Blessed

It's time to make things better. To unpack some boxes, see what can be found.

This one. Let's start with this one.

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A map of our world...

And then again this way. Who the hell said north is up?

Flipping the Americas, close in.

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A painting from my once love, his first time in New Orleans, and I only hope I didn't do too much harm.

And another. Lower Decatur Street, my first months in New Orleans, when "living on Lower Decatur" actually meant I had an apartment there, not that I spent more time there than at home.

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Dachshunds from my friend Clau, one birthday all swirling. Before we had children, healthy kidneys, clean veins.

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A metal candle holder, a wedding present. I want to nail it up and light votive candles. Blessings for our lives here between the murder zone and the river, this wrought iron paint peeling stoop sitting beautiful place.

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And this one fell, broke, during my in-house excavation. Is this a bad omen? A good omen? Neutral: what I make of it. This same day I broke a mirror, and received a royalty payment of 6.66.

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Sugar in my Bowl, by Kim Roberti. Small, sweet, swift, and I'm glad it's out of hiding. I want to listen to Nina and cut my hair like this woman's. In her black dress, with her china, with her waiter, wanting sugar, wanting sugar in her bowl.

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A combination of two of the best things, my mini-dachshund Story, and the art of Kimberly Nichols, who danced close with me through the Quarter, the Marigny, on Frenchmen, in bathrooms, in the tropics, in the swamp, for centuries, for only three nights.

Story, by Kimberly Nichols:

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And this, Blessed Lady, a gift from an artist at an art fair in Austin. I was carrying BabyBoy in a sling, art appeciating and nursing. I was fascinated with the barge board paintings of goddesses, the tin roof virgins and witches and mamas and graces. I longed to take one home, but finances just then would not allow it. We chatted, the artist and I, BabyBoy adding his smiles, his sounds still preverbal. ESSA was her name, or Sher Chappel, and she had lived in New Orleans. We almost threw ourselves into one another's arms, innocently, happily. As I was leaving she called me back. Choose one, she told me. I want you to have one. Any. It's a gift.

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Little pieces of life to remind me while gracing my walls, my altar.

But first, time for the level, hooks and wire, a hammer, some nails.

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