A Love Letter

Time is wasting away. It feels like this will go on forever and there is nothing palpable on how and when it will really end. The peace is frightening and calming all at once. Too much time, too many thoughts, not enough distraction. But I do have a new appreciation for the wind in the trees and a lone dog bark. A garbage truck sounds like the only noise of normalcy now and at that time of the morning for a split second I might forget. Simplicity is how we all operate now and how we feel more human. Life moves forward in some strange and surreal version. Devices offer the gift of the abstract, connectivity without physicality. The colouring in the sky seems prettier now, or is it because normally I don’t pay that much attention? I still don’t like the sound of the crow even though it pierces the silence so aggressively and I appreciate that. Cloud movement seems more graceful and fluid, working in concert with the leaves. I notice the every movement of a butterfly that would never normally exist in or out of my periphery. It’s colour, it’s markings, it’s lack of awareness. How nice it must be to not know any of this and to have only the immediate need be important.

I took for granted the ease with which I could walk your desecrated and hallowed streets, being unnecessarily bothered by the drunk and sweaty passed out on sidewalks. Being ashamedly bothered by a film crew who had the audacity to prompt me to remove my headphones. Being obtusely bothered by the desperate and lost asking for money. The fact that you made your 300th year is not a coincidence. Who would’ve thought the city that exists below sea-level with a past and present riddled with corruption, crime and dysfunction would still be a proverbial boss the way you are? Sensual and sinister and unapologetically so, a burlesque queen of the South that continues to shock and enchant, the way you always have. The noise, the neon lights, the inebriated, have all had to take a step back into the shadows and let you breathe. No bellowing, no beating on buckets, no brass. You’ve been sucker punched and even in the deep silence of the aftermath there are still reckless wanderers and a low rhythmic hum in your streets that lets everybody know your power is still seething beneath the surface. What will become of you now? So much of your light and life is people being together. Down in the dirges and gutters, together. Riding waves of glitter and vice, together. Being passive spectators to the raw and rugged movement of time and season, together. Now there’s another disaster you have to drag yourself back from. How much more of this can you stand? The energy the fight takes is all-consuming, and there’s always a fight.

An afternoon shower just rolled through, hard and serious. The kind of rain I can’t walk around in, the kind of rain that doesn’t cool anything down, the kind of rain that doesn’t qualify as cleansing. It announced its presence with a baritone rolling thunder and afterwards I can smell the depths of the earth and feel the moisture underneath my skin. Ensconced in heat and desertion, the streets provoke me, subliminally daring me to come out. In my arrogance I think they have missed me, as much as I have missed them, and they are aching for me to aimlessly glide across them again. Truth be told, they have probably enjoyed the respite, but their survival depends on attention and lots of it. In my memory I can hear the weary and morose sound of mule hooves, pulling a carriage and a head hanging so low, I feel the weight on my chest. The dichotomy of this sound brings a crease of warmth, familiarity and sadness to my face. How I’ve missed you my friend. This was the first time I felt I had to leave you, and while it was the right decision, it wasn’t a quick one. It does my heart good to see you again, New Orleans, I love you always.