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The last couple of weeks, months, years have felt like a maniac’s ride at the Carnival but I’ve decided that instead of Wonder Woman who I envisioned I was embodying that in truth I am the Cat in the Hat and while I can stand on a ball, but wait that’s not all, I can juggle a cup, a saucer, a cake, a teapot, a rake and best of all I can fan a fan with my tail.

We all know the key to life to is to yield to the powers and be still, but honestly if I look down it will all fall down, so it’s best to keep a smile on your face and keep your eyes level on the horizon.

NO! says Tin

I was reading about an entire family who pay it forward and it made me think of someone I used to work with a long time ago – the person was described as “believing there is only one pie and limited pieces available” so the person was constantly in fear there would not be enough. If you approach the world that there is plenty to go around I think the world enlarges around you.

I was walking to the festival on Saturday and on Grand Route St John stopped behind a man who was blocking our path and staring up at a tree. He said to me as we went around him, “There are lot of squirrels around lately.” And I said, “If you were a squirrel wouldn’t you want to be here in this neighborhood?”

Without missing a beat he said, “Sure, there are plenty of nuts around.”

I liked this sign I passed as well:

On Saturday, Tin and I decided to stroll over to the Brew Ha Ha on Bayou Road and take a break from all the action and I’m so glad we did. We met the cute young man who is organizing the Broad Street businesses and who started this festival three years ago, the first two it was on top of the old Schwegmann’s that is now going to be the new location of a roof garden and Liberty Kitchen.

We arrived and I got a Perfect Tin beer, it’s a dark beer, but I just can’t pass up the name.

Then we listened to the Blues Band playing and after we walked to the Community Book Center where the owner read Tin a great book in such a dramatic fashion, I decided not to buy the book because I could never re-enact what she performed. Then we walked over to Domino’s Records, a great vinyl store. But we were called outside once more as the Zion Trinity Band went on and started blowing our minds with their reggae dancing jamming heartfelt tunes.

We cruised back home and I thought about the smaller festivals that don’t attract large crowds but pop up on surprisingly beautiful days here in New Orleans and just exist to please.

I was lighting the candle by the Yemaya statue this morning and thinking of my beautiful mom. In the last 48 hours, I’ve had a few people come up to me and hug me and say that they are proud of me (owing to the Gala we just had for Re-Bridge). I was reading earlier in the Te of Piglet that positive attracts positive and that if you tell a child they are brave, resourceful and smart, they will embody this image of themselves, if you tell them they are no good, useless, a burden, they will believe that of themselves forever.

I was fortunate enough to have a mother who told me every day of my life that I made her proud. Unfortunately, I was not so great a daughter that I told her the same thing back. I put her through misery, I’m sure, and I regret that, because as I lit the candle this morning I said to her how proud I am that she is my mother.

A couple of days ago I was having lunch with a young woman who has been a lesbian all her life and she was telling me of someone she knows whose mother has been so cruel about her orientation that she tells her she almost wishes she had died rather than say she is a lesbian.

I told her that not only had my mother so accepted my choices in life, she had encouraged me to live with an open heart and a free spirit, and that her family had embraced my life in all of its technicolor without batting an eye. That comes from not being threatened by others and by having a strong internal compass.

You get back what you put out in the world. I was delivering some checks from the auction and said, “I got laid off, and we’re renting out our house, and I’m starting my own business, and I’ve never been happier in my life” and the person said, “I can see that, I thought something had changed in you because I see the difference in you.”

You can’t live every day in the shadow of fear and distrust, you have to maintain who you are at all times against all odds – be transparent – give love and be love – and you will embody love and be proud. And hopefully your child will light a candle for you one day and miss you, and most of all, be proud of who you are.

It’s hard to get to perfect, but perfect is amorphous and undetermined and most of all perfect is fluid. But if you were going to have a gala, and you were going to pick a house, any house, pick the Sanctuary on Bayou St. John with an oak tree that rivals any in the city, and then go ahead and have Commander’s Palace make my favorite dish of all time, grillades and grits, and then have swamp pop by the Creole String Beans playing and look over and see the saxophone guy is the dad of Tin’s heartthrob – Callie – and then have people you know and are fond of dancing, drinking, and hanging out and hey, you know what, you have a perfect gala, a perfect evening, and now you can have a perfect night’s sleep.

Photo by Charlie London

I bought a box of matches and it said GREENLIGHT on them. Who knew that I would get the name right from the get go. Meanwhile, I began working with Greenlight’s first client and I told them they remind me of where independent research was when I got into it 16 plus years ago – on the ascend. Really this is going to be big and I love being a part of something that has a blue ocean strategy.

My horoscope of course:

November 18, 2011

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

   Someone around you is working on something that could become a huge hit. If you can attach yourself to the project, you could benefit financially as well as intellectually. Find out how you can get involved today … remind them that you have skills that will come in handy. Even if they just need some moral support, your positive attitude will be appreciated and rewarded. Aligning yourself with successful people is a good way to ensure that your success grows.

Let’s say there is a silver lining under every adversity. Just go with me on this one. Now think what it might be like if your home was destroyed and the city you love was under water and the government that you depended on and supported all your life was ineffective and indifferent and your marriage was strained and your friends and family were dispersed, but wait there’s more – you found yourself in Arlington Texas in a “corporate apartment” in a compromising situation and your stomach was a snake pit of worry anxiety depression fear.

You following so far?

Now fast forward six years later and you are preparing for a gala to support the historic bridges that cross the bayou that are in front of your home that you built with your own ingenuity and effort that is now occupied by guests who by product of your imagination are going to help you keep said house after navigating the rougher waters of the corporate spring you found yourself in.

And yet twice you didn’t drown.

And you realize at some point that none of the things you had wished for have come to fruition in the way you visualized. Then you get the items ready for the silent auction and you put an extra blanket on your son because the morning is chilly and you greet your partner and pour your tea and sit at the copper top table your talented neighbor has improvised and you think to yourself first, I forgot the birthday candles and next, what a wonderful world.

This morning over my deliciously brewed pu-erh tea, I sat on the screen porch and read how a twenty-year-old beat his parents to death with a hammer. News of the day. In the meantime, to my right was a list of things to do to get ready for Re-Bridge’s Gala, on my left was an outline of the white paper I’m writing for my client, and in the back of my mind was a fellow blogger who I have not had an opportunity to read in a while.

As I was contemplating a blue jay jumping from Crepe Myrtle branch to branch in the back yard, and listening to the wind chimes here at the LaLa and in my neighbor’s yard, my thoughts were placid and warm. I have a friend who is want to say, “When it’s right, it’s right,” so cavalierly as if, duh, but of course, but having come off some pretty rough and rocky terrain, I’d have to say yes, you know when it’s right, but what is the saying for those times when you are stepping on shards and stones and feel as if one slight move to the left or right might sink the whole enterprise? I’d have to say, go out on a limb my friend, because sometimes that is the best place to be.

My fellow blogger hit the perfect pitch for me this morning when he quoted Bukowski inciting to go all the way.