Week 9 of 29: Driving to Atlantis

Monday, April 7
I got up and drove from Oxford over to Batesville, and then straight down I-55 to New Orleans. It was a great sunny day to drive. I was surprised, in a conversation I had on the phone with someone I met at the King observance, and just listening to talk radio, to have just a sense of how deep and strong the roots of hostility toward people who outside the presumed norm are, whether that is based on weight, sexual/affectional orientation, or other factors. Sometimes here, I find it hard to be with the ways that Christianity and the Bible are invoked to justify that hostility. It’s true that living in the places that I’ve lived, especially New York, the Bay Area and Boston – and often in Unitarian Universalist settings – I’m not often confronted head-on with such bitterness in the name of religion.

Coming across the elevated highways, I do have a sense of driving
to Atlantis, there’s so much water, and it seems so high. Touching down in New Orleans, I am feeling relaxed already. There’s so much I love about being here, and at least for this next week, I’m in a sweet apartment inside a castle in the French Quarter that has a swimming pool in the courtyard (but it was too cold to swim). We walked to a nice restaurant on Toulouse for dinner. I had crawfish etouffe … very tasty.

Tuesday, April 8
I drove Alex to work, and I got caught up on my blog.
[… and then I fell behind again. Now I’m at 33,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean for the next five hours … what a great time to catch up on my blog! As long as my battery lasts …]

Wednesday, April 9
Spent a good part of the morning straightening up the house, which was already in very good shape. In the evening, I spent some time exploring the Quarter.

Thursday, April 10
A very, very warm day. Didn’t venture out of the house much but when I did, I felt completely drenched. I met one of the organizers of the French Quarter festival events who was up from Florida. The energy of the city was beginning to buzz more, with people beginning to arrive for the weekend.

Friday, April 11
Another scorcher. I walked from the Castle through the Quarter, down to the Mississippi. I sat on its banks and listed to the great music of the French Quarter Festival playing down by the waterfront hotels in the distance. It was perfect there, as the sun was setting, and people were walking along the levee to be closer. After the sun went down, I walked back through the Quarter, down Bourbon Street. Some vignettes:

Vignette #1

Me, to a woman holding a coffee cup with a black lid on top: Where did you get your coffee?

Woman: This ain’ coffee, baby … (laughs) If you want coffee, you can go to one of the nice restaurants down the street and they’ll give you some coffee!

I get to the Krystal’s down on Bourbon near Canal. I’m waiting in line to order a hot chocolate and thinking, It’s 80 degrees out there. What am I going to do with hot chocolate? I go back to a cocktail stand and order a peach daiquiri instead.

Vignette #2

A woman in a strapless top is holding beads three stories above me. "Hey, you!" She hollers down. She gestures like she’s going to pull her top up. I shake my head, hold my hands in prayer pose and bow slightly. "Oh, come on!" she says. I keep walking. It is only later when I see a man flash his chest to a woman for beads that I realize what the woman who hollered to me wanted me to do.

Vignette #3

A string of four boys, the oldest not more than 15, is tap-dancing on the street. Each has a box in front of them. Patron of the arts I am, I put a $10 bill in the box of the boy that is nearest to me. As I am walking past the other boys, one of them says to me, “You not gonna give the rest of us any?”
“I thought you were all working together.”
“What did you give him, a five?
“Unh-uhn.”
I keep walking and sipping on my daquiri, but look back long enough to see him and the other boys gathering around the box where I had left my contribution.

Saturday, April 12
I hang out with Alex and her friends who are in town from Gulfport, to celebrate the birthday of one of them. Alex’s friends will go to The Vagina Monologues (Oprah is scheduled to appear!) later in the evening. Alex and I go looking for an apartment where she will stay once the beginning of May rolls around.

Sunday, April 13
Breakfast at the corner diner at Burgundy and Esplanade, a block from where we are staying. There’s a woman there that we I saw the night before as the door to our unit was open onto the courtyard swimming pool. We find out her boyfriend lives in the same building. She’s a self-described Creole Unitarian Universalist attorney, and we talk about what’s working and not working in New Orleans, UUism in the Crescent City, after we’ve finished our breakfast. Most interesting … and to think I wanted to walk out right after we got there because it was a smoke-filled room.

Week 7 of 29: Home to Mississippi

This was the week I crossed the one-quarter mark – three-quarters of the six-month break remaining.

Monday, March 24
Had breakfast with a friend at Busboys & Poets, a great new performance and dining place on U Street, not that far from Howard. From DC, I drove down to Charlottesville, Virginia, and spent some time with a retired ministerial colleague and his wife. Then I drove pretty much straight down to Atlanta, to spend time with my friend Rosetta. Arrived at about 1:00 Tuesday morning … by far the longest stretch of driving on the whole trip.

Tuesday, March 25
Woke up with the sun streaming through the window. Met some of Rosetta’s lovely Trinidadian friends who are also in the same spacious and well-appointed retirement community. Met my friend Jurgen from Switzerland for lunch at a Thai restaurant near Georgia Tech in Midtown. In the evening, Rosetta and I went for dinner at Nickiemoto’s, a trendy place with good food also in Midtown.

Wednesday, March 26
I had my leftovers for breakfast, bought Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth on cd from Barnes & Noble, plus some other books, then gassed up and hit the road. I was going to pass through Birmingham, thinking I didn’t know anyone there, but then I remembered my history and made my way over to 16th Street Baptist Church. It wasn’t open, but there is a beautiful park with fearsome sculpture depicting the civil rights struggle, counter corner to the church, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is just cross the street from both the church and the park. I’m so glad I made the stop, inspired by the memory of the four little girls who were killed when the bomb went off at the church in 1963 … the actual date, I found out was September 15, which was my parents sixth wedding anniversary.

At the beginning of this 90-second clip, the focus is on the 16th Street Baptist Church, then pans around the garden walkway to the statue of Dr. King that faces the church.




I felt a surge as I crossed from Alabama into my home state. I didn’t kiss the ground, but I had a sense of connection and relationship to this place that was new again. I’d never made the drive before from Boston before. It was the end of the journey that had taken me from the Deep North to the Deep South. I was grateful not to have been in an accident, or stopped by traffic or had a flat tire … It was truly a gift to have traveled those hundreds of miles, and with such safety and ease. I arrived at my mother’s house at about 8:30, after stopping off at the Wal-Mart just off the highway.

I had listened to Tolle talking about the pain-body and its manifestations in our lives on the drive down. Now I ask the question of myself when I hear unhelpful chattering in my brain, “Is that the voice of my true self, or is that the voice of my pain-body?”

Thursday, March 27 and Friday, March 28
Just getting settled in at home, and looking forward to upcoming trips: Bought my Sweet Honey tickets for the concert at the Kahilu Theatre on the Big Island, and connected with my friends in LA that I will be staying with when I’m there. I also tended to the mail that’s been accumulating while I’ve been on the road. I noticed that I’m adding on more weight than I want, and it’s time to do some serious walking.

Saturday, March 29 and Sunday, March 30
I got to spend time with my toddler niece, and with my younger brother and his wife. I’m just amazed at how she’s grown, that she’s walking so well and working on her first words … and just as beautiful and bright as anything. The same is true of my cousin’s daughter, who was christened at our home church Sunday morning. Afterwards, most of the family came over for dinner. I made mac & cheese … I hadn’t done that in a while, but it still turned out well.