10 Years Ago: Lafayette: International Festival Intersections

 

"Cast" updates since the original post in 2015: 

• You can watch the completed movie, Dirt Road to Lafayette, on Youtube, Tubi, and Amazon Prime (and Freevee). 
• Pamplona's is still open in Lafayette.
• I wish I had updates for Alfredo, Ms. Orelia, and Mr. Lawrence, but I don't have enough identifying info on them to find out.

 

Monday, April 27, 2015

Lafayette: International Festival Intersections

You never know what the standouts of a festival or a trip are going to be. This was true for the International Festival.


One fun thing was that a movie was being filmed at the festival, called Dirt Road to Lafayette. On Saturday, when it was so rainy, I watched a scene play out at Pamplona's Restaurant on Jefferson.
 
I took my own little movie of this scene:

Consider the shakiness of the video to be an intentional bit of cinema verité.

After the Scottish laddie (who is the movie lead) did his bit, I noticed awhile later a gentleman carrying the young actor's accordion, wrapped in plastic to protect it from the rain. I have no idea why, but I was so taken by this. Having an accordion-carrier.

The next day, Sunday, at the Heritage stage, Corey Ledet performed with his band, and the movie crew was there again. When I saw the laddie pass through a dance crowd with the accordion, and then the same gentleman from the day before subsequently have the accordion in his arms, again wrapped in plastic, I had to check it out. Which resulted in me meeting the very pleasant Alfredo. He does more than carry the lead actor's accordion, but at this moment, that was his responsibility.

Alfredo, International Festival 2015, Lafayette, Louisiana

Shortly after my visit to the Heritage stage, I scurried over to the International Stage where I had volunteered to do security for the Buckwheat Zydeco performance. And this is where I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Orelia. They share the exact same birthday, a fact they didn't discover until they were married. It was common for Buckwheat Zydeco (aka Stanley Dural) to practice how to play the accordion on Mr. Lawrence's and Ms. Orelia's front porch. See, before then, Mr. Dural had been a blues and funk musician, focusing on the organ. Mr. Lawrence said it was not a big jump to move from the organ to the accordion.

Ms. Orelia and Mr. Lawrence, International Festival 2015, Lafayette, Louisiana

At the end of the day, which coincided with the end of the festival, I found myself walking down Jefferson Street, past Pamplona's Restaurant, the street now empty of festival-goers, en route to the shuttle bus.  Three guys talking in the street. One telling the other two about the movie being filmed and how he was in this scene where .....

And, you know, it was this guy: 

Filming Dirt Road to Lafayette, International Festival 2015, Lafayette, Louisiana

OK, so I'm a nosy wench, and I stopped and listened outright while he told his adventure story to his friends. Presently, I interrupted, and said, "You know, I think I may have a video of you doing your scene. I'm not positive you're in it, but I'm pretty sure, and I've uploaded it to youtube if you want to go look." I told him how to find my youtube channel.

Do you know how good it felt to bring such pleasure to someone because of the dumb luck of happening on the movie scene the day before, filming it, and then the dumb luck of walking by this guy the next day while he told his friends about his experience? It felt very good, indeed.

So in this one day, I had the good fortune to intersect with four congenial people.

 

Word of the Year: Meditation: May You Be ...

Giving Heart. Borderlinks, Tucson, Arizona, September 2019. Artist unknown. Photo credit: Mzuriana.

 

I listened to a podcast on love the other day. The narrator reintroduced me to metta, the Pali word embodying goodwill, friendliness, and loving-kindness toward others in the Buddhist tradition. 

The idea of a metta meditation is to conjure up a person in one's mind and send benevolent intentions to them. There seems to be a similar array of three or four intentions in a metta mantra.

For example, to each of the recipients I mentally picture, I say aloud:

• May you be safe.
• May you be healthy.
• May you be happy. 
• May you be at peace. 

The trick is to include among our list of recipients, not just folks we love, like, or even feel neutral about, but ...also individuals who we resent, fear, or loathe. This last aligns with a common 12-step suggestion: For 30 days, wish for that person to receive all of the good things in life that we would  like to receive for ourselves. Doing so can soften us, again to our benefit, expressing, if you will, the pus that infects our minds and bodies.

Fortunately, there is no goal for us to bring such a person into our literal or figurative embrace. We don't have to be friends with such a person, even if they are a family member. It may not be healthy or safe for us to do so. The metta meditation is a door we can open to free us be safe, healthy, happy, and at peace.

I hold the assumption that if a person is happy and at peace, their actions toward others will be benevolent rather than malicious. That makes it possible for me to wish them safety, health, happiness, and peace.

