Dangermond.org

I leave for Turkey today with Fatma and Besta – pinch me, I think I am dreaming. We stay first in Istanbul and then fly to where Murat and the boys have been sailing for a few weeks already – we’ll join them for a few days before we head to Fatma’s parents tea plantation.

Arlene and Loca head for their vacation of sorts to the northshore where the Bean gets to stay with the couple in their house and Loca gets obedience training from the Lab Dog Whisperer.

Last night, under a fat crescent moon, I sat with friends outside on the bayou – a friend of K’s had given us fresh caught tuna and there was a gentle breeze blowing and the conversation centered around everyone talking about Turkey – all made for a pleasant evening.

Again, I’m thankful for my friends, my home, and the wonderful life I have created.

Indeed, Mr. Mesmerizer.

I went to my Class of ’77 30-year high school reunion in Atlanta this weekend. They sent a form that said describe what you have been doing in a few sentences since High School. I wrote “Are you kidding?” – but I read the entries of my classmates and there seemed to be a unanimous “married for 20 something years, raised X number of kids, love to (insert one or two – golf, hike, sail, travel, praise God).”

I went to Lakeside High School, which was one for the first mega schools to open in Atlanta – my class had 300 students. I sifted through the names in the “memory” book and was surprised to learn, I knew maybe five of those 300 by first name. It was the class of ’76 I knew pretty well – I dated a few of them, and went to their parties, and they came to mine.

A few guys came up to me and said, “Rachel Namer, I remember you threw the best parties.” And I said, “Still do.”

She who returns from a journey is not the same as she who left.

My neighbors on either side and a friend both told me that they concur with my outrage towards men who hit women, and women who hit dogs, but they worry that I might be opening the door to someone crazy retaliating. Today T was by and he said, “to be present, you have to engage, the times I have bit my tongue are regrets.” But you start to wonder what begets what? Chris Rose wrote the other day of a Ghandi type approach to litterers rather than the histrionics he has acquired in the face of flagrant littering around this city. “I will pick this up for you, because you might not be capable right now of doing it.”

How does one approach not responding to a man hitting a woman? or a woman beating a dog? How do you take that deep breath and say it is not for you to get involved? When you are a care taker by nature, it is your nature to take a bullet for someone else and deny yourself your own self defense, but in the end and at the end of the day have you changed anything or anyone. Will that man go home and beat his girlfriend? Will that dog take another lick from that woman’s leash when you turn the corner and are out of sight?

I visited Ava James today, all of one day old, and I told her that she is a bright light because she arrived in a storm and was able to add perspective and hope.

I spoke to a few people today who would like to make something come of the tragedy of Nia Robertson dying – that is take some action to make things better so we can create a community that doesn’t attract this type of senseless violence. Right now there is a lot of desire and not a lot of knowing what to do next, but a few of us have committed to meet and figure out a way to contribute our time, intellect, and sensibility towards building our future here.

I went to Cafe Degas last night to meet B for dinner – it had been a long sad day for both of us. The bartenders from Pal’s had all congregated under the wings of E, sobbing, mourning, hugging, trying to find meaning from a senseless act of violence. Yesterday, the news at Pal’s polarized our little community – there were the “good neighbor” people who rallied for Pal’s as a community gathering spot and on the other side, were the cute, young female bartenders, hired to attract business and yet not offered a secure environement even though they asked for it – myself and others – who felt that this pall has been hanging in the air for too long a time and this violence was not surprising.

Horrible to watch such tragedy on top of everything else our small universe has suffered.

And at dinner, our conversation drifted to more personal attentions and realizations – about who we are and what can and can’t be changed about the very nature of who we are – and what shouldn’t change. In life, you have the option to keep pondering what to leave in and what to leave out and how to move forward.

In death, none of it matters.

Yesterday, in the midst of an awful lot of darkness, a baby was born. As my Flower always says in her Georgian accent, “Hope dies last.”

Eva was born at 4 this morning. Yippee – it’s a girl!

Sadly I learned that a young woman had her throat slit at a neighborhood bar that has been attracting an out of town violent element since the storm. I quit going to Pal’s Lounge because the crowd although still mostly local was increasingly becoming more dicey and the last straw was when the two guys walked in and stole the bartender’s dog. Now it appears a retired cop from up north who had come to New Orleans to do carpentry had been showing up there the past two weeks. Last night, he stabbed a man in the back and then slit the throat of this young woman – an attractive, black, professional (engineer).

The reactions have been polarizing – there are those who believe that Pal’s Lounge has been a good neighbor – good in what sense I ask? The young attractive female bartenders are provided no security and unlike most neighborhood bars in the city, there is no buzzer to keep out potential psychos – although, despite this guy having a bad vibe, he probably would have been let in, just like the dog nappers.

No, I think sometimes a place becomes an epicenter – a magnet for violence – and I think this place has become that.

One woman dead, one wounded. Then I hear about Peru – where my reporter has just left to move to Brazil – hundreds dead in Peru.

Why did it seem like it was going to be a good day?