Anticipatory Letter to Mama.

Mom.
Seriously.
I've been packing 7-10 boxes a day for the past week;
I haven't made a dent, not even a shoveled dimple, in the vast mountains of Otter's belongings.
(I'm not freaking out
I'm not freaking out
I'm not freaking out)

But I am freaking out.
Just a little.

We may have a super-awesome two-bedroom place in the Vieux Carre: high ceilings, bathtub, courtyard, owned by a nice semi-retired pharmacist-southern-gentleman; old old old building. We're second in line for the place (second line?) after a couple who lived there a few years ago, who are moving back to town, who may or may not (not! NOT!) want the old place. We'll see after the first of the month. Four days from now.

Time is growing short, and I feel like there's too too much to do.
I feel the next week or two will be absolutely beautiful and love-filled, a wonderful closure to our time here, and I am still anxious as all hell to get on the way.

Oh, Mama, there's so much to do, so much to tell, so much that I really haven't got time to relate because I need to actually be packing instead of quacking about how much packing I have left to do.

I can see the alligator eyes above the water line, and they are waiting for me,
putting an eye up for me.
Mockingbirds are flocking,
are following me around the cemetery,
are chatting up clouds of thick magnolia anticipation.
I am so sure I am doing the right thing,
the very air hangs heavy with promise and portent.
This dream into which I walk is preordained,
latent in my old and secret bones.
Here live the visible graves' nocturnal dancers,
keeping their Buddy Bolden beat in phalanges tapped on stone;
Here live tree flowers with once-human faces,
emitting the sweetest scent of putrefaction imaginable;
Here is where humans crawled back outta the drink
(the second time)
and where they may return.
Here lives and has lived the most inevitable girl in my head,
inscrutable and sweetscary.
Here is where I am validated.
Here is where I am supposed to be.
For now.

It is raining to beat hell here. Finally. We've been over 60 days without a drop, and our plants have suffered somethin awful. I am spending this blessed rainy day inside packing packing packing, maybe baking bread, definitely drinking tiny pot after tiny pot of cafe au lait (whose subtle flavors I am quickly mastering), and listening to as much music from my new home as I can stuff in my ears. Looking for as many renditions of "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" as possible, and there are many many. Listening for subtleties of longing and devotion.

I miss you terribly.
There is so much happening to/with me on so many levels that I do not feel I can communicate any of it without eye and skin contact.
I am dancing with the thunder and dreaming the dreams that are my life, however or whyever these dreams have so blessed me.
Thank you for somehow identifying this dreamreality early and allowing me to see how I need to see, allowing me to grow within my own sacred ground, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense very often.

The Thunder is great today, showing off its lane domination and sporting its new bowling shoes.
Thunder gets all the turkeys.

The closer I get to New Orleans, the more nonsensesense my head makes.
I am evolving, or I am just now noticing.
I am doing what I am supposed to do.

I am calm in my deep parts,

...the parts that do not have to pack.

*sigh*

I love you, Mama.
I'm dreamy in my head, making costumes outta cobwebs, but my heart is large and sure, and I know I love you love you love you in ways I can never love another human being.
Thank you for choosing me (even if you didn't know you chose).

I love you.

-rd-