Peace be home for Christmas
It’s what the Spaniards call the madrugada, that darkness before dawn, on the bayou and I see the lights from the street lamps and porches reflected in the inky black ripples of the bayou. I can see down Grand Route St. John and it appears that two houses have Christmas lights so bright, I’m shocked anyone can sleep there.
I was in a meeting where I saw a plan to put a three deep grove of swamp cypress right in front of the LaLa and I was like, um, I don’t think that I like that. People make plans and don’t vet them through the people who will be impacted by them. This irks me.
Last night I received a giant tin of gingerbread from a big German colleague of mine, it was signed simply, WEINER, an inside joke that has been so long running, it’s hard to remember when it started. As much as I’ve been trying to get myself back on track, those damn gingerbreads are the best I’ve eaten so I ate one too many and now that is why I can’t sleep and why I’m up typing and looking at the darkness outside.
A friend sent me a link yesterday that took me down memory lane, but the problem with looking backwards is that it always brings up bourbon and regret. And as I await the day’s dawning, the problem with looking forward is that it is always tinged with anxiousness. What woke me was Tin coughing even though I had put the humidifier in his room before he went to sleep because he’s getting a cold. But then what really woke me was my right palm was itching like mad – money it portends – someone is going to give me money.
Yesterday, I perhaps picked up my second client for my new business, so in all honestly I’m not thinking about money even though that in and of itself is a mystery. I am thinking instead of a Hanukkah party that I’d like to have on the last day – this coming Tuesday – which we do every year – only this year, we can’t afford to pay for a musician, and we can’t afford much else about it. A neighbor said make it a potluck, but I tend to dislike potlucks for some reason that I myself don’t understand.
And then it hit me, while I was getting up, and getting my tea, and sitting down to write as I look out on the dark bayou, what part can I play in stopping the violence in New Orleans so that another innocent child isn’t killed by shots fired in some atavistic turf war. Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world, I say, but make it this place, and this world.