Dangermond.org

I spent the day nose to the grindstone trying to finish a report that has been elusive if only for the fact that two holiday weeks and a major conference scattered my sources around the globe. So I just focused, and little by little it came together. At one point, not stopping for lunch, I ran over and picked up a ballgown that a friend loaned me that is stunning. And as I hung it on the closet door to run back to my office, I had this feeling of sadness that had no obvious reason other than my emotions have been pitched back and forth in so many directions over the past few weeks that it’s hard to know where they will land.

When I rented the apartment, the landlord threw her arms around me and said “God Bless You.” At yoga yesterday, which I haven’t been to for ages, a friend put her hand on my bald head and said, “Jesus heal this woman.” And she meant it. They both did.

Today as I sat on the front porch to get a little sun on my bald head, a woman drove by, perhaps even the new owner of the LaLa and she looked and I looked and tried to not convey sadness, but I do believe that might have been what I projected hovered into my polar fleece vest my bald head cold but needing sunlight.

It’s as if I’m free falling, but yet last night I dreamt that Tin and I stood by a big lake and a fish jumped out of the water so high we had to crane our heads to see it and then it fell fast and plopped back in. Then it leaped again, this time higher, and we were both exclaiming, “Wow, look at that!” The dream interpreter online said this:

Jumping fish might have any number of different meanings to different individuals. It could represent joyful freedom or a sense of having “risen above” the ordinary.

Walking into my office during one of these intervals away, I noticed the Chinese lanterns overtaking the Vitex tree in the backyard – all of this planned spontaneity that I have done around here will be left for someone else to appreciate. I instead will be looking to other visions very soon. I told myself to go ahead and feel sad if that’s what I feel because I’m going through a lot of changes and you can’t help but regret what you are giving up as you are moving forward.

Because things are insane. I’m squeezing every drop of time to get my report done, and thought I’d think about my wardrobe choice for the Inauguration weekend Friday afternoon when suddenly I just put out an SOS to three friends for ballgowns and now my cup runneth over. Oh my! The lovely dresses that have come my way – it’s insane!

Then I had to run out and get my lab work done for the umpteenth time to see where I’m at – I wonder if blood can reveal just how crazy your life has become?

Meanwhile, just when I had to run pick up Tin and take him to swimming, I suddenly get three calls from hard to reach sources – sigh – good grief – I need more hours in the day.

I race to swim lesson and the teacher that I switched classes for is now no longer working there and Tin is asking about his friends from the first class. Luckily, on a fluke, I met someone and her son, about Tin’s age, is in the same class and so at least, he wasn’t the only African American kid in the water. Sometimes you get lucky.

The appraisal on the lot was supposed to come in Monday, and it’s now Tuesday night and it still isn’t in, so another thing in cue and in the holding pattern.

And now a moment of silence before I lose my mind!

Love, R

I’ve been smiling and dialing all days long this week for a project I’m working on and frankly I was losing my voice trying to read Tin’s books to him. He said, “Mommy, I can’t hear you.” But when it’s raining goodness you just have to keep up the pace. I’m blessed with work sources that are insightful and charming, and I’m on a roll as one friend pointed out here, so I can’t stop now.

On a positive roll, that is, let’s not forget that it’s been an uphill slog to get here, but just when things turned the corner in a big way, the new Yemaya candle that I had burning burst from its seams and blue wax spread across the counter top. Yes, the new roll is arriving with shattered glass. But isn’t that the nature of change?

I just got the itinerary for the Inauguration and I’m so psyched to be taking this spontaneous trip in the midst of so much going on because I NEED a break – to walk the streets of DC, to be part of the major action in this country this weekend, and to reflect on all that has brought me here – well, yes I can.

I put on a big pot of red beans at 5 in the morning, and Tin asked me why I was cooking beans. I said because I want to make food for those people I love. “I love you, Mommy,” he said. And of course, that was the biggest tip I’ve ever received.

Now to get through the next few days with my sanity and push out a great report on media, pack some outlandish clothes for three balls to attend, and spend every spare second being grateful.

Amen.

I woke this morning with a list of things to do that would make anyone blush. Then the day started moving at its own groove. Buyers accepted the offer for the house and we close on February 28. I kept my appointment to see an apartment on Grand Route St John and rented it starting February 1st. And so I was waiting all day to hear about the lot because the appraisal was coming in today but instead, the trifecta perfecta was I just booked a ticket to Washington DC with new friends to go to Obama’s inauguration.

How do you say AMEN in a million ways?

