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I read this quote today and it felt just right:

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

Albert Schweitzer

I’m thankful today for all of those people who walked through door number three (the one I wasn’t looking at) and helped me on my journey. This includes the ones I have tangled with, the ones I have loved (and lusted), the ones who have put their hand out to help me up and those who made me laugh, touched me deeply with their music and art, and sent my head twirling with notions that were grander than my imaginations.

Tatjana and I are rigid to Tin’s schedule and we get a lot of eyebrows lifted and what not, but last night after Tin went to bed two hours past his bedtime so we could see at least part of Muses, we met the child with not enough sleep this morning.

And it wasn’t pretty.

We went, we stayed, we had to leave early (9pm) when Muses was at Float #10 (hint: a friend was on #21 and we hadn’t even seen the Pussyfooters, the Camel Toe High Steppers, the Bearded Oysters), but we did see Theresa Anderson high up on a flying goose singing Hold Me with a band wearing gotham headgear.

Just what we saw was enough for me to say – wow! What a parade.

I have to admit that there is a special pride I feel in this city that on Thursday night a large number of folks got decked out in feathers, glitter, and wigs and marched down the streets of New Orleans with the sole purpose of entertaining us.

Too bad Marc Pagani is not the official photographer for Mardi Gras:

We’re starting a new group – you in?

We are attempting to see our first parade of the season, not that any of us are really 100% better, but we’re good enough. We strategically parked the car by the parade route and are hailing a cab and hoping the weather and we hold up.

It’s not that I’m not in the Carnival spirit – I am – but this sickness has me down and so I’m trying to rally for two very blatant reasons:

Reason #1 – we promised Tin he’d see a marching band and he is too cute to let him down:

Reason #2 – if ever I cease to love Mardi Gras, I know I have gotten old:

I can’t believe it is already the middle of February and yet so much has already happened in the first six weeks of the year. Mardi Gras is here and so is the rain and cold and colds. I’m crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s for my institutional work. I’m in the throes of some interesting budding projects with my corporate business. I spoke to a guy today that provided a full circle back to where I started on this years ago. We booked some of our travel for the summer.

It’s like greenlight go – but still I’m just sort of swerving side to side because life once again is going by in the fast lane even though you’d think staying in two weekends in a row with a cold would have slowed it down.

Last night Darrin came over to trim Tin’s afro and we sat around and discussed the state of the world and youth and concluded that no woman really needs botox or age defying treatment, she just needs to accept her state of grace. And we also concluded that young people have no idea how much they squander.

I came across this Wonder Woman quote and thought it was an appropriate mile marker for February 15th:

A new journey to be started.
A new promise to be fulfilled.
A new page to be written.
Go forth unto this waiting world with pen in hand, all you young scribes,
the open book awaits.
Be creative.
Be adventurous.
Be original.
And above all else, be young.
For youth is your greatest weapon, your greatest tool.
Use it wisely.”

–Wonder Woman # 62

Today, someone in the throes of a big love hired a plane to write upon the sky that he loves her and added a smiley face. I haven’t seen a skywriter since I was a kid, so it was exciting to watch it over the bayou.

Later, a neighbor walked by and we watched a pelican swoop and dive and glide across the bayou. She said, I love that people stop and watch the pelicans, it gives me hope about mankind.

So with love in the air, there is hope for all of us.

The sun is out, it’s quite beautiful and I just made a CD for my neighbor whose Mardi Gras costume has the Concordia as its theme – so Frankie Ford (Sea Cruise), Gordon Lightfoot (The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald), etc. You get the idea. For our costumes, I’ve got the materials all laid out and now to just make them!

But who can think of anything when the day is gorgeous outside and little by little my cold is slipping out of my system (well not really – I’m still hacking like a pro).

But tonight is Valentine’s Day and Darrin is coming to cut Tin’s afro, and the sun is shining so bright and pretty, and there are good things in the air.

The message in yoga today was about the love that is the essence of your life – and so despite the lack of love I felt for Heidi when she peed on the floor, and the lack of patience T felt for T2 when he ran out in the street daring her, and despite the lack of tolerance some people show in the world – the truth is there is love for everyone today. Because you have to love yourself first.

This morning started off on perhaps a shaky foot having gotten a call in the middle of the night from the Central Lock Up and some sergeant named Blakely. Only I didn’t catch the call, just the voicemail and it took till this morning to realize the area code was 713 – so unless someone in my family found themselves in jail, I’m not sure that call was intended for me.

On the other hand, we just finished reading Your Three Year Old as we are about to hit that number, but the book remarks about how 3 is fabulous and again the terror is 3 1/2 – only just like most things, Tin is advanced, so the horror the book depicts HAS BEGUN.

Evil Tin
1) screams when you try to dress him
2) won’t eat anything he has liked in the past
3) won’t sit in his chair at the table
4) says NOOOOOOOOO to everything you ask

Tender Tin
1) getting cuter every day
2) able to do more himself
3) loves reading
4) played his make believe trombone (read: drum stick) all morning while watching his shadow on the wall

He gave me a kiss before leaving and said Happy Valentine’s Day! So he gets points for that seeing how as an almost man, this is a major improvement over some men in my life who wouldn’t even acknowledge V-Day.

Our new life is starting to take its shape and I must admit there are times when things just don’t feel or look familiar and that seems odd. I keep coaching my own self to think more openly and look at the larger picture – that this is the life we are designing for ourselves and it doesn’t follow the rhythm of other peoples’ life no more than it maybe follows any of the patterns that I had before either.

Summer in Europe, not just a dream, we’re making the plans now for what we had promised to ourselves would be part of our new horizon.

All of the frictions are based on following a new path and since it’s a new path, it’s uncertain, it’s unfamiliar, it’s exciting in that it’s unmoored, and boundless, and yet, you know how the open road feels – exhilarating and uncomfortable at the same time.

This is the perfect poem to capture the macro view of this world:

W. H. Davies

Leisure

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.