Posted on December 31, 2010
While many may think I’m at a salsa party on NYE, I’m not. I wanted a last night by the tree, my son in the next room playing video games. He’ll graduate in 2012…too soon…and I haven’t had the chance over Christmas break to look back on the past year and thank God for all His blessings.
Many firsts in 2010…my students doing a book study with Sherry’s class in Ecuador via Skype. Classic Coup featured in Her Nashville, then my writing for the magazine. Examiner interviews with amazing people, like Alberto Fuguet and a salsera who inspired me with her story, soon to be published. Loving Middle Eastern food and eating it while watching the Super Bowl. First trip to Vegas and to Kansas City. Sharing Go-Jo with a friend before he hit the Road Less Traveled. Our bathroom restored over Thanksgiving when 8 Days of Hope came to town. The kindness of strangers.
And speaking of Tennessee Williams…my first trip to NOLA. Why had I not gone sooner considering it’s the most European-feeling city in America? There Kim did a reunion concert with her former husband/band member that loyal fans, Kim’s high school friends, and five of us from Nashville traveled to see. She sang like an angel, he played up a storm, and they bantered like June Carter and Johnny Cash. I’d met Kim post-Bill and her Rockabilly days. Seeing them slip back into something onstage so familiar and so different reminded me of the lives we all live and leave behind. Their reunion foreshadowed my own last fall when I saw girls–classmates most of whom I hadn’t seen since my high school graduation. Girls from ’77– different and yet the same.
2011 marks not only a new year. It begins a new decade. Since 2000 I’ve lost both grandmothers. Others have moved away or moved on. I look back each year to embrace the comfort of Wordsworth’s words: “We will grieve not, rather find/ Strength in what remains behind;/ In the primal sympathy / Which having been must ever be.”
In the last decade ten more senior classes graduated. My kids, pets, and I continued celebrating life with birthdays, vacations, Pokeman, American Girl, movie nights, soccer, drama, cheerleading and wrestling. I’ve seen my nieces grow up one street over, alongside my children. I became part of a salsa family that taught me to celebrate EVERY birthday–even the once-dreaded milestones. I’ve seen my sister, mother, and daughter see Italy for the first time. I’ve gone to the beach and Barcelona with friends, explored from Santa Monica to Malibu with Taylor and Cole.
New friends, new passions, new places…like Garden Brunch Cafe, Lassiz, Cantino Laredo, McNamara’s Irish Pub. And old favorites, comfort food, like clam chowder and beef stew, Radnor Lake and Mad Donna’s. A tradition, taking my sis out for her birthday, became new when Penny and I saw A Scattered, Smothered, and Covered Christmas at the new downtown dinner theater. Family and friends still here…passages as we change and move on. Welcome home from Africa, Sally, friends forever since we started Mrs. Monday’s K-5 class together. And hello friends-yet-to-be in 2011.
Once Upon a Time in Dublin in 2000…
And in Destin circa ’05 or so…
Throughout Italy…
Salsa…
And all the time in-between…
It has been a wonderful life…decade…year…
NOLA–January 2010
Court of 2 Sisters
Full Circle…I grew up near Fairview where family reunions were held at the “Jeff Davis” monument.
Home in film, The Curious Case of Benjamen Button
Sandra Bullock’s home
One school of Brad P and Angelina J’s children
Mike, our Southern gentleman and host, showed us sites after my first night of Zydeco.
High school friends of Kim at Stanley, my favorite restaurant named for the character I love/hate–especially when played by Marlon Brando.
Carnival at Lime with Em
Classic Coup featured in Her…photo by Jude Ferrara
Birthday dance …photo by Anthony Jure
Author/Director Alberto Fuguet
Teaching my seniors to salsa in the park
Taylor reading my favorite contemporary Southern novelist in Destin
Thanks to Emily and Cindy D, our resident photographers.
Fun with Nashville Writers Meetup at Southern Festival of Books
Founder of Hands on Nashville, Hal Cato, speaks at our Career Day
Senior Prank…my knight captured
…and out-on-the-town
My TA, Margarita, consoles me with random acts of kindness.
