quite extraordinary. I decided to take a nap out in my goddess grove. It is so peaceful there and about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of my yard. It is surrounded by a bamboo grove, and is sheltered by an umbrella from nature in the form of a mock cherry tree. You can smell the honeysuckle and feel the energy of Mother Nature in this safe haven from the world and mundane reality.

I seemed to fall asleep yet I felt totally awake. I felt my body rising up toward the sky and yet when I turned and looked down I could see me nestled safe in my grove. I was on the flight of a lifetime.

I kept drifting higher and higher in this spiritual levitation. In the middle of my solar plexus I felt a warm glow of pink energy that began to expand until it was completely encircling the planet. I felt one with Mother Nature and all her creatures. I could not tell where the earth and I were separate. We were one pure energy form of love and light.

The energy was pulsating and alive. I could feel the circle, or perhaps globe is a better term, of energy expanding. I felt greater and greater connection with the sun and planets that surround and balance our planet. The expansion continued until I was in a state of infinite awareness. Slowly the pink energy mutated until all colors were a part of my being and I was alternately pulsating between black and white – between void and light.

Then the energy begins to collapse into me and I felt myself becoming smaller and smaller until I was so small as to be totally invisible. Through this whole process my mind continues to witness this true epiphany of infinity. I recognize that I have returned from my flight but I am now in the consciousness that is the subatomic reality of one of my brain cells. Then I expand again. I can feel my body arousing within the beauty and safety of my goddess grove.

Was this a flight of fancy – or a journey through multi-dimensional realities? You be the judge. I only know that on any ordinary day I can make the extraordinary my reality and travel through the dimensions of time and space by focusing on limitless possibilities.

Monday August 22 2005 Contaminated

2005-08-22T08:09:00.000-05:00

Résumé
Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren't lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smell awful;

You might as well live.
Dorothy Parker

Most writers are contaminated. Or is that condemned? Maybe it is the same thing. We are contaminated by strange neurons and electrons connecting in weird and disturbing ways in our brains. We are condemned forever to try and create order even if it is ugly out of those thoughts and ideas creating visions and delusions that must be exorcised before we go totally mad. What we know and what we see is often different than what the outside world perceives and thus we must educate them to the nuances of pain, ecstasy, and reveal that there is more than mediocrity.

Even the charmingly trite who keep their words light know that the dark dwells beneath the conscious mind. Even my buddies Tweetie and Sylvester make us laugh at pain and the constant conflict and confusion of our society. We pander to the quirks and smirks of mankind and we often sit back and observe our own stupidity for even trying.

A writer without a pen as sharp as a razor might as well become a journalist or a copy writer. But, we who look into the abyss always knowing it will return our glance know that madness is but one stroke away on the keyboard. We are fierce, mad and defiant. We are the ultimate egotist because we believe that someone somewhere will be intrigued by what we write and value what our thoughts reveal. For some of us this might become a reality, for others not. But all of us will continue the valiant war of the words in an attempt to birth our thoughts into form that might someday say to the world: See, I told you so… I am a writer.

These Feet Were Made for Walking

2005-08-15T05:38:00.000-05:00

These feet were made for walking and a new adventure and journey begins everyday.

While many think that creativity and expression and desire for success are the privilege of the young, there is nothing further from the truth. For the writer, her work is like fine wine it only improves with age.

There are so many role models for us to look to as far as the success of the older person creating a new and exciting career. Julia Child was in her fifties when she did her first television show which led to the Art of French Cooking. Julia was born on this day in 1912 and died just a few days shy of her 92nd birthday in 2004. She was a creative in the kitchen, at the keyboard and in her life.

Child’s presence in the media was always simply sophisticated. She created images of the American woman through out the various stages of her life and she inspired the transformation of the American palate when she introduced us to fine wines, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and the realization that life was to be lived with passion.

Going for the gusto is always an option! I am excited that at age 61 I am also entering a new phase of my life and walking these little feet into the future with anticipation of the new adventures that await me. The reason that I can do this is because when opportunity knocks I open the door, but also because I have continued through out my life to be willing to take risks that were sometimes not particularly age appropriate in terms of what society expected. Life has unfolded in many magical ways but I have planted the seeds along the way like Johnny Appleseed and now I am reaping a wonderful harvest of delight.

I will be gone until maybe next week and shall miss you all. So until then, Bon Appetite!

Myriam Maytorena, M.Ed.Life with Mother;A Journey of Love, Death and Rebirthhttp://lifewithmother.com http://manifestreality.com

Friday Love 'em and leave 'em

2005-08-12T07:59:00.000-05:00

For a dyed-in-the-wool author, nothing is as dead as a book once it is written. She is rather like a cat whose kittens have grown up.
Rumer Godden

Letting go of the past is as easy as walking away. I think that is why I write. It allows me to process all of my past actions, thoughts, and realities so that I can create a new reality with each time my hands begin to channel my mind onto my computer screen.

When I write I am creating a manifestation of a new way of looking at my world. It is nice to share that with other people. Sometimes in the meanderings of my life and thoughts comes something that I never expected. I find that as my inner world immerges into the outer world that I see on my screen, there are subtle changes in the life that I share with others.

