I was in Magnolia Antiques the other day hanging posters for an upcoming Blues Brunch featuring Bobby Rush, the King of the Chitlin’ Circuit, and I spotted a turquoise hamsa pendant on a beaded chain. Ten dollars – that is what it cost. I was shocked. Well it was $12, but she took $2 off for me. While at a celebration of life, someone commented on my hamsa, and I told her about my good…
Abandonment seems to be the word of the day. It has certainly been my son’s issue, and I have been trying like Wonder Woman with her metal cuffs, bracelets of submission, to protect Tin from people and situations who would trigger it. However, through his healing, I’ve learned about my own childhood abandonment, and how it presents itself now. I was the youngest child of six, and my parents were wrapped up in their own…
There are years that ask questions and then there are years that answer the questions I have a heart-shaped sugar cookie with red frosting that G-man gave me propped up on my desk. I liked looking at it. It reminded me of him. The ghosting started over a week ago, and I have reconciled feeling disappointed, sad, and hurt with words of gratitude for the experience. It is okay to be angry. Every part of me…
One of my revered meditation teachers, Tiger Singleton, talks about real freedom and our quest to find it. On the surface are all the things we think we want, things we are looking for and things we are afraid of losing. He says we get lost in the appearance of what we think we want and completely miss what we are actually looking for – freedom. Real freedom is liberation from suffering. Liberation from the…
When my mother was dying in East Jefferson Hospital in November of 2009, I didn’t know my son had already been born. I had braided her once thick hair into tiny braids on each side of her face, which gave her a youthful appearance. She had entered the hospital on Bastille day, having called me late in the evening saying something’s wrong. I was walking home to the LaLa from Swirl with Tatjana, who was…
A group of German journalists came to the Hall for the Cedric Burnside show on Mother’s Day. Cedric played one of my favorite songs of his, We Made It, and introduced it by calling me up to dance. For a person who loves to dance, what is better than owning a dance hall? Not much, I can assure you. One of my favorite videos was the small after party some of us had after cleaning…
I’m good enough. Swimming through the myriad thoughts I am having are: When people ask me these days, how are you? My response is always good enough. And it is true. My years ahead are far fewer than those behind me. I have friends who are dear to me. My health is relatively good – some stiffness, some reduced capacity, still enjoy riding my bike, looking forward to swimming again, plus I have newfound clarity…
My friend, Kat, introduced me to an album that is on repeat in my head, in my car, on my phone – Cleo Sol’s Gold album. Let me break this down for you: The first song on the album is There Will Be No Crying. Here is some of the lyrics from this song: The light, it covers me‘Cause I just wanna be somebodyDarling, we‘Cause sometimes you need, someoneI just wanna feel something real I…
My friend, Tommy Crane, bought a house on Main Street in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi. I came to visit him a few times, and then I came without him, and then came with Tin, and once with my writing group. I would turn off the I-10 onto Highway 90 from Exit 2 (there is no Exit 1 as you come over the hill and into Mississippi), and the atmospheric energy would fall and keep falling…
In a group meeting the other day, we were speaking about a time when you learned a behavior as a child as a coping mechanism, and how you brought it into your adulthood, and why it no longer serves you. My father loved to play backgammon, and he had friends over playing in the living room. I had come into the room and he said something to me, and I said something back, and for…