It's interesting to me that the word metta is from the Pali word referenced above. Pala is the name Aldous Huxley gave to utopian culture in his book, Island. Where the myna birds remind the humans, "here and now, here and now." 

 

10 Years Ago: Where the Hell Am I, Louisiana: The Map App

 

Speaking of maps, Judgmental Maps is always binge-worthy. 

And these:

• 2013.05: Another Geography Lesson: Americans' Map of the World
• 2013:05: Geography Lesson

 

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Where the Hell Am I, Louisiana: The Map App

Part 1: 

A few years ago, I listened to a family member, let's call her Kiki, explain why she had not yet used the Onstar program in her new car. .... "Because it could take me into a dangerous area and I could end up DEAD!"

At the time, I thought two things:

1. Paper maps could do the same thing; and 
2. Hoo boy. 

But I kept my mouth shut.

It wasn't too long after that when Kiki was prevailed upon to try out her Onstar and she loved it!


Part 2:

So here it is March 2015, and I've got a smart phone now. On a fine weekend afternoon, I was fixing to drive from my new digs (oh, I haven't told you where I'm living now, have I?) to the village of Henderson which hugs a levee along the Atchafalaya River. I looked at about three route options on my map application, and selected one.

It was a pleasant day and my map app took me on a wind-y road, which was just fine with me. Then it wanted me to go over a bridge that wasn't there anymore, so I did a few circular maneuvers, asked a gentleman on the side of the road for some guidance, and he directed me to a way around that gone bridge, and then I was taken deeper and deeper into what reminded me of an old Stephen King story of the woman whose mission was to find the fastest way from Point A to Point B in Maine and her quest took her into a parellel universe where time got bend-y.

Until finally my map app carried me to what seemed to be an end of the road, on the other side of a wood-plank bridge with a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign posted, with my map app voice instructing me to go up the levee. Say what??

Near Henderson, Louisiana. March, 2015.

And it was at this moment that I thought of Kiki's dire predictions of murder and mayhem should she surrender herself to her Onstar.

Looking to my left, across the other bank of the bridge, I saw a group of men doing something along the river.

Having now read all of the Dave Robicheaux books (and having read Winter's Bone and watched the movie, based in the hinterlands of my own Missouri ), what might they be doing?  Running drugs for a South American cartel? Dispensing with a troublesome comrade? Or just fishing? Where's the ice chest to tell me all is as it should be?

Winter's Bone trailer:

"Talkin' just causes witnesses."

I crossed the wood-plank bridge with some trepidation and then asked one of the men, "I'm trying to get to Henderson from here ... but I'm confused about what I'm supposed to do now." One of the men said, "Well, you can turn on around here and go back the way you came ..... [insert my mental nervous swallow here] ... or you can go right and it'll take you 10 to 15 minutes to get there."

Because I am genetically programmed to not backtrack, I took a few moments to decide if "turn right" really meant "turn right" or did it mean "go up onto the levee and turn right?" Did the PRIVATE PROPERTY sign refer to the flat road to my right or the levee road up and to the right on the levee?

I chose the flatlander road on the right. When I say road, by the way, I'm talking gravel road.

This met with approval from my map app until a few miles down the road when it really, really wanted me to climb up onto the levee. Finally, I acquiesced and for some more miles drove on the gravel road up top, noticing that the flatland road kept on going on right beside me, down below. Eventually, I overcame the objections of my map app and got back down onto flat land.

All ended well, of course, but I took a different route home.  

I did see this pretty community of beehives on the way to Henderson:

Near Henderson, Louisiana. March, 2015.

Reminded me of Caucasus Georgia, on a visit to an agrarian technical school in Kachreti. 


[Update: A 2023 Al Jazeera cautionary story: Google Sued After Man Drove Off Collapsed Bridge Following Map Directions.]

Word of the Year: Meditation: Into Action

 

 

Lake Martin, Louisiana. September 2014. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

From the library, I borrowed Jon Kabat-Zinn's book, Mindfulness for Beginners (audio version). I was staying with friend Kate, and it was cold and dreary outside. November in Missouri.  I was also committed to getting in 10k steps each day, as clocked in my Fitbit. 

Kate has a small attached garage. So I walked 'round and 'round and 'round the inside perimeter of her garage, a thousand steps at a time, while listening to Mindfulness for Beginners. No other library patron waited to borrow the audiobook, so for awhile I simply renewed it. Twice, maybe three times. Because once I finished it, I started over from the beginning. It was that good. Listening to the book was the meditation.

