Cold Spaghetti

Yesterday, I spent a few hours in the park photographing some friends.  A family, actually, who we met when they started at Abeona last fall and who remind us of Helen and Paul.  There is just this glow about them — their happiness, their manners, their causal and friendly approach — that reminds us of the friends we miss.  My mind goes there anyway this time of year.  My eyes linger a little longer on the photograph taped to the fridge, the one Helen took of our kids and husbands together in Music Together class.  Seeing it presses the work of being a better person, living more fully, and being grateful into my daily grind.  Then there was a random email about the need for our community to take a stand, again, against crime.  (For those who aren’t up on NOLA news, our Mayor showed up long enough to cut funding on anti-crime activities in a petty hissy fit that the City Council wouldn’t sign off on the ridiculously high salaries for his sycophants.)

These thoughts have had me feeling a bit lost for the past day or so.  Just… off.  Questioning, again, why we work so hard to be here?  Thinking, what would happen if we just… ?

But it’s no point thinking about it, really.  There is no other place for us in this country, we know that now.  Even as I dream of a home near the beach, I know that this could only be a weekend escape, a summer retreat.  Not home.  Not New Orleans.  But still, I question my faith.  I wonder if my longing for this place puts us at risk or inflicts undue hardship.  If life were easier, would we be happier?  I think that I don’t know the answer, so the question remains, plaguing me.

So the affirmation and support from other writers was a huge boost to my spirits.  Especially to see that Lisa, a vineyard owner in California, made the space to so elegantly write about New Orleans and several bloggers — even me, who she pinned so neatly and squarely you’d think we’d been buddies for years.  Amazing, timing wise.  A little holiday cheer so neatly placed right before me.

My favorite thing?  The award is in Portuguese.  (The Spanish would read something like ‘Este Blog invierte y cree en la proximidad.’  Although Jenny or Alejna could probably do better than that with the English, Spanish, and Portuguese translations than I have.)

I’ll pass on the love shortly; once my thoughts settle and clear.

I’m trying to figure out where this award originated?  Any one better at the google search for this type of thing?