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…
Around Bay Saint Louis, there are signs everywhere of people and businesses returning to normal. I walked into Claiborne Hills yesterday and didn’t see anyone wearing a mask. As much as grocery shopping used to be meditative to me, I have only gone a handful of times in the past two months and each time was stressful. I’m on a Facebook thread of merchants here and over the past two weeks, each post about reopening…
For a few decades, I was convinced that my life was an interminable cliché. Any breakthrough, epiphany and light that went on would immediately be mirrored in a book, film, or someone else’s (read: more famous than me) reality. Then it seemed my life more closely resembled the myth of Sisyphus, condemned for eternity to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down. Sisyphus was punished for self-aggrandizing, and I,…
Not your plans. This was told to me one time in a community meeting – Follow your spirit, not your plans. How many reinventions have I had? Joan Didion said, “I can’t remember half the people I used to be.” Reinvention is reinforcement against a world that is forever crumbling. Everyone is rushing back to their lives, I don’t want to go. I want less cars on the road, less scheduled time, less pollution, less…
Do you know someone who has had a challenging life? You think why her and not him? We are all born with amnesia but more than likely this person was standing in line when they gave out assignments and she raised her hand and said, “I want to be challenged!” Perhaps her previous life she was like a house cat, sitting around waiting for something to happen. But she decides to take on a bigger…
This weekend, a friend of mine drove out to Bay Saint Louis to get out of New Orleans for a respite with her young son. She stayed with other friends here. She is part of a great love story that had a painful twist. The father of her son – the great love of her life – died of cancer without him ever seeing their child. On my walk with Stella this morning, I listened…
Yesterday, I witnessed the unprecedented – the price of oil dropped to negative $40. While oil price gyrations send shock waves throughout too many industries to name, let’s talk about what it means to me. At the end of 2011, I was laid off from a company I helped build where I covered Global Media along with a wide array of other industries. When I left, two long-term clients came with me. Within a year,…
Yesterday was the last night of Passover and I’m still eating matzo. This morning, I made my Earl Grey Lavender tea, broke a piece of egg matzo, and put some blackberry jam my friend Kim gave me for Easter. Yes, it’s all a mash up. I had something old – the bread of our affliction, I had something new – Kim’s blackberry jam, I ate it sitting by a pillow that was not necessarily borrowed…
Yesterday, early evening I did not go on my bike ride so I could join my friend’s Zoom life coaching call. Veronica’s a warm and wonderful friend, and I’ve been the beneficiary of her coaching largesse on multiple occasions. My take away from last night’s forum was “use everything” – Veronica’s mantra that all of it – the relationship crap, the coronavirus pandemic, the under-earning, the life struggle whatever it is is there for our…