Back to New Orleans -- Let the Magic Begin!

There are moments that remain so clear in one’s mind that it would be suitable to say they were forever captured in a mental photograph. For me, one of these moments took place a little over a year ago, when on a chilly April afternoon – a snapping breeze was blowing in, unforgivably and unseasonably, from the Mississippi river only a couple of blocks down – I stood at the corner of Dumaine and Royal in new Orleans, and vowed to be back the next year or even sooner.

Earlier that day my parents and I had gone on a tour of Honey Swamp and, tired after the trip, my mother and father had decided to stay back at the hotel while I went strolling around in the Quarter. Once I crossed Canal Street, it wasn’t long before I felt as if I had stepped through a magical portal: Happy people, their lightly powdered shirts a delightful reminder they had betrayed their New Year’s resolutions, and had been unable to resist the forbidden aroma of warm beignets and coffee, walked around in no hurry, while the sound of street performers increasingly swallowed the pockets of silence with each step I took toward Jackson Square. New Orleans is one of those cities – in fact, it is THE city -- one can’t fully understand until one has experienced its magic. Unlike most beautiful tourist venues, New Orleans lives and breathes, and hums a melody of its own creation, familiar enough to make everyone feel at home within its weathered alleys, and certainly unique enough to take one’s breath away. Shy of the Eiffel Tower, New Orleans is the younger sister of Paris.

Once I got a little deeper into the heart of the Quarter, I suddenly thought of something: New Orleans isn’t only famous for its beautiful wrought iron balconies, but also for its pulsating spiritual essence…so what if I asked a little help from the very same Saints I had grown to know and appreciate throughout my life? I stopped by a bar and bought a beer, then walked down to a tobacco shop and bought a cigar -- both items are customarily offered to Elegba, the opener of doors, who’s also known as Eleggua or even St. Michael and St. Anthony, but I won’t linger on this too long, since it is really not important in this story – then sat on a doorstep, lifted the bottle of beer a trifle, and lit the cigar. As I blew a puff of smoke toward the sky, I silently offered the cigar and the beer to Elegba, and mentally voiced my petition – within a year, I wanted to be back in the same spot, and be able to once again drink in the joyful energy of the place.

After I left New Orleans, the year blew by swifter than the breeze lifting from the river. Many things happened in the interim, including the release of my two books; and now, as I am taking one day at a time venturing into the bayous of the publishing world, my petition came to pass: On September 8, I will be boarding a plane heading to the city of my heart, as part of The Book of Obeah promotional tour.

So, thank you Elegba, for opening this amazing door…I will see you in New Orleans, the cigar is on me.

The Magic of an Ordinary Day

Yesterday was a fun day. It started around seven in the morning when I woke up in a house full of sleeping kids. I went downstairs, started the coffee pot, and went outside on the porch to give the flowers a little drink while I waited for my own cup of miracles to finish brewing. It was an amazing morning – already steamy so early on, the day announced itself as yet another scorcher.

There is something quite magical about a summer – or late spring – morning. Birds fill the air with an excited song of promise and the nocturnal moisture is still lingering in tiny droplets bathing every leaf and strand of grass, as if they just came back from a relaxing swim. I sat on one of the porch rockers for a few minutes and deeply inhaled the intoxicating scent of grass and budding life, before an even more bewitching aroma penetrated the air and made everything pale in comparison – coffee was ready.

The rest of the morning passed quite uneventfully, aside from my daughter running off like a thief in the night with the magic marker I was using to create a poster for the book signing, and then forgetting where she had left it when her 5-year-old attention was captured by some other random thing. Funny as it is, while I was looking for the marker I found an old necklace I had misplaced some time ago. I never found the marker and I came to the conclusion that either my house swallows and spits items at its own liking, or my daughter fits her enchantress name and she figured out how to make things shift in and out of reality at will. I am confident that with more practice one of these days she’ll learn how to shift a sack of money INTO reality.

Hours flew by and it was suddenly time for morning to trade shifts with afternoon, which also meant it was time to leave for the signing. With a budding knight in shining armor in tow, I left my screaming daughter home with dad – that girl might never learn how to shimmer money into reality but she will, one day, win a Grammy for best dramatic performance – and Michael and I got on the road.

