Direction

Desperately seeking, direction. My thinking is, if I say it enough I will be hit over the head with clarity and…direction.

I saw a concert Saturday night. Bebel Gilberto played with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. It was a part of a concert series they feature called “pops” because the singers they bring in are more…poppy than the usual ASO style. I really enjoyed it. The show was, of course, flanked by alcohol on both sides, before and after. The after party portion of the evening found me shuttled across the park to Noche for tapas and…more alcohol. This all wrapped up with Hugo and I being ushered into a cab that safely delivered us right back at my doorstep where the whole evening began. This was all fine and enjoyable but I find myself struggling with a way to brilliantly describe the evening. I don’t feel like myself lately, therefore, my evenings don’t feel so brilliant. I am half too okay to be okay with. The other half of me is anxious, worried and apprehensive about everything. I am doing my thing that I always do and obsessing over the next move, the next job, all of the stuff I want to buy and all of the places I want to go “as soon as I get back on my feet”. For now, I’ll have to settle for chilly but oh so sunny Monday afternoon trips to the farmer’s market with Hugo where we eat lamb samosas and walk arm in arm around the huge building of worldly vegetables and fruit. I sometimes wonder if Hugo knows how often he saves me. Even when I fight and resist it and silently wish he wasn’t there bothering me so I could be surfing the Internet for jobs and supposedly writing. He silently insists that I stop my obsessing and join him for a few lucid hours of rambling conversations and agitated togetherness.

And then…opportunity called, but more on that later!

How I Feel About Paris Today

I am still working harder than ever to get there. The current (on-going) identity crisis I am experiencing has everything to do with the fact that I know what I want so acutely.

I’m Good

I mean that, truly happy for the moment. Little graduated brilliant lifer has been working her first week of the rest of her life after college. It’s funny how everything fits into those terms for me. Throw a new year (Buon Giorno 2007!) into the mix and even my bowel movements have a new glow to them. Sorry, I know that was gross and you’re probably thinking is it really the new year giving your BMs that glow or is it all of the black-eyed peas and collard greens you ate in the name of preserving tradition on the 1st. This year, I finally had to admit to myself that I enjoy New Year’s day much better than New Year’s Eve. NYE puts so much pressure on an individual to have the best scrapping time ever. I put that kind of pressure on myself everyday of my life, therefore, New Year’s Eve is almost impossible for me to be satisfied with if I am not out of the country. I greatly enjoy the rituals, languages and parties that take place in other places on NYE. Something new I learned on the first. Southerners cook down their collards and turnips the way that we do down here because of the African influences on Southern Cuisine from the slaves. I have always taken a lot of pride in a couple of things as they relate to myself as a “southerner”. 1.) Dialect, I love the various rich southern dialects in all of their elongated wide opened mouthedness and questionable “grammatical” structures. 2.) The fact that I come from a very poor, uneducated, working class family that is deeply rooted in rural south Georgia on one side and the urban guts of pre-boom-economy Atlanta on the other. Reading up on the influences that African people, who were brought here against there will and have been totally subjugated against since the formation of this country, have had on my culture, because of proximity is something else that I can add to my list of things to be proud of. I love that such an indigenous, rich and authentic stamp has been left on all of us. So as to never forget the horrors of how things really went in the beginning.


How I feel About Paris Today

I’m not going to lie, I really miss Paris. I am still totally obsessed. Me and a crazy friend of mine were plotting to possibly attend a very special party in Paris in March. I am not sure if I will be able to do this because of money. I also want Hugo there. Talking about this Parisian rendezvous just made me more keenly aware that I don’t want to go back to Paris without him. So, that might just be one of my resolutions this year…I’ll keep you posted…right here in fact. Bonne année à tous!

Small Victories

I am sitting, over stuffed (for the third day straight), and near about exhausted from all of the x-masing I’ve been doing. The family time has been pleasant and this post finds me in a peaceful place. Last night I took on the job of putting the baby back to sleep when she woke up squalling. I decided to approach the task with song. “Hush little baby don’t say a word mamma's gonna buy you a rockin’ bird, and if that rockin’ bird don’t sing…???...!!!...???” I don’t know the f’in words to that song, or any other lullaby for that matter. I know the words to ‘I’m a little tea pot’ and ‘Under the Bridge’ by the red-hot chili peppers. So I decided to just hum to her. I squeezed her little wiggling body up to my chest and felt her soft puffy cheeks on my face and hummed just enough for her to feel my vocal chords vibrating, The next morning (yesterday) started off more special than I ever could have imagined. I was bestowed with the ultimate x-mas gift of receiving a wet baby from my sister’s hands in the shower. I had a clean towel stretched out and perfectly positioned for her incoming. I enveloped her preciousness in the smell of downy and proceeded to the bed where I put lotion on her and kissed her head a million times. I then…had to dress her. Turns out, dressing babies is a lot harder than you’d think. I was scared out of my mind to break her wobbly little neck while trying to get her arms to straighten out through the shirtsleeves. This morning's departure of the little one (ones, little sis included also) left me feeling pretty darn confident in my ability to rearrange couch cushions, clean dishes, play cards and move crap around, with a baby in a sling around my upper body. I must admit I loved every second of it. I think when (if) I do have children, I will be the totally empowered type of mother, you know, yogalates practicing, dressed to the nines, open air market shopping, totally glamorous yet earthy all at the same time mother. I am laughing at this imagery. How easy it is for me to imaginable all of this brilliant motherhood when it is my little sister’s baby doing the inspiring.


How I Feel About Paris Today

I would love to spend the holidays in Paris.