I often think that when I write I am channeling something from other dimensions and spaces that most have only dreamed about but never considered to be a possibility. I often find that what pops onto the screen is nothing that has ever crossed my mind before and thus is a gift from some diva from the cosmic stream of consciousness trying to find a voice in a vortex of evolving change.

I am driven to amuse me and in the process sometimes others are amused or bemused and sometimes confused but ultimately what I do, I do for me. When I am done with these thoughts and ideas what others choose to do with them is up to them. I am a cold-hearted lover that once I am satisfied I move on to another love affair within my mind. A love affair that is fickle and seduced by the whims of consciousness that has been offered a tidbit from an infinite well deep beyond the limens of the five senses. My love affair is an affair of the sixth sense and infinite dimensions.

I sometimes say that I am a slash and burn writer, but it may be that I am a love them and leave them kind of writer. But when the winter of my life is finally upon me it will be nice to look back at the children who were born of my passion for words and ideas. Hopefully that golden time will be many, many eons from my present expression.

If you have been thinking!

2005-08-11T08:40:00.000-05:00

If you're thinking of sending me books to be autographed, please don't. ~ Ursula K. LeGuin

Ahh, to have that sense of self-importance or level of success that one no longer has to offer to be accommodating to one’s audience. I personally would love for you to send me a copy of my book to sign for you as long as you pay for the return postage.

I am lucky in that I don’t have to walk ten blocks down the hill to the post office and then walk back up the hill ten blocks carrying books that people just adore and want my signature. I just send my husband to the post office.

My latest book is called Life with Mother: a Journey of Love, Death and Rebirth. You can read an excerpt from the book at http://lifewithmother.com and you can get a good deal from Books-A-Million or you can send me the money, save some postage, and I will autograph it and send it to you.

If you have been thinking about sending me a book to be autographed, please do.

Among Friends

2005-08-10T07:39:00.000-05:00

Lao Tsu wrote something to the effect – keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

In the year 2000 I published a book with a person that I thought was my friend and someone whom I could trust. It was just after the book was released and it was time to publicize it that my mother came to live with us and I became a 24/7/365 end-of-life caregiver. It was hard for me to concentrate on publicizing the book because I was worried about things like keeping my mother comfortable and alive.

My friend kept pushing me to do things to publicize the book that I thought were unethical and just wrong. It came to a point where I was about ready to go nuts … a short trip anyway I can assure you. She said give me all the royalties to the book for a year and I will take over the task of publicizing it. Now my mother may have given birth to a slightly eccentric child but not to a fool. I refused to give up my rights.

The next year I found out that my friend had taken out parts of the book and republished it under another title and her name alone. I was not mentioned or credited as the original co-owner of the copyright and that the book was a derived from that book. I learned from this experience that sometimes those who are closest to us and appear to be friends in fair weather will become enemies when it comes to money and fame. I find it very hard to forgive and forget this incident even though in my heart I don’t think that this friend thought she was doing anything wrong even though according to US copyright laws she had broken the law. Did I do anything? Not much I was to busy helping my best friend spend her last days on earth. Did I learn anything? Yes. Never write a book with a friend and always hire a good editor.

Deadly Weapons

2005-08-09T08:05:00.000-05:00

My good intentions are completely lethal.
-- Margaret Atwood

There is no more deadly weapon than the kindness of friends and family. In kindness they give us advice or warn us or try to make us feel that we are making a mistake. More dreams have been killed by kindness of the well-intentioned than by the cruel critique of a stranger.
The dreams of the younger and the older are precious and lead us into the future with optimism. Sometimes just the turning of the head and an uplifted brow coupled with a smile that indicates tolerance for another flight of fancy is the hardest boundary to creativity.
The artist must be driven by only one muse and that is the one that resides in one’s heart and head that hears the warnings and suggestions of family and friends with an internal translation device and thus retains the ability to move on with the creative process.
When you think about what is the greatest book ever written, realize it hasn’t been written yet. It may be the one that has been hidden beneath the good intentions of friends and family to keep you from pursuing your dreams. There is no age limit on the creative process. If your dreams have been hiding from the kind intentions of family and friends who fear that you might succeed and change, perhaps it is time to draw a more deadly weapon and that is the pen. Write the first words of that great work that is waiting to be born from your heart and soul.

The Kindest Cut

2005-08-04T08:20:00.000-05:00

If you are going to cut, use a sharp knife.

Some people are so afraid of the truth and hurting other people, that having a discussion with them is like cutting your throat with a butter knife. They try to be nice and still tell you that you are stupid, or ugly, or should be out of their lives. You can always tell when the knife is going to cut. I think that you are really a nice person, but… What follows the “but” is the truth. Women are notorious for this approach for breaking up relationships with men. Hey Charlie, you are really a nice guy, but let’s just be friends. Every guy with half a brain knows that means he is lousy in bed. No wonder my male friends come to me whining: But, I don’t want to be a nice guy.