As part of my commitment to meditation this year, I have now bought and downloaded my very own copy of the audiobook. 

Into action. Remembering my goals: Serenity in the moment. To lay peaceably, like a lilypad, on the surface of a still lagoon.

10 Years Ago: Relocation: Living With Uncertainty

 

Uncertainty. 

 

A state of being that is so insidious that interrogators use it as a tool of torture. 

 

Some related posts: 

2023.07: 2023 Word of the Year: FEAR: Frustration, Ego, Anxiety, Resentment

2023.03: 2023 Word of the Year: FEAR: Forgetting Everything's All Right

2021.07: Word of the Year: Joy 7: Birdsong

2013.07: The Little Girl Who Rides the Train

2020.11: The Day After They Called the Election: A Subdued Jubilation

2020.05: Relocation: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 20: Where Am I Going?

2019.10: Tucson, AZ: A Bully's Ripple Effect

2016.11: Toronto: Airport: Livestock Management 

 

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Relocation: Living With Uncertainty

Returning to South Louisiana for Year Two just two weeks before Mardi Gras may not have been the best idea. Based on my relocation experiences in the past - the speed at which I found wonderful permanent shelter, to be specific - it seemed rational to expect I'd be ensconsed somewhere cozy by the holiday.

But:

• The prices for temporary lodging right before a major holiday in these parts go way over my budget. 
•  I've learned that the demand for rental property in the Lafayette catchment area exceeds supply, especially at my price range. 
• Rental property is generally high around here, so there are significant compromises on condition, size, view, and ambiance

Based on the above realities, anxiety and discomfort have kicked in. There is a desire to stop this discomfort that has no time-certain end. This tempts me to retreat into what's comfortable, like staying in Lafayette in Year Two simply because it's a known entity, or snagging any place that is minimally acceptable solely to end the home hunt.

However, when I pause for a few minutes and take a breath, really, I've got to appreciate that I have exceptional freedom.

• For example, I don't even have to stay in South Louisiana! I could go anywhere! 
• The Mardi Gras holiday is only a few days - once I get past that economic hurdle, then prices settle down again and I have way more breathing space to find the right home. And if need be, I can visit another region during Mardi Gras.  A sunny beach, maybe.
• I could buy instead of rent, taking me into an entirely new adventure. 
• I can open myself up to a much broader range of South Louisiana location possibilities. 

Here's what a couple of folks say about living with uncertainty:

The Tiny Buddha: 7 Ways to Deal with Uncertainty

Psych Central: 5 Tips for Living with Uncertainty


Om.

 

 

 

Word of the Year 2025: Meditation

 

 

Dwan Light Sanctuary. Near Las Vegas, New Mexico. October 2007. Credit: Mzuriana.

In July 2023, I wrote: 

I do not have a daily practice of meditation, although I do have two books that - when I read them - create a meditative experience for me: Wherever You Go, There You Are (Jon Kabatt-Zinn) and Fear: Essential Wisdom For Getting Through the Storm (Thich Nhat Hanh). 

 

In fall 2024, I still didn't have a daily practice of meditation, and I set out to change that. 

So why did I want to? 

Because it goes back to my sturdy little boat, my "higher power:" 

In Vietnam, there are many people, called boat people, who leave the country in small boats. Often the boats are caught in rough seas or storms, the people may panic, and the boats can sink. But if even one person aboard can remain calm, lucid, knowing what to do and what not to do, he or she can help the boat survive.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

It is so terribly hard to quiet my mind. My brain wants to churn, churn, churn - to create and then regurgitate, create and regurgitate. I listen to podcasts at night to distract a busy brain that otherwise keeps me wakeful, as it churns through what happened that day, yesterday, or last week or last month or last year or a decade ago, ever striving to rewrite conversations, rewrite entire life story arcs for different outcomes, to turn on my own internal misinformation generator. 

And we live in such dystopian times; how do I claim moments of calm, lucidity, and confidence in taking the next right step? 

It matters not that my physical location on a given day might be geographically rootless; what matters is that my inner location be constant, rooted with serenity and with confidence that my little boat, which I share with others, is a sturdy one. 

 

10 Years Ago: Relocation 2015

 

 

This still makes me chuckle.

 

 

 

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Relocation 2015

So here I am in Missouri for my usual interregnum between annual migrations.

You may have noticed that I haven't yet announced where I'll be living in 2015.

I can announce that my original plan was to move to Oaxaca (city), Mexico. That was my plan all the way up to, maybe, September, and then I surprised the hell out of myself and decided instead to