Today is the 14th anniversary of 9/11, another tragedy revisited and recalled in horror on the heels of the tenth anniversary of the 2005 Federal Flood. Again, the talk is of resilience. How appropriate that these large scale tragedies dovetail into Rosh Hashanah, which begins this Sunday evening, and I will spend it breaking bread with new friends. These friends have helped introduced me to a concept that I would have never imagined a few…
My new life arrived a moment ago, a day ago, last week, sometime in this year, perhaps it was last summer during a New Orleans rainstorm – I don’t quite remember the exact moment, but it’s here. Last night, I went to a soiree – let’s call it that, although it was simply a gathering of writers, book store owners, journalists, and yes, Chris Rose. Ex-Times Picayuners. It was held in this hidden world atop…
There is a popular business dictum that says it takes ten years to become an expert in any field. So here we are 10 years after the 2005 Federal Flood and it’s a full moon. I know only this as I sit in my garden having my morning tea. I am a change expert. Steeped in the knowledge of uncertainty. A practitioner of faith walks. A teacher of love. I follow no plan, only my…
Ten years ago, after the collective trauma of a marriage falling apart with love slipping through my heart like barbed wire, loss of child (read: too many to count), not to mention loss of place after a return to the home that haunts me only to watch it sink under a toxic stew, and then a slow progression into madness, I picked myself up. Even though I had built my marriage over much compromise, love,…
Ten years ago, I had a cataclysmic undoing, part was the neglect of others, and a major part was the federal government. Today, my friend in the midst of a divorce over a margarita confessed, “I was not a good steward of my marriage.” Ten years later, my family suffered an assault, again the neglect of others, and I indict the government again for willful neglect in its glacial prosecution. Everyone is writing about Katrina…
I left for Spain having lost six pounds the hard way (running, weight lifting, watching what I eat) and managed to gain eight while there. How’s that possible? I now believe it comes down to too much salad. A slim friend in Spain told me that she doesn’t do a lick of exercise, but only controls everything that goes into her mouth. When I told her a typical day’s meal at home in New Orleans,…
Stargate: Madrid, July 29, 2015 Inma and David came for a visit and to go with us to China Mandarina for dinner. Inma brought three presents for Tin: 1) a nerf hoop game, 2) an abstract puzzle with magnets, 3) a dinosaur sticker and coloring book. And lagniappe was a pencil with a shark on top and a wooden T to hang on his door at home. Inma had a lot of questions for Tin,…
My “family” was in town this weekend joining other “family” for events that I was wholly unaware of. Let me remind you that the family I put in quotes made a decision some years ago to part ways over something that my niece’s husband, Mark, claimed happened to him. It started with a strange phone call one night. It spread through my family like a virus. And it culminated in this rift that is nothing…