I am not blaming my girlfriends for not being turned on by nice guys. We all want a little bad boy in our lovers. We want something in our men that makes them uncontrollable and exciting. A well-trained husband can be a blessing when it comes to taking out the trash but a total bore on Saturday night.

I want a man with a wit as sharp as a well-honed dagger. There is nothing worse than a battle of wits with someone who is half-prepared. When Mark and I have our “discussions” I make sure my knife is sharp and I get the first cut. And, it had better be deadly and deep or I am in for a night of repartee that will be intense and passionate. Of course, that is probably why sometimes I just do the little pricks with the point so that the energy builds. Of course, if I really want to get him, the butter knife is actually the most annoying cut of all. Honey, you are really a good husband, but I have a headache.

Signing the Register

2005-08-03T10:03:00.000-05:00

He didn’t do anything as tacky as signing in as Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Bernie signed in under his own name as I waited in the car. I don’t know why it bothered me tonight. We had been seeing each other at least once a week for about six months. I just felt different for some reason. I felt something strange was going to happen.

After he put his bags in the room, we went to the dinning room where we ordered prime rib with all the trimmings. A bottle of Merlot accompanied the meal. He ordered escargot. I looked at them and I went to myself yuck! Snails! As I sampled the deep musky Merlot the rich garlic odor kept bringing me back to look at the little silver tray in front of him. He took this tongs that looked like something from a midwife’s nightmare and held the shells while he picked out the meat with a small fork. I winced again as he lifted it too his mouth. Slugs! He tore off a hunk of steaming French bread and dipped into the butter, garlic and wine sauce and held it up to my lips. I opened. My God! This is delicious. Taking another big swig of Merlot – nothing delicate going on here – I closed my eyes and opened my mouth as he took that sharp little fork and pierced the snail and lifted it to my lips. The odor of garlic, wine, and butter was intense. The taste was even more divine than the soaked bread I had savored before.

Something strange truly had happened. The sensuous night turned into a lifetime of delight.

I now keep a can of escargot in my pantry and a bottle of Merlot is always ready.

My husband when I have a craving cannot understand it. He will say: Snails! Yuck!

I will just smile; remember Bernie, and my introduction to another realm of the senses.

Life on the Farm

2005-08-02T07:02:00.000-05:00

I woke up to the smell Aunt Gracie’s biscuits baking in the oven. I could hardly wait to get out of bed and rush into the kitchen to pile on the butter and home made blackberry jam. I was in heaven on this little scratch farm in the back hills of West Virginia.

Grandpa was already out in his old rocker under the apple tree sitting, whittling on a stick and making nothing in particular. His 80 some years of working this farm left him little energy to do more.

The sun had not yet taken the cool off this August morning and there was a freshness in the air and in the fresh-churned butter that I can’t find anymore even though I have moved to my own little piece of land. Except, there are wild blackberries growing at the back of our land where the deer like to come and nibble on fresh sprouts on the new fruit trees and with a few ripe, rich bites I remember Aunt Gracie’s biscuits and jam.

Until Mother died last year, she lived with us. My husband Mark was always doing things to make her feel the comfort that she felt growing up as a child of the country. He even raised chickens. He would pick one of those chickens up and hold it up by its legs where it would go into a state of hypnosis and just hang there like a stuffed toy and bring it into mother’s hospital bed and she would smile. Then the stories would begin about growing up on that farm with Grandpa and Grandma on Flat Top Mountain in West Virginia.

Yesterday Mark was cleaning out the barn on a very hot and sweaty August afternoon. He came in and told me he had found an old nest with eggs still in it from when we had chickens here for Mom’s fresh eggs and memories of days gone by. We shared a smile and went on with life without Mother and other family gone.

http://lifewithmother.com

Snowball Fight

2005-08-01T08:14:00.000-05:00

As I enter my cronage, I find that winter has taken on a different meaning to me. I want to snuggle up under an afghan, drink a hot cup of coffee, and gaze out upon the snow in quiet contemplation. I don’t want anything to destroy my peace except perhaps a gentle wing against the air by a cardinal.

But school is out because the roads are covered in ice and snow and all the little hellions are trudging up the hill pulling their sleds and then zooming down screaming and laughing all the way. It is maddening and I am tempted to pour a shot of bourbon in my coffee more to calm my nerves than to warm my cold feet.

Watch them out there, screaming, laughing, driving me nuts.

Drew, the leader of this motley crew, bends over packs some snow into a ball. I can feel my hands curl up with the feeling of the cold. Wham! He hits Zeke on the back of the head. Zeke stands still. He slowly looks over his shoulder, bends down and seems to take forever as he gathers and forms his weapon from the snow. A 180 degree turn and Drew is downed in one throw.

The noise increases in pace as these winter warriors prepare to do battle. Behind my fledgling apple tree asleep till winter one tribe stands and builds their arsenal of icy revenge. While up the hill behind Yvonne’s porch, the other tribe prepares for battle.

I sigh. My quiet winter reverie has been destroyed by youth and snow. I have lost the joy of a winter day. I pull the curtains, pour that bourbon in my coffee, and turn on the Four Seasons and think of spring when my crocus will poke up through the snow and promise better days.