Once upon a return...

By nature, I am prone to the aniticipation of leaving a place and finding myself in the midst of transition. I love ports of travel for this very reason--it's like life's purgatory and I am the mayor.

There's something ethereal in the unknown. That very feeling gives me a sense of security, moreso than a day to day plan which can seem to turn into an endless abyss of time.

An artist friend of mine, while describing his timeline in New Orleans, commented that he usually marks his life by years of moving to different cities, but since living in New Orleans--the one place he's stayed the longest--he's seem to have lost the frame of time, all moving into a blur.

So, I move and I move often. This period in my life, however, has found me oddly excited about my return to New Orleans. This is the first time, in fact, that I've spent my birthday--by choice-- in the same place, 2 year anniversary folks!

I believe there are some places that fit with the individual; some places that make every day feel completely different and memorable from the next, even when the mundane chores of life fall heavily upon most days, there's something about the place that makes all of that redeemable.

I don't know what I'm hearing inside, if the foundations of my life are settling into the ground but I know that someday soon I'll find those cracks that ensue upon the walls of an old settled house just as beautiful and ethereal as the unknown in the unsettled life I lead.

Costumes & Cards

I'm all too honest in relational situations. I venture scarily-close to being a sleazy billboard for a strip-club: I bare all, that is to say, in the emotion department. And I suppose this is not as much of a turn on as nudity.

I wear no costume, I've no facade but I've found that I live in a city where there are constantly occasions to become someone or -thing else. Dressing up and masking whatever's at hand is a style completely owned and honed by New Orleans.

The problem is this: I have nothing to wear. Ever. Always scampering around last minute for a costume but find I like none but my own threads and so I throw my hands up and relinquish myself to...myself.

I check the mirror and I think I'm good enough and the fact that I have no costume on is more of a costume than having one on and so this attracts--oh does it! They spend some time (oh, no more than a few days) and then realize, wait, she's not wearing a costume and this is her and that's the norm--insert question mark.

I wasn't a costume-baring lady.

And I'm not just showing the cards in my hand, oh no, as a matter of fact, I am handing them the entire deck, card by card. They get tired of holding these cards--imagine mine are about 3' long and a foot wide. I can't help it--they are the...cards I was dealt. Wow, sorry, I set that up for myself.

So, I can only imagine one of two things have to happen in order for my success to ensue someday: I must find a way to cut down the size of my cards; maybe not take all of them with me everywhere and find a safe hiding place for them or I must find a giant who can handle them and me.