This new feeling of unexpected freedom continues today with a unexpected set of communications and the discovery of a surprising sermon, seemingly launched by the Spirit into the internets and onto my computer.
I explain the situation, and a little of the strange circumstances over at Bleeding Daylight.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Goodbye and Good Luck
As most folks who have read my blogs for any time are aware, I moved to New Orleans at the beginning of August 2005, just three weeks before Katrina.
For two years thereafter I lived a peripatetic life moving from place to place, part time in New Orleans, part time in San Francisco, a brief time in North Carolina, always semi-docked in Petaluma and anchored in New Orleans. Then, just over two years ago (almost exactly two years after The Thing), I gave up the basic struggle of bouncing back and forth between the Gulf Coast and The West Coast and came back to California. At the time, I made the assumption that at some point in the relatively near future I would regroup, fix the problems that I was still juggling like so many oddly sized balls, and find my way back to The Crescent.
What happened instead was that I found new love, and new life, right here in the place from which I had spent many previous years running. As I explained in several posts (including the one immediately prior to this one) I found myself surprisingly at home in the very place I thought I could never be at home.
But this didn't change one thing about my previous abbreviated grounding in New Orleans. I have for the past two years, despite living my life out in Petaluma, lived on the feeling - and the longing - that I would some day soon make it back home to NOLA.
For the last six months I've been building those old hopes on the enjoyable, and financially fortuitous, surprise job of Twittering (and blogging and facebooking) for The Hotel Monteleone and Carousel Bar on Royal Street in The French Quarter. There were significant frustrations in this process because the whole time I was doing it, I was sitting here in my little apartment 2500 miles away, sometimes pretending to be in The Quarter, sometimes pretending to be at Jazz Fest; always placing myself in those places that I know so well, and literally imagining myself into those locations.
It worked too! There were many times when the fact that I was communicating about and for New Orleans really placed me mentally right there. It was as if I was dreaming at my computer as I wrote to, and related with, people in the place I so longed to be. It was a great imaginary exploration.. and it was a lot of fun. At the same time, I worked to build up additional connections and relationships and I kept hanging on to the connections that still remained from that time when I first moved to the city, four years ago in another world... another life... another reality.
Not any more.
Earlier this week I was replaced in my Twitter job by the local PR firm and the in-house promo people at The Hotel Monteleone. As a friend of mine says, "without so much as a boo... hey... or kiss my ass" I was told in an email to stop immediately. I was then promptly locked out of the accounts that I created and that I had been dedicatedly relating from within. I had placed myself - however virtually - into the person I created (a sort of amalgamation of my every day self, but more my "New Orleans self" than "my California self") to represent the hotel and to relate both personally and professionally to folks with whom I interacted. Since being let go... the replacements at Hotel Monteleone have turned the interaction into an infrequent and impersonal interaction purely based on self-promotion, and in my opinion completely wrong for Twitter... but hey... that's another story.
What I'm trying to communicate right now is the combined sense of loss, grief, homesickness and new life that I am experiencing as a result of this interaction and outcome.
The simple fact is that I feel released.. I feel found... I feel free!
Four years ago next week I returned to New Orleans as people gradually began to move back into the ghost town laid bare by Katrina. I was determined to make life work. I was determined to go "home." I was determined to stay. This last six months has been the way out of the lock that my meteorologically aborted migration to The Big Easy has held me in for the past four years. I've gone round and round, back and forth only to find - like Dorothy returning from The Land of Oz - that home was right here with me all along.
There will be many days, and many moments when I still miss New Orleans. I hope to return there from time to time for rest, or work, or play, but it is not my home any more... maybe it never really was.
I live in Petaluma... in California... on the Western edge of the Continent and I am happy here.
For two years thereafter I lived a peripatetic life moving from place to place, part time in New Orleans, part time in San Francisco, a brief time in North Carolina, always semi-docked in Petaluma and anchored in New Orleans. Then, just over two years ago (almost exactly two years after The Thing), I gave up the basic struggle of bouncing back and forth between the Gulf Coast and The West Coast and came back to California. At the time, I made the assumption that at some point in the relatively near future I would regroup, fix the problems that I was still juggling like so many oddly sized balls, and find my way back to The Crescent.
What happened instead was that I found new love, and new life, right here in the place from which I had spent many previous years running. As I explained in several posts (including the one immediately prior to this one) I found myself surprisingly at home in the very place I thought I could never be at home.
But this didn't change one thing about my previous abbreviated grounding in New Orleans. I have for the past two years, despite living my life out in Petaluma, lived on the feeling - and the longing - that I would some day soon make it back home to NOLA.
For the last six months I've been building those old hopes on the enjoyable, and financially fortuitous, surprise job of Twittering (and blogging and facebooking) for The Hotel Monteleone and Carousel Bar on Royal Street in The French Quarter. There were significant frustrations in this process because the whole time I was doing it, I was sitting here in my little apartment 2500 miles away, sometimes pretending to be in The Quarter, sometimes pretending to be at Jazz Fest; always placing myself in those places that I know so well, and literally imagining myself into those locations.
