Saturday, November 21, 2009. Through A Hole In The Rain. It began raining around four in the morning. It must have really come down, because large puddles were on Manresa's lawn. No walking around the beautiful grounds today, I thought.
Instead, I did something I've wanted to do for awhile. I have with me one of my journals from thirty-five years ago, when I was writing assiduously. I had never read it in all the years since. It was a good way to pass the time today. The journal started in the fall of 1974--shortly after I took the job as editor of New Orleans Magazine--and went through the following spring. I was twenty-three, and it was a heady time. I'm glad I made it as detailed as I did. In it I read about events I only dimly remember, but in full detail. One surprise: the story of a brief relationship with a woman I'd completely forgotten about.
While we were eating our red beans and rice lunch (the best beans I eat all year long), the sun broke through the clouds. Those clouds were dark enough to give pause, but I thought I'd take the chance and take my usual Saturday walk upstream to St. Michael's Church. It's the home of the only known altar made of bagasse--the remnants of sugar cane harvesting. Just as it did when I walked in the other direction, the river came right up to the levee except at College Point--that high ground built by the river as it makes a sharp bend right in front of Manresa.
Dodging the puddles and the joggers, I conducted my annual assessment of my past, looking at it in five-year intervals. I came up with no new insights. I think this is because my thoughts are caught in the gravitational field of the event that will occur next September. Mary Leigh will leave our home and city for the West Coast then, probably for good, as Jude has already. That will leave me and Mary Ann together, just the two of us. And Mary Ann is not high on staying here, either. Life will change dramatically, and not likely in an easy way.
As those clouds closed in on my mind, the real ones hovered over my body. Those were dark and threatening enough that when I reached St. Michael's, I wheeled around and headed back immediately. I didn't want a repeat of what happened six or seven years ago, when I got caught in a downpour on this stretch of levee, and had no choice but to allow myself to get drenched with a mile left to go.
After dinner (pork loin, mushroom rice, green beans, a terrific bread pudding), I finished reading my 1974 journal. Then I started in on a 1966 book I found in the library called "Lord of the Absurd." The library was clearing out some if its old tomes, and invited us to help ourselves to anything that caught our fancy. Somehow, the combination of those two pieces of reading material turned my mind around. What had been a dampened mood finally warmed up. My soul didn't catch fire, but it felt good.
It started raining again after the final talk and meditation. No walk in the dark to the levee tonight. That suited me fine. My hip is aching.
