Nearing the end of a chapter

A couple of days ago they took Ms. Marie to a nursing home. I’ve spent nearly eight years watching this woman walk around the bayou in a smelly coat and bubble hat in 90 degrees or 40 degrees. Ms. Marie was “almost” born on the bayou, she was born a few blocks from here and moved into her house when she was a year old. She lived there with her cousins living in the house next door and grew up during the Great Depression. She will be 97 years old this year, if she makes it to her birthday.

I got out the bubble wrap and was carefully packing my puppets from Asia, my wooden ducks from Bali, my monkey masks from Ubud, my elephants from Africa and the bayou was twinkling in the evening light. I talked to these objects and said, “I know you thought you were here to stay but we’re going to a new place and for a while you’ll have to be in hibernation. Think of it as a well deserved rest. And when you come out, everything will be better than before.”

A person can get hung up on the sadness of endings. I didn’t plan on ever packing my things again and moving, and now here I go. I was speaking to a friend at Zumba last night and told her about my earlier confusion this weekend about whether to stay or accept the new offer. I told her that another friend had asked me how did it feel to decide to stay and how did it feel to decide to go. The woman at Zumba said, “You must have felt happy thinking of staying.” I said, actually no. I felt sad, resigned to keep working at this rubic cube and the weight of it on my shoulders. I said I feel like I have born the burden all by myself for so long that it is freeing to think that I am moving into a situation which will be so much easier to handle, alone.

Since the day of the 2005 Federal Flood until today, months shy of the 8 year anniversary, I have had to go deep in my pockets, deep in my reservoir of strength and courage, deep in my patience trove, deep in my psyche to keep the dream of the LaLa afloat. I have done this alone and I’m done doing it alone. The thought of leaving, of renting an apartment for a mere $850 a month, plus storage for the rest at $159/month, is so doable, I might just walk off the planet.

A neighbor walked by and said she had heard that I would be leaving the neighborhood because its just too hard for me. I said actually I rented an apartment right across the bayou and my living room window looks at the LaLa. I’ll be on the same side of the bayou as Ms. Marie, only she won’t be there, she will have moved one step closer to her final resting place.

My tchotchkes, ojects of art, paintings, memorabilia will head to hibernation, awaiting the light of day. Meanwhile, my metamorphosis will continue as I shed the old and welcome the new wings that are bursting to come out.

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