There is nothing more constant than change. You’d think a worn out cliché like this one would lose its currency, but change – especially other people’s change – makes me incredibly nostalgic for the way things were. Adella the Storyteller transitioned. Tommy will sell his Bay Saint Louis house. Tin’s buddy will move to Virginia. Leo will not be cutting the grass at the Hall anymore. Why is this news uncomfortable? Cancelling, postponing, moving, saying…
Since Tin was able to write, I’ve asked him to write me about his favorite day, our best trip, and to write me a letter about what he loves – and this has been his gift to me for my birthday or Hanukkah. This year, he said he wrote a speech for me. There were several attempts that I caught on video, all bloopers till today. Here is his SPEECH. Today was one of those…
Today marks the 11 year anniversary of my mom’s passing. When you look at the world through a calendar mind you mark time as days on a page, joyful vs painful years, and every breath you have taken between the time your mother died and now. A friend sent a note her mother had written and said her mom was unconditional love. I had the good fortune to have had the same from my mother.…
After the 2005 Federal Flood, handmade signs started appearing on telephone and electrical poles around New Orleans that said: Think That You Might Be Wrong. There was a randomness to their placement, which added to the mystery. The signs were around long enough the word wrong was scratched out on one placed prominently on a telephone pole by the Dumaine Street bridge over Bayou St. John and now read: Think That You Might Be A Robot, which…
The institution of school would like you to sit in your seat now. They would like to teach you half truths. They would like to prepare you for a world that doesn’t exist. They would like you to be quiet. They would like you to sit still. They would like you to obey. They offer pills if you cannot follow their rules. To you, my boy, I say be WILD, keep MOVING, and do not…
We cannot see the gift in what we resist. Throughout the Pandemic folks have been wringing their hands about gaining Covid 19 pounds, and I was one of them. I can’t blame Covid-19 for my weight gain though, mine started two years ago. Well, let’s back up – more like four years ago because as soon as I started losing it, I started gaining it back. I had gone to see my endocrinologist at Ochsner.…
I was speaking to a dear friend last night who had just come from her parents’ house on the corner of a street lined with tall sycamore and oak trees in Atlanta. The contents of the house were laid out on tables for an estate sale as the house is being sold. For more years than I can remember, I’ve called my friend just as she was getting ready to mow the large lawn for…
“Don’t let your passion project bankrupt you.” These were the words spoken to me by Malcolm White, head of the Mississippi Arts Commission when I first bought the 100 Men Hall. I tried to heed the warning during the first year of resurrecting the nonprofit but found myself caught up in the momentum of potential. Then a pandemic halted my momentum. The Hall’s St Joseph’s Altar was cancelled, Chapel Hart was cancelled, Alvin Youngblood Hart…
Yesterday, the casinos opened back up in Hancock County. Half the information I hear is that we are moving too fast into more trouble ahead. Half the messages I read is that we are returning to normal. I keep my guard up for normal’s arrival. It’s only now in the long morning walks and evening bikes rides that I have come to realize why normal is elusive. I grew up out of step, out of…
When the quarantine began, I was at a crossroads with work. Not the 100 Men Hall, which I had managed to get on a monthly music schedule and had been pushing towards self sufficiency, but rather work that pays my bills. On March 15, everyone and everything stopped and it’s as if the world stepped back to where I had been standing all along. I’m not going to lie, it felt good to not be…