...please, not again. It's enough to be reminded that tomorrow is the anniversary of Katrina's landfall on New Orleans. It's enough to be reminded of what happened. Like 9/11, Katrina still goes to the heart of me, and the thought of what the City and Her people endured - of what all the victims of natural disasters endure - still and always will bring me to tears.
It happened; we can't change that, only recover, and pray for providence and solace. We can recover, and prepare. We couldn't have stopped Katrina. We could have done something about the levees, yes, but not the storm itself. It was bad enough, before the levees.
I went down there, you know, December 2005, mere months after it happened. We went into the Ninth Ward, to the very spot where the levees failed. I saw Her, the City, ravaged, raped, gasping, and I thought, This will be the death of me. New Orleans is as much a part of my identity as my parents, my siblings, my friends, my education - anything that has shaped me into the person I am. I rejoiced that She still lived...but would she make it through the night?
She did, she has, as far as I'm concerned. I went to Mardi Gras 2006, and I knew Her soul had not flown. The City thrived in spirit, if not in flesh. I went to Mardi Gras 2007 and 2008; I take regular trips down there in between Mardi Gras seasons (luckily my job requires my presence in southern Louisiana frequently). I have family down there. I don't care what the natives say who say that She is not recovered - they're looking for a normalcy that will never return, for a presence that can never been regained. New Orleans will never be the same - but She has recovered.
...so the thought of Her being hit again is unbearable and soul-wracking.
It's like this: in February 1997 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She lost one breast and had to undergo chemo therapy. It was a devastating experience, but she recovered. She was declared free of cancer.
In April 2001 my mother was again diagnosed with breast cancer - a different cancer, not the same cancer as before, an entirely different cancer - in her remaining breast, which she subsequently lost, as well as undergoing chemo again. Though we'd been through this before, and knew what to expect, and could plan better and understood better....it was no less devastating to see her suffering and sick and in pain. It was no less devastating and heartbreaking and difficult to have to endure it again. She missed out on going to Europe as a family (she was determined that we go on, especially since my dad had never been, and she had); to be there for my engagement (which she insisted take place as it had been planned) in London.
Even if you've lived through something before, and know what to expect, it's no less painful and heartrending to live through it again.
8.27.2008
raise up your glass...to good King John
Yesterday's exercise in following will over flesh: success! I did not accomplish everything on my home to-do list, but that's because I underestimated how much time some of the tasks I undertook would take, not because I got tired or gave up. I kept going, and I have not had to pay for it. I paused at a decent time to have some dinner and took a reasonable amount of time to enjoy it, then stopped at a decent time (around 8:30-ish) to start work on a commission. All in all, it was a good evening, and I was so pleased with the success of will over wanting that I rewarded myself with a piece of honey pita (pita toasted with cinnamon and drizzled with clover honey) and didn't feel any guilt at not accomplishing everything on the list, or having a little treat. I was able to fall asleep easily, which is always a lovely thing for a life-long insomniac.
Today I shall resume this endeavor, focusing on the things I didn't get to yesterday, and adding some time for exercise and fun jewelry-making. I'll be seeing my future sister-in-law this weekend (Eric's brother's fiancee), and I'd like to have a little gift for her, a little congratulatory present, something that will "match" her engagement ring (white gold with pink diamonds). We shall see. I also need to wrap the bracelet I made for my soul-sis for her birthday. I've had it for a while, but I haven't wrapped it.
Four more sessions to teach this week; I'm looking forward to them. Two of them are straight "here's how to use the library in the context of an English 102 class," and one of my friends teaches the classes. Another of my friends is *in* one of them, so YAYZ. The other two are only focusing on plagiarism, one of my favorite topics to talk about, so that'll be good, too. Only thing? Two of the classes are 8am classes. Blech. But anything for Jerry (that's my friend who teaches)!
Anyway, I have some stuff to do. I just thought I'd share my little success from yesterday!