When we arrived, the owner of the tea shop informed me they had been pretty slow but I unpacked anyway while my son went next door to get two bottles of water ($4 for two bottles of water! You’d think the kid had bought Zeus’ water of life and knowledge!)

The signing proved to be slow as well, but we had a great time. A handful of friends stopped by and kept us company; I sold a few books and raised the first $15 going toward Hooked on the Book, a newly-launched project to raise funds for the Gulf.

After wrapping up, we went to Piccola Italia with two of the friends who stopped by. We sat at one of their outside tables and chatted away. The food was great, the wine superb, the company wonderful, and we even got to meet the owner of the joint, a jolly little Italian Man with a heavy accent and hands magically designed to make good pizza. What more can a soul desire?

The rest of the evening was very laid back and even my magic marker reappeared, now that I no longer needed it. When the kids went to bed I thought back about the day and couldn’t help smiling. There are challenging things happening in the world, often in our very own backyard, yet every day can be a great one if we stop and appreciate the small things. Through the eyes of a pessimist yesterday could have been a poor day – a necessary tool was lost, the signing was slow and the air outside was as hot and humid as soup, but if one really focused on reality, all those things had another, much happier side – I found a long-lost item, the lack of a large crowd gave me the opportunity of getting to know the people who had come a little better, and the warm weather allowed us the chance to sit outside and crown the day with a good meal and pleasant conversation.

Life is what you make it, and each experience can be as tart as lemon or sweet as candy. Personally, I choose to see it as a box of my favorite chocolates.

Keeper of the Key

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter and I watched “Barbie’s Diaries” together. In the story, Barbie, a teenager, dreams of being part of the popular crowd, but neither her beauty, nor her many talents, seem enough to buy her a ticket in.

She gets a glimpse of celebrity life when she briefly dates Todd, one of the popular boys in school, but inadvertently she steps on the wrong toes – those of Raquelle, Todd’s ex-girlfriend and the most popular, vicious girl in school.

When Todd chooses to ask Raquelle to the formal dance instead than Barbie, Barbie accepts her defeat as something to be expected. Her friends take her to the mall to get her mind off the failed relationship, and while they are browsing in a store, a mysterious shopkeeper gives Barbie and her friends charm bracelets as a gift. The one Barbie selects comes with a diary, and she is instructed by the shopkeeper to write her innermost thoughts into it if she wants to see them come true.

Barbie skeptically follows the shopkeeper’s direction, still expecting nothing to change; she asks for true love, and just a few days later a mysterious admirer begins to leave romantic notes in her locker; she wishes for popularity, and soon everything seems to fall into place – the popular kids begin asking her to hang out, her band is scheduled to play at the formal, and the boy of her dreams pays her attention!

The downside is that when the tide turns in favor of her wishes, Barbie no longer has time for her two friends, Tia and Courtney, and for Kevin, a boy who has a mad crush on her but is too shy to let her know of his feelings.

Shortly before her performance at the formal is about to start, Barbie loses her magic bracelet and her confidence instantly plummets. She is convinced that without the bracelet she won’t be able to play, even if during rehearsals she and her friends were great, so she announces that she won’t be going. Kevin breaks a piece of guitar string and ties it around Barbie’s wrist; she smiles at him gratefully, but tells him that a silly piece of metal can’t make her a different person. That’s when reality finally hits her – the charm bracelet wasn’t responsible for changing her life and attitude, she had done it all on her own once she felt something outside of her was sustaining her through the change. In many ways, the bracelet was magical, because owning it had pushed her to write in the diary, and by unraveling her thoughts she had allowed her true self to come out. Those gifts were always there, but until then she never had enough confidence to use them.

As the story draws to an end, Barbie finds out that her secret admirer is her faithful friend Kevin, and she realizes that Todd is not that special after all; in her mind, he was a key to the door of popularity, but now that she can enter on her own merit, she suddenly sees him for who he is – a shallow kid she has nothing in common with.

Each one of us has special gifts we keep locked up in a secret chamber until someone or something reminds us we are the ones who hold the key to unlock them and bring them out of hiding. Our gifts might be different than those of others, but that fact alone makes them special and unique, and we should be proud of sharing them with others.