Examiner article covering Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Awards–Spanish translation
Sonja and Elle’s launch of the Superwoman benefit for battered women
Volunteers from 8 Days of Hope…two families rich in love who blessed mine
Posted on January 18, 2010
Written January 11th, 2010…
Reentry into reality is rough after a NOLA weekend. Maybe that’s why my first day back I tried to sustain the sugar high, having a praline before bed last night and another for breakfast this morning. My Café du Monde bag is on the kitchen table, and if I weren’t so tired I’d bust out the beinget mix for tomorrow’s buzz. Tonight after cooking Jambalaya—albeit an imposter exposed by red roux and a Zatarain’s box—I just downloaded Lil’ Nathan from iTunes. Lawd, Kim and I found him beautiful at the Rock’n’Bowl. “Ballin’ on Zydeco” makes me smile…and move.
My son calls from downstairs, “What are you doing up there?”
“Just dancin’ darlin,’” I say in an exaggerated Southern drawl, as if I don’t have one already.
Though I can’t see his eyes rolling, I hear his disapproval: “I asked Josh if you said ‘Nawlins’ in his class today. He said, ‘Yes, and it was annoying.’ Why do you have to be so weird, Mom?”
He’d have shaken his head if he’d seen my Facebook status my first night away: “I love me some zydeco.” He’d have downright disowned me if he’d known I’d stalked Lil’ Nathan on Myspace, downloaded his album from iTunes, and considered buying his ringtone from Myxer. He’d call this my “New Orleans Faze,” embarrassed by my sharing my enthusiasm for other cultures again with his peers. It’s tough being a teacher’s kid. Especially when the teacher is me. Again, he’d ask, “What about Italy? Or salsa?” though I’d just shrug my shoulders and keep writing this post. He doesn’t get that I can love more than one place, more than one group of people, even more than one dance at a time. But to be honest, I HAD FORGOTTEN I can love more than Latin dance since I became addicted to salsa two years ago and began writing about it as the Nashville Latin Dancing Examiner.
Before leaving Nashville, Kim and I had naturally planned to check out the salsa scene in New Orleans. In fact, for the past couple of years we’ve planned all vacations around Latin dancing. In Barcelona we hit the two biggest clubs on the Spanish coast. In California I showed up for street salsa in Santa Monica to the horror of my two teenagers. On the plane last Thursday we talked of sooner-than-later salsa destinations, like Miami, and those for the long haul, like Puerto Rico and Argentina, favs on our bucket list. But this trip was different—much to do.
We went to NOLA for the reunion concert of the Swingin’ Haymakers, Kim’s ‘90s rockabilly group nominated “Best Country Band” four years in a row by Offbeat and the Big Easy Awards. Having lived in New Orleans eleven years, she had friends to see—those still living in the city and others who were flying in from Nashville, Tampa, Atlanta, and Chicago. The show was scheduled for Saturday and there would be hours of rehearsal. Still, whether from denial or force of habit, we crammed our salsa shoes in suitcases overstuffed with sweaters, scarves, gloves, and hats, sat on them until they’d zip, and headed out on yet another adventure. As usual, our salsa quest turned more Monty Python as we found it not-so-easy to find salsa in the Big Easy.
On Thursday we planned to meet our friend, April, a longtime dancer, at a salsa venue. All three of us were disappointed when a championship game—and possibly record cold weather—cancelled the event. Though she couldn’t join us on Friday, she suggested other places to try. At The Balcony the band was good and the crowd friendly, but again, the cold kept most locals away. Not quite the scene we’d hoped for…
No doubt I’d wanted to return to Nashville and write on Examiner about all the amazing places we had danced. I’m not sorry we tried. But I realized having an agenda can mess with my usual “When in Rome” approach to travel. I was like the tourist who spends precious vacation time frantically searching for souvenirs to remember a trip at the cost of making memories while there. And though I learned long ago not to be that girl who eats at a favorite chain restaurant instead of trying the local cuisine, I had to remind myself to step out from behind the camera long enough to be part of the action. As a friend tells me to do often…it was time to let go of expectations, to embrace the moment, to stop worrying about what I’d write in the future and instead live in the present. When I did that, I was free to fall in love with a city full of soul— an eclectic place alive, festive, and rich with friends, food, and fun. And when I tried dancing to the beat of another drum–literally– I fell into the rhythm of zydeco and the spirit of a magical place. For photos of this NOLA getaway go here.