Today I shall resume this endeavor, focusing on the things I didn't get to yesterday, and adding some time for exercise and fun jewelry-making. I'll be seeing my future sister-in-law this weekend (Eric's brother's fiancee), and I'd like to have a little gift for her, a little congratulatory present, something that will "match" her engagement ring (white gold with pink diamonds). We shall see. I also need to wrap the bracelet I made for my soul-sis for her birthday. I've had it for a while, but I haven't wrapped it.
Four more sessions to teach this week; I'm looking forward to them. Two of them are straight "here's how to use the library in the context of an English 102 class," and one of my friends teaches the classes. Another of my friends is *in* one of them, so YAYZ. The other two are only focusing on plagiarism, one of my favorite topics to talk about, so that'll be good, too. Only thing? Two of the classes are 8am classes. Blech. But anything for Jerry (that's my friend who teaches)!
Anyway, I have some stuff to do. I just thought I'd share my little success from yesterday!
8.26.2008
can't do a thing to stop me...
...well, that's not entirely true. I most often drag [my]self home half-alive at the end of the day. Never mind how fast my mind might still be going; the flesh gives up. But the mind never stops, never ever never ever. This will, this mind - they are determined. But this flesh hates pain, like most flesh does. Perhaps being a masochist would have been a blessing, in this context.
But my will - I will let it dominate today. I will teach my session this afternoon, and then I will go home and I will do all that I want to do. I let the flesh have its way yesterday, but today is *my* way, and I will accomplish all I want to accomplish.
So perhaps you can't do a thing to stop me. Perhaps nothing would ever stop me, if I could really believe in mind over matter. I'm made that way, to want to believe in it. But I'm also a realist, and I can't deny the reality of the pain when I'm not careful.
Where's the middle path? Where's the happy medium? Would that I could find it. Perhaps if I try harder and am more careful, cautious, and observant, I will figure it out, sooner rather than later. I have hope - for all my realism, I still have hope. And perhaps *that* is my real strength.
But my will - I will let it dominate today. I will teach my session this afternoon, and then I will go home and I will do all that I want to do. I let the flesh have its way yesterday, but today is *my* way, and I will accomplish all I want to accomplish.
So perhaps you can't do a thing to stop me. Perhaps nothing would ever stop me, if I could really believe in mind over matter. I'm made that way, to want to believe in it. But I'm also a realist, and I can't deny the reality of the pain when I'm not careful.
Where's the middle path? Where's the happy medium? Would that I could find it. Perhaps if I try harder and am more careful, cautious, and observant, I will figure it out, sooner rather than later. I have hope - for all my realism, I still have hope. And perhaps *that* is my real strength.
8.21.2008
as sure as you have eyes, they've got no right
...I'm scared. I'm scared, and overwhelmed, and doubting myself, which is something I don't often do. I have been blessed with a keen sense of self-awareness, so it's not often that I doubt myself or my desires, or my abilities. I usually trust that I'll be able to do whatever I put my mind or will to.
...we've seen the last of good King Richard...
*sigh* I'm being ridiculous, I think. It's just...there are variables at play that I can hardly control, much like the last time I went through something like this. And the lack of control is terrifying, and adds to the stress. Never mind the fibro, and how it's responding - I'm having tummy issues. I know they are psychosomatic and that nothing's wrong. But being intellectually aware of all this does me no good. *wry smile*
...and drag yourself home, half-alive...
I wish I could be less realistic and more optimistic, but it's that realism that's served me so much better in the past, over the years. I'm no fool. I haven't gotten where I am by just going with the flow...tooth and nail, my friends, tooth and nail, and realizing that, at any moment, the world could turn just slightly, and all would change, and I could do nothing about it. I don't despair at that fact; I accept it. Checks and balances. It's a rule I live by.
...you feel no pain, and you're younger than you realize...
I nurture a certain image in my mind: looking out over the swamp from I-20, before the Maurepas buck in the bridge - the sun skipping on Maurepas' face, and the swamp as green and gold as it was before Katrina...New Orleans is just a thought in the distance, a happily anticipated guest an hour from arriving. If I can keep this in my mind, this and the emerald-and-amber Holy City, then I know I can be okay. If I can imagine the amethyst sky over the Holy City, I can be okay. If I can convince my blood and bones that it will be okay, and that they don't have to protect or overreact, then I can be okay.
The trick is, actually doing it.
...we've seen the last of good King Richard...
*sigh* I'm being ridiculous, I think. It's just...there are variables at play that I can hardly control, much like the last time I went through something like this. And the lack of control is terrifying, and adds to the stress. Never mind the fibro, and how it's responding - I'm having tummy issues. I know they are psychosomatic and that nothing's wrong. But being intellectually aware of all this does me no good. *wry smile*
...and drag yourself home, half-alive...
I wish I could be less realistic and more optimistic, but it's that realism that's served me so much better in the past, over the years. I'm no fool. I haven't gotten where I am by just going with the flow...tooth and nail, my friends, tooth and nail, and realizing that, at any moment, the world could turn just slightly, and all would change, and I could do nothing about it. I don't despair at that fact; I accept it. Checks and balances. It's a rule I live by.
...you feel no pain, and you're younger than you realize...
I nurture a certain image in my mind: looking out over the swamp from I-20, before the Maurepas buck in the bridge - the sun skipping on Maurepas' face, and the swamp as green and gold as it was before Katrina...New Orleans is just a thought in the distance, a happily anticipated guest an hour from arriving. If I can keep this in my mind, this and the emerald-and-amber Holy City, then I know I can be okay. If I can imagine the amethyst sky over the Holy City, I can be okay. If I can convince my blood and bones that it will be okay, and that they don't have to protect or overreact, then I can be okay.
The trick is, actually doing it.
8.18.2008
Can't do a thing to stop me....
I was on my way to baby shower in West Monroe Saturday, listening to one of the new "mixtape" CDs I recently burned and enjoying the rainy-ness of the day...when I was struck by that longing, that familiar burning for the Holy City. So many of my memories of New Orleans are tempered with rain; rain has never dampened my desire to wander when I'm there.
But it wasn't so much the City Proper (i.e., the Quarter) that I was reminded of while I was driving to the baby shower. I was reminded of the River Road - the old road that runs along the levees all the way into New Orleans, sort of parallel to Airline. The little shotgun houses, the tiny wooden houses, even the little modern brick ones that have cropped up - they look like they belong in the midst of rural Mississippi or Louisiana, not there on the cusp of Metairie and New Orleans, between suburban sprawl and the swamp....to be honest, I would live happily in one of those little houses, for all my love for New Orleans proper.
...nostalgia burns in the hearts of the strongest...
I'm not a particularly sentimental soul - I have my weaknesses, yes, and I am a packrat, much like my mother. I'm somewhere between my mother, who keeps EVERYTHING, and my aunt, who keeps NOTHING. My aunt says that she keeps nothing because her memories are more important to her than the material things. Which I understand - but the material things allow us to have a more vivid experience of the memory - it provides a sensual object on which to fix the experience, something for this age of reason...
*sigh* Anyway - so I was pretty melancholy by the time I got the party, and was perhaps quieter than my friend, for whose daughter the shower was given, had ever seen me, as well as several other co-workers who attended. Driving home again, I was accompanied by that same sense of mood, hungry and lonely for the City. Later that day, as the Captain and I watched TV, some commercial about New Orleans came on, and it went straight to my heart, crystal arrow. The Captain reminded me that we would be visiting the Holy City in September...but that does nothing to assuage the burning that winds through me now.
But with the patience that has served me for years, and the constant knowledge that something always takes me there with a regularity that keeps me sane, I will make it to September, and I will not give in to the restlessness that plagues my steps. I am not one of those souls that requires instant gratification - I delight in the delay of satisfaction, and always remember the sweetness of hunger finally answered in the right moment.
So I will nurse this longing with all the right songs, and all the right memories, and I will bide my time. I will be good, I will be right, and I will be rewarded.
