Amour: Falling in Love at a Farmer's Market

I was inspired but not in the way you think. I walked up to a Saturday Marketplace operated in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. I did not think they were going to be opened so close to the holidays, but there they were!




The first thing I heard as I came around the corner was the sounds of The Neo Collective trio www.neojazz.net

this was before I saw the produce. Today was a gorgeous almost spring day, great skies right temperature & organic foods.



I purchased pumpkin bread, curried couscous & blackeye peas salad from one vendor. Then 3 types of pepper jelly, chow chow (a Louisiana relish) pickled green tomatoes that were to die for and organic,free range eggs from Mr. Cal Crops from chicken he raises.



And then I headed home but before I got to the corner the first line of a poem popped in my head. The thought startled me as I've not been that terribly inspire to write any poetry this year sans one back a several months ago.



It happened because I watched the bass guitarist who happened to be a woman deeply immersed in creating sounds in her head, lost in her own world of sounds.



The last time I wrote something from my If Jazz was a Color series was a poem called the "Sounds of the Men" in 2000 watch a jazz brunch. In fact I paid a nod to it in this poem.



Amazing what healthy food, good weather and change can do!







Until I Saw That Face

By Jacquelyn Hughes Mooney (c)12



Until I saw that face

I always thought that deep

powerful

engrossing...

mesmerizing can't get enough of that feeling that comes from jazz

was relegated from that place...

that place

that secret society that held the sounds of the men.

It made me fall in love again

for that 100 thousandth time

with the face of New Orleans.

Just when I had enough

Really enough of

that dark side

that black hole

that keeps springing up at the most inopportune tie

From the gut cramping of near shattered souls that can ever seem to come clean

not unlike that blackened mold & stench out of the intestines of Katrina winds.

My patience had worn thin..

I wanted to run until that highway ran out

just to get away from that surreal vibe.

But then...

like the taste of calamondian oranges made into marmalade

the sweetness and the the sour-ness

I saw in that face

I saw in that face

that face...



that face...

And I fell in love all over again

for the zillionth time...

For the very last time

So I say..

With the face of New Orleans

All rights reservedJHM12-21-12(c)

Walk this Way: I am STILL Grinnin'

I am still grinning this morning albeit a wee bit sore as I took advantage of a beautiful  winter day  that seemed more like spring & not January .  An urgent need to get  to the post office necessitated my getting out to walk.  I didn't need a lot of prodding.

Round trip it took me about 45 minutes thereabouts as I was walking a tad bit slow to test out the knees since I knew it was an increase in  how far I've walked previously...

I had not been out in the last month because of the see-saw  inclement weather which gave me plenty of excuses not to go although I did a lot of micro-walks inside my home.  Apparently it worked as apart from some minor soreness which indicated I gave my body a workout without over taxing still had me just a'smilin' this morning.

And I slept very well to boot!

I got to see another side of my neighborhood on streets I had not seen to see the still ongoing construction & re-sparking of homes still in disrepair from Katrina and was happy.  Some homes are far more modest but nonetheless gratifying to see what is happening.

I so wished I had my camera.

I enjoyed the birds chirping the sun beaming and the pure injoyment in the physicality of what I was doing!

And then I saw as I neared my street, first seeing him from a distance, a man who is an amputee very slowly on crutches taking  his walk.  He had as I saw when I came up on him, had his leg amputated to his knee & the other leg was twisted inward.

But there he was walking away, inch by inch, step by step with his crutches. In the time it took me to walk the block, he may have walked 1/4 of a block.  But there he was...

He turned to come back in the direction I was so apparently he lived from where I was coming from and I lived in the direction  he was coming from.  I just grinned and spoke.  He smiled and we kept on our way.

I am going to make it a point to travel that street again in case I see him and perhaps on a good day we can walk together even if it is just a block.  I have no desire to invade his privacy  (and I like my time alone too).  Nor do I need to see him as a special case because he is an amputee, but as one disabled to another, we are telling the world we are "other able".

It was good simply because we both just plugged in, each dealing with our own level of challenged but nonetheless doing what we needed to do.

Today is suppose to be yet another glorious day into the low 60's & I will  walk this way again not knowing who or what I will connect with even if it is just for a minute...

I just want to be Jo(sophine )cool about it all...