As the reality of selling the LaLa became more pronounced, I began a wide search around the city to buy a house or a lot to build a house on leaving myself open for all neighborhoods. A friend called who had just bought an investment property near the St. Roch area in back of the Fish Market and St. Claude. It was in the 2000 block of Urquhart.

I got in the car and drove over there to look at this area. He said it was in transition and held promise for good fixer uppers. When I got there, I fell into a despair driving up and down the streets. To be a pioneer in a transitional neighborhood is one thing as a single woman, to be there with a child is another. I couldn’t imagine walking outside and having Tin riding his bicycle up and down the block and that wasn’t just because Tin has been riding his bike up and down the bayou, it was because all I could think of on those blocks was “what you behold is what you become.”

Today the police released this information:

The New Orleans Police Department-Public Information Office

A 27-Year-Old Woman Was Found Murdered Inside Of A 7 th Ward Home

A 27-year-old woman was found dead with blunt force trauma to the body inside of a home in the 7th Ward. The name of the woman is being withheld pending notification of family members.

Police were called to a home in the 2000 block of Urquhart Street at approximately 12:20 A.M., were they found a 27-year-old woman with blunt force trauma to the body. She died on the scene.

sang-froid

PRONUNCIATION:
(san*-FRWA)
[* the first syllable is nasal]

MEANING:
noun: Calmness, especially under stress.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French sang-froid (cold blood). Earliest documented use: 1750.

Decades ago a therapist developed an Imago path to help couples overcome their inability to hear each other and grow together. My therapist had recommended this to me a few years ago as a way to be heard in the relationship. This image of “the person who can make me whole again” is what is called the Imago. I tucked that information away in my mental file even thought I tried it in many forms.

Then a woman and her grandchildren rented the LaLa and in a conversation she spontaneously confessed that she had just come from an Imago retreat with her husband of many years. “It wasn’t what you’d expect,” she told me, “I learned more about myself than him during that time.

I didn’t go to a Imago retreat even thought it did interest me, instead I sought more conventional means to be heard when I felt I wasn’t being heard. But similarly, I found that in the throes of that effort, I began to hear myself as if for the first time. And I heard what was being said with such clarity that I had many a ha moments. It was the gift of hearing that I gained, something that seems to have been lost on me for quite some time.

So last night, as I was watching the episodes in In Treatment, with Tin in bed early and asleep by 7, I watched with deep interest as Paul and Kate went through Imago therapy and how it was playing out with them – not good, let me say. Then suddenly I heard thump thump thump – footsteps that were pretty loud and so I jumped up, thinking it was Tin out of bed, and started down the hall to his bedroom, but I stood there confused when I didn’t see him. Thump thump thump.

For a moment I almost thought the footsteps were haunts and I froze in place until I heard a car pulling out of my driveway. I looked outside and saw a decorative package at the doorstep and I reached out of the door to get it. I opened the box inside and found a colored glass object with a tag on it that said, Fruit Fly Trap.

Hmmm, I wondered. What does a fruit fly trap gift mean? Reality gets distorted when you are with someone and trying to be heard but things are so murky you can’t even hear yourself. But to be alone and witness a mysterious gift of a fruit fly trap turns reality into itself, with no echo, no other voice to wonder why this has arrived, at your doorstep, and why now.

January 12, 2013
Taurus (4/20-5/20)
Getting in touch with your emotions is not always as easy as it sounds. Especially when there are many distractions in your life (like right now), it could be difficult to get to the heart of what is really bugging you. To ease the confusion, find some alone time. Your increased impatience could be a clue that you are out of synch with the people around you — all the more reason to slow down and remove yourself from the hustle and bustle of the world today.

I reached a saturation point last week between people, work, and commitments that made me look at all the goings on in the city and say, blech. With no desire to engage, I disengaged.

Today, while Tatjana moved out of the LaLa, Tin and I went to Music for All Ages and then walked into the Quarter for Italian at our favorite restaurant – the Italian Barrel.

I told him that we are going through a lot of changes right now, with us selling the house, Mama moving into her own apartment, then I will move into an apartment and then we will be building a new house. I said sometimes these things can cause stress and make us nervous. He said, “I’m not nervous, I’m excited.”

Meanwhile, we came home and the house was quiet and still and a little less full. My office has reverted back to being an office, the store room has reverted back to a store room, and the Eames day bed in the den suddenly makes that room look enormous and even the living room with one sofa minus now looks a lot larger.

It’s almost like the reel is playing backwards as I walked through the house and it looked a lot like it did five years ago suddenly. Strange how life plays visual tricks on you.