Arlington is my Prison
Last night I felt as if I was being held prisoner – problem was I couldn’t walk the dogs far enough away from the prison to shake the feeling. The bayou seemed like a dream away. Compliant is not my nature – instead of running out of the house screaming, I succombed to the inevitable. I got in bed at an unreasonably early hour and turned over and prayed for sleep. Perchance to dream. Some of the tension was explained in a note this morning – a scare – but that is only a manifestation of what is real.
S is depressed. His ability to negotiate group dynamics is flawed. He says I am his only link to sanity – I pity him. My sanity is running thin.
The rest of it is just darkness for no compelling reason – a negativity that sits in the room like a white elephant and demands and absorbs all positive energy in its wake. I see it, but don’t understand it, and don’t care to either. The only reason it intersects me is that I care about those connected to it and watching the manipulations of feelings as they occur gives me pause and at times enrages me. Again, emotions with no release because they are not attached to me in a legitimate sense.
They will be looking for an emergency route – I should ask them to also find a clear path to the sanatorium for me.
S is gone for a week. I might ask P if I can spend the night at his house this weekend.
We all need a game plan – thought we could coast on the reality but think that there are those (S, V) among us who might not be able to handle it without more breaks involved.
Can we all just get along? Rodney King
24 days to drain Orleans Parish. At least two weeks to get electricity back and running. How long to get the poisonous snakes, rats, nutria, and corpses removed? We’re here in October, I can just feel it. The food is wretched as well as the absence of beauty – except at Mellen’s house where brisket and turkey and Thanksgiving dinners for the refugees are so wonderful. I think I need to get off the detox program – this is no time to be dealing with reality.
I had a brief talk with L yesterday – his phone has been busy at Fauna’s house with people constantly checking up on him – T has come back into K’s life and is putting the full court press on getting back together. K is torn because L is not offering permanence – what man could in this situation? – don’t you think that is a lot to ask of someone who has just been displaced, possibly lost his job, house, etc? But L couldn’t have guaranteed permanence before either – he lives in the underworld – wants so badly to obtain that level of perfection that some of us seek where it feels just this good all the time – and it can’t. It can feel good a lot of time but not all the time. He also can’t shake her age – it’s too much of a social stigma for him – after all he is not a movie star.
I think we need to add to the list of what to bring back to New Orleans – bug spray. Imagine how fortified these bugs must be from the toxic water?
I sat in a restaurant last night and had these huge pieces of battered steak put in front of me – not what I ordered – so I left it untouched which caused a great disturbance among the staff. I felt the same way I did that night in Chicago when I thought we would relocate there and all I wanted was to be back in New Orleans – this was 1997 – and I looked at the people at the tables next to me and thought they’re not my peeps – I am a fish out of water – I want to go home. This is my plea to those who left – COME BACK!
September 8th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
Maybe S is depressed not from the work situation, difficult as it may be at times; maybe it’s the sum of the situation, the horror of what has happened finally setting in, like the layers of mud left as the waters recede, the fears for a beloved place that is going to undergo a radical transformation, quite possibly a disfigurement, the desire to do something, anything, but the realization of the fear and trepidation that goes with thoughts of returning, not knowing if that is just common sense or cowardice, knowing as well the volatility of the immediate arrangement, the knowing that it is both a blessing and a curse to be so closely sequestered with the ones you most love, wanting some distance not just for his own sanity but also to preserve the delicate balance they are in, everyone holding their breath and their tongues, waiting for the event that could blow it all apart, and so much at stake, their own futures, intertwined with the other futures, and all unclear about the larger future that awaits, an overwheling feeling of responsibility and the expectations of others, the knowing of actions and decisions being judged. Maybe all of this is compounded with perceiving a distance from his better half, more than just perception, accompanied by that darkness and irritability, by things unexpressed and unsaid, that longing in her again, those faraway eyes, the chewed nails. Would he really be that simple, that it would all just be about work?
Maybe pity is the last thing he wants from anybody.