It worked too! There were many times when the fact that I was communicating about and for New Orleans really placed me mentally right there. It was as if I was dreaming at my computer as I wrote to, and related with, people in the place I so longed to be. It was a great imaginary exploration.. and it was a lot of fun. At the same time, I worked to build up additional connections and relationships and I kept hanging on to the connections that still remained from that time when I first moved to the city, four years ago in another world... another life... another reality.
Not any more.
Earlier this week I was replaced in my Twitter job by the local PR firm and the in-house promo people at The Hotel Monteleone. As a friend of mine says, "without so much as a boo... hey... or kiss my ass" I was told in an email to stop immediately. I was then promptly locked out of the accounts that I created and that I had been dedicatedly relating from within. I had placed myself - however virtually - into the person I created (a sort of amalgamation of my every day self, but more my "New Orleans self" than "my California self") to represent the hotel and to relate both personally and professionally to folks with whom I interacted. Since being let go... the replacements at Hotel Monteleone have turned the interaction into an infrequent and impersonal interaction purely based on self-promotion, and in my opinion completely wrong for Twitter... but hey... that's another story.
What I'm trying to communicate right now is the combined sense of loss, grief, homesickness and new life that I am experiencing as a result of this interaction and outcome.
The simple fact is that I feel released.. I feel found... I feel free!
Four years ago next week I returned to New Orleans as people gradually began to move back into the ghost town laid bare by Katrina. I was determined to make life work. I was determined to go "home." I was determined to stay. This last six months has been the way out of the lock that my meteorologically aborted migration to The Big Easy has held me in for the past four years. I've gone round and round, back and forth only to find - like Dorothy returning from The Land of Oz - that home was right here with me all along.
There will be many days, and many moments when I still miss New Orleans. I hope to return there from time to time for rest, or work, or play, but it is not my home any more... maybe it never really was.
I live in Petaluma... in California... on the Western edge of the Continent and I am happy here.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Settling Into Place
For the last two years I have been moving through a process of settling in to the ground of being that seems to be home for me here in Northern California in general and Petaluma in particular.In August of 2007, after two years of attempting to live in New Orleans (where I moved three very short weeks before Katrina), I gave up my peripatetic struggle to move back and forth between my two worlds and decided to re-settle in NoCal instead of NOLA.
Almost immediately, my life changed (and I've written on and on about that in this blog) profoundly. I began to find a depth of love and friendship that I had not experienced in a long time. It was as if as soon as I stopped trying so damn hard to figure my life out (who I was, who I was supposed to be, where I was supposed to be, and why I am), my life rose up to meet me. People and things (sweetheart, friends, work, and a place to live) became real in my life in ways that I had come to believe were not any longer possible for me.
Basically... for the first time in a long time, I had come home.
When I moved into a new (and pretty much perfect) little apartment, my sweety and my friends threw me a great party.
And for the past two years these experiences have continued... mounting on top of one another the pleasures and joys of friends, and family, and home and place.
I never thought I'd feel like this... but I have become a Petaluman.
So... to further solidify this geographic relationship, I registered this summer for the Petaluma Leadership Class, a year long collection of meetings, classes and activities that are designed to give a greater sense of place to those who want to be more planted (and more active) in this community. The picture at the top of this blog is from the "History Day" class which happened last week. My friend Trish snapped it of me coming out from checking on upcoming shows at Petaluma's wonderful Mystic Theater.
The day was great, with an introduction to the Petaluma History Museum, and guided tours from past notables in P-town history, and drop in at the Petaluma Adobe State Park where Mariano Vallejo raised cattle before California was a state. And since any good town history involves a solid drinking past and Prohibition story, we ended the day at Volpi's Speakeasy.
I've covered much of this material myself in the Petaluma Audio Tours that I created last spring, but to get a full day of information, entertainment and engagement with and from people who know and love the community was particularly special.
The fact remains that I still have one foot (or at least my big toe) stuck in the swamp water of New Orleans, and I don't expect I will ever be free of the hold that San Francisco has on my heart, but the people, places and things of this little chicken town have definitely captured me in a way that I have never before been captured and, frankly (and surprisingly), I like it.
Friday, September 11, 2009
This Has Gone On Long Enough!
Okay... I've had it with this lack of blogging.
I posted a new piece (and a request for input, and story contributions) at http://generationvet.blogspot.com where I am hoping to begin development on a play that I have wanted to work on for quite some time.
Please check it out, pass it on, and add you fity cents.
In the mean time... Stay tuned here because there's gonna be more blogging coming immediately (well, at least this weekend).
I posted a new piece (and a request for input, and story contributions) at http://generationvet.blogspot.com where I am hoping to begin development on a play that I have wanted to work on for quite some time.
Please check it out, pