in a room, at night, alone

The stress is too much, plus memories.  This is the anniversary of the last night that my dear friend Tobey was alive.  I was the last person to see him alive, we went to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Tobey drove us in his Celica, the lagustrum was blooming, it was sick.  I remember his knit cap and his complete and utter anxiety.  I couldn't do anything for him. 

Or maybe I could.  Just like I could for my cat Cody last week, spending almost $1000 to have his rotten teeth pulled.  The last of my money but it's like they were killing him because now he can't stop eating, he's gaining weight, his coat's thick and glossy, he's playing again, and he's 17.  So I did what I thought I couldn't do - spend more money on my cat's health than my own - and now look.  He's not just alive he's thriving.  I wonder how many chances I've had to do that.

So I have a sinking feeling and it's about my choices.  The choices that have defined my life, that have articulated the horizons as I see them.  Even the sinking feeling is a choice that I'll change in about 5 minutes, churning it into hopefulness, always a thick dough of the two.  I just feel that since Katrina I've been reacting - albeit valiantly, albeit in a way that some people consider almost mythic, and praise me - but that's not living my own life, that's reeling off of things out of my control. 

Now I want a real job I want a real home I want to be able to buy those Frye boots and I want to be able to take care of myself as well as I take care of my animals.  If I could do anything I would run off to work at the Tender Mercy Horse Rescue Mission and live in a cabin and live with a man who wears flannel shirts.  I want to choose to give what I think I can't give, and give it well.  However I don't know if I know how to leave this place willingly, for all my running I think I might have forgotten how to tell when it's time to let go.

Comments

[mf]

New Orleans is equal parts tropical paradise and stinking tar pit. When you find yourself drawn away from the flowers and toward the sweet smell of the bubbling pit you have to ask: do I want to leave my bones here for posterity? Or do I walk away, out into the "real" world like some British aristocrat stumbling out of darkest somewhere to report what was seen, the incredible darkness and beauty of it.

I know from my own 20 year exile in America del Norte that once New Orleans has left its mark on you, it is yours forever, wherever you live and whatever you do. If you decide to go and take away that seed New Orleans has planted in you, take it out into the world to spread among the barbaroi, that is another kind of good which the hearth gods and ghosts of New Orleans find pleasing as well.

[MIV]

You're my gospel song.

[Eli]

Thank you, both.