Once you choose hope, anything's possible.

--Christopher Reeve

Going Back to the Big Easy

Our return to New Orleans was wonderful. Weather was full-blown spring - we ate at many great restaurants (Cafe Giovanni that features the opera singers not one of them, but my sister knows the Chef so maybe next trip). Rode the street car and browsed in the French Market, watched the cargo ships on the Mississippi with KK and had tea at the Ritz Carlton, saw my sister's new digs across from Commander's Palace and stayed in a very nice boutique hotel - the Lafayette Hotel - it was what a visit to New Orleans should be.

The highlight for me was breakfast one morning at Camellia Grill - the best Western omelet my mouth has ever tasted followed by a slow ride up St. Charles in the street car past all the blooming azaleas and dogwood trees, not to mention beads still hanging precariously tossed too high for any Mardi Gras revelers to retrieve.

We also saw the sobering rebuilding process after Katrina - the middle class and upper crust neighborhoods are clearing lots and rebuilding, FEMA trailers are everywhere, but the poor side of town stands still with green moss growing on the roofs of the decaying buildings. In every neighborhood, the houses still standing wear the X's and messages spray painted on the sides by the National Guard like a badge of honor denoting if anyone or pets were still in the house or had been removed. Luckily, my sister lived across Lake Ponchatrain when the storm hit, but every home she had ever owned in New Orleans was damaged or gone. So, so sad.

Touched by An Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage

exiles from delight

live coiled in shells of loneliness

until love leaves its high holy temple

and comes into our sight

to liberate us into life.

Love arrives

and in its train come ecstasies

old memories of pleasure

ancient histories of pain.

Yet if we are bold,

love strikes away the chains of fear

from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity

In the flush of love's light

we dare be brave

And suddenly we see

that love costs all we are and will ever be.

Yet it is only love

which sets us free.

-- Maya Angelou

Tough Enough!

X is coming into town and I need to have a pep talk with myself. I'm feeling these impercieved slights from everyone - but probably just feeling vulnerable I guess. My psyche loves to play tricks on me in a self-help effort to toughen it's exterior up.

Let's see ... how many lobs have I dodged since Saturday - 3 or is it 4 now at my last count? Funny thing is they have no idea that the pebbles of conversation tossed my way turned into heavy boulders before I caught them.

I guess everyone thinks I'm no longer this fragile shell of a person walking around and can handle life and whatever punches - high or low that come my way. So that's a good thing. Some of them are totally unintentional. Some of them are friends I respect who have the best intentions but have perhaps not lived through anything truly challenging yet and have no idea. I'm glad for them.

One friend choked back on her words about how a weird roommate we shared came from a "broken" home - I could see she could tell she stepped in it. Another much respected friend said that his nephew was the "success story of the family" because he had done so well for himself in his undergraduate studies and college recruitment in spite of his parents' divorce. I felt like the success was not in overcoming his father's marital strife, but in believing in himself. Their divorce really had nothing to do with it - he's a very smart kid.

The ones that hurt the most are from those whom I'm going to name-call as judgmental and hold a much over-elevated level of self-importance. I would love to tell them to get down off their f**king high horses and get over themselves. I have to ignore those comments to get through the humilation, maybe I'm stronger than I think, but how I would love to revert to my old juvenile tricks and knee jerk react to them and tell them off. Say things like "If I wanted to continue to be made to feel bad about myself and feel like a loser I would have remained married to X." I can't say it outloud to them, but I can write it down here and get it off my chest. Do I feel better? No, well maybe a little.

Why, when I'm criticized, does it always come down to me doubting my self-worth? That feeling of not being good enough for anyone.

It's a good place to be in that I can recognize this, confront it and try to deal with it; however, my inner dialogue will not shut up in this conversation with myself. I know that I'm tough enough, I have proved it to myself and to everyone around me.