Loving Places

I wrote of New Orleans prior to, during, and after last year's visit. I'm an outsider, an observer, just as I was when held captive by live coverage of Hurricane Katrina on television. Nothing I or any outsider can say, as compassionately as we may try, may express what comes from the heart of a native, one rendered homeless by that thief and killer.

There is one such a New Orleans person whose writing I admire, rendered homeless, who is demonstrably a gifted writer in the 6S community. She posted a work worthy of your time to read, Little Hurricanes .

My travels have taken me to places in which I feel like I'm in an ill-fitting suit, the only clothed person in a nudist colony, the bowl of rice in the land of potatoes. They're not places where I feel threatened but merely places I don't feel I am in touch with the pulse, the vibe of the people interacting with that place. Sure, there are pleasing aesthetics and interesting histories in those places, but I sense I'm the plug on the floor below the electrical outlet, somehow disconnected.

Then, there are other places.

I love San Francisco. I love Puerto Escondido, Huatulco, Mexico. I love Lisbon, Portugal. I love Seattle, Washington. And Louisville, Kentucky. And there are others where my heart makes merry, places where I feel my spirit can sing, my being can thrive, my black soul can be bleached.

That's probably why I'll never understand how people can spend whole lives in places, never venture from those places that would put my soul behind the driver's seat of a car with no engine and four flat tires.

'Bloom where you're planted,' goes the adage. "Bullshit!," I say.

One of the greatest lies of humankind is that "Time marches on," stands still for no one. Bullshit, again.

Time is only relative to your cognizant existence. So, my best advice is to watch where, and how, you spend it. My advice is to seek those loving places that your heart, your soul and spirit will recognize if you're willing to explore.