detrius

detrius, originally uploaded by roxydynamite.

New Orleans is completely underwater. A city I took for granted and even turned my nose up as not my cup of tea, is under siege by nature. And I find myself rallying for it. When I visited a few years ago, I felt there was something sinister about it. All those shuttered windows made me wonder what I was not supposed to see. Conversely, the cries from balconies to "show us your tits" made me bow my head and scamper away, muttering "You'd want your beads back if I did." It's a city with big appetites and big secrets.
Last night, I couldn't sleep (what else is new). I thought about the cemeteries in the Garden District. Have the coffins broken free of their crypts? I imagined the waiters at Clover Grill, eyes red, sniffling, listening to disco on the jukebox as the mop the muck away from the counter stools. Did the window at the Quarter Cafe, that Tennessee Williams loved to perch in, blow out? Are beignets bobbing down a river of cafe au lait where Cafe DuMonde should be?
I looked at close to a thousand pictures of destruction last night but none of these places were shown. Looters grabbed armfuls of clothes, boxes of shoes piled high at stores along Canal Street. People wheeled carts away from Walmart full of bicycles and boxes. If I were to nip an item or two it would be more from one of those marvelouslly girly boutiques on Royal. But I'd probably be more inclined to help clean up.

This hurricane made me think about how we all take things for granted. We expect our home to be where we left it when we leave in the morning. We have so many possessions we don't even know what we've got let alone what is precious to us.

Over the weekend I was upset because Sweets shrank one of my favorite sweaters. Navigating the world of cashmere, merino, silks and satins is new to him and there have been a few casualties. I sulked for a while and then realized, here I have this fella who will not only wash, fold but even IRON my clothes and I'm complaining something got shrunk? Geez, give the boy a squeeze not a scowl!

Because in the end, that sweater is just one of the hundreds that will pass through my life. But he's the only man that has loved me precisely the way I've always wanted. And that... my friends, is precious.