But it wasn't so much the City Proper (i.e., the Quarter) that I was reminded of while I was driving to the baby shower. I was reminded of the River Road - the old road that runs along the levees all the way into New Orleans, sort of parallel to Airline. The little shotgun houses, the tiny wooden houses, even the little modern brick ones that have cropped up - they look like they belong in the midst of rural Mississippi or Louisiana, not there on the cusp of Metairie and New Orleans, between suburban sprawl and the swamp....to be honest, I would live happily in one of those little houses, for all my love for New Orleans proper.
...nostalgia burns in the hearts of the strongest...
I'm not a particularly sentimental soul - I have my weaknesses, yes, and I am a packrat, much like my mother. I'm somewhere between my mother, who keeps EVERYTHING, and my aunt, who keeps NOTHING. My aunt says that she keeps nothing because her memories are more important to her than the material things. Which I understand - but the material things allow us to have a more vivid experience of the memory - it provides a sensual object on which to fix the experience, something for this age of reason...
*sigh* Anyway - so I was pretty melancholy by the time I got the party, and was perhaps quieter than my friend, for whose daughter the shower was given, had ever seen me, as well as several other co-workers who attended. Driving home again, I was accompanied by that same sense of mood, hungry and lonely for the City. Later that day, as the Captain and I watched TV, some commercial about New Orleans came on, and it went straight to my heart, crystal arrow. The Captain reminded me that we would be visiting the Holy City in September...but that does nothing to assuage the burning that winds through me now.
But with the patience that has served me for years, and the constant knowledge that something always takes me there with a regularity that keeps me sane, I will make it to September, and I will not give in to the restlessness that plagues my steps. I am not one of those souls that requires instant gratification - I delight in the delay of satisfaction, and always remember the sweetness of hunger finally answered in the right moment.
So I will nurse this longing with all the right songs, and all the right memories, and I will bide my time. I will be good, I will be right, and I will be rewarded.
8.12.2008
Opening Ceremony: Not Olympics
In order to keep things consistent, I am closing Rue St. Divine as a personal journal. It will be attached to and used for the online store the Captain (my husband, for those of you just joining us) and I will be opening soon - maybe even this week, if we're lucky. The Rue St. Divine blog will include entries on jewelry projects I'm working on, commissions that others might find interesting, trends in jewelry-making and materials, and a variety of other topics related to the store. I've been thinking I'd also post clearance/sale news in there as well.
*THIS* blog is the outpouring blog, the wishes blog, the melancholy blog, the...frustrated-at-the-world blog. This is the blog where I try not to filter, and I try not to hide. I try to be as unadulterated in expressing my thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears - basically, the contents and products of the soul/mind complex - as possible. This is not a journal where I'll be PC or considerate; it's an outlet. I'm not going to intentionally be offensive or pejorative; it's not my intent to alienate or discriminate. I'm here, in this journal, expressing those things, those thoughts and emotions which well up and require release.
I'm a poetic soul, a philosophical soul, and - dare I say it - an artistic soul. Malice is not in my nature. Hatred is not a language I speak. What I want is a place to speak my mind and my heart without derision, and a place that others may come and read and respond and think. I hope this journal lives up to those expectations, and that those who read it might find something comforting, something inspiring, something illuminating, and something...provocative that helps them understand themselves, the world, and maybe even me a little better.
*THIS* blog is the outpouring blog, the wishes blog, the melancholy blog, the...frustrated-at-the-world blog. This is the blog where I try not to filter, and I try not to hide. I try to be as unadulterated in expressing my thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears - basically, the contents and products of the soul/mind complex - as possible. This is not a journal where I'll be PC or considerate; it's an outlet. I'm not going to intentionally be offensive or pejorative; it's not my intent to alienate or discriminate. I'm here, in this journal, expressing those things, those thoughts and emotions which well up and require release.
I'm a poetic soul, a philosophical soul, and - dare I say it - an artistic soul. Malice is not in my nature. Hatred is not a language I speak. What I want is a place to speak my mind and my heart without derision, and a place that others may come and read and respond and think. I hope this journal lives up to those expectations, and that those who read it might find something comforting, something inspiring, something illuminating, and something...provocative that helps them understand themselves, the world, and maybe even me a little better.
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