Be Careful What You Wish For

Life has now found its true bizarre context living in Arlington in this corporate apartment wanting nothing more than to return home to play date, the Can’s swimming pool, and watching the LaLa’s progress and plans. W picked up a wrist band at a store en route that says DESIRE and that is definitely what is the theme of the day – desire to return home, desire desire desire – shoot me now.

My desire to just hit the streets and run looked like it might be working until yesterday at the sink I took a step and felt that old familiar tightening after getting in a nice easy run earlier in the day.

It’s hard to think about Adele and the novel in light of this huge interruption in life – the Muse did follow me here though so I will try and use the opportunity to write more and figure out a game plan for Adele’s story as well as other writings/musings – although truth be told, writing with any clarity is very difficult when desire seems so pervasive. I was on the brink in New Orleans of segmenting my life to such a degree that I could be front and center for story telling but now reality again has intervened and made fiction move beyond the pale.

Emails from St John community group say water damage seems minimal but fallen trees are the worst – emails say bring a chain saw if you can get back in. Mom went to her apartment in Jefferson Parish and said there were National Guards on every corner, streets were ghostly with occasional outbursts of activity, and that her apartment was fine but the other person in the car drove up to the front of her apartment missing and a total disaster. We had just taken down the big trees in back – perhaps could have saved ourselves some money and let Katrina do it.

Matters at hand – we want to go home as soon as possible. I’m trying to make up my mind what to do – part of me wants to take a hiatus from work and go help NO get back on its feet in whatever capacity I can and part of me is just paralyzed by trying to use this opportunity to find my voice again in an increasingly complex fabric of refugee land.

We’ve set up our refugee camp and all told we are the fortunate ones. We’re here with those we love in a comfortable apartment and have friends who cook wonderful meals for us. I just received a care package for Arlene and Zeus – filled with toys, cookies and a portable water bowl not to mention a blanket – T was concerned and wanted to send love through the mail and she did!

I miss N&B and Renny, Les and his three – Max, Henry, and Felix – so much. How will the Parkway fare? How about Pal’s where the bartender Peter had just committed suicide the week before – he missed this event.

K is visiting Les in El Dorado. She had a tough go with putting down Jerry Lee, aka General Lee, and T was there to comfort her – much to Les’s chagrin. But she has now met J, which I believe was a hurdle for Les, and so maybe things might roll along, maybe.

There are so many complications in these matters – Les desires K but is fearful, K desires Les but wants too much, T desires his ex and she wont take him back so he throws that energy on K who now may see that she was a distraction for T instead of real. Here at refugee central desires are hard to zero in on – L desires to be close to her daughter V, V desires to be left alone and work, very similar to S who has the same desire, W wants a playmate, N is hard to read, and I desire to be home again soon and back on plan. Very soon.

Be careful what you wish for – in the end it might be more frustrating than you might imagine – desire is such a tricky thing and cosmic occurrences have the ability to rise up and thwart you – you have to wonder if you should indeed let go of your attachments like Yoda warned in Star Wars III or if you are capable of twisting them even tighter to your core and making them natural parts of yourself. Cliché or not – that which is desired when held at arm’s length becomes even more viscerally needed and drives your mind to distraction until you can have it again. Makes me want to go out for a run right now but already the heat has made it unsafe for humans or animals.

So we are attempting our first week of normalcy here – we’ll see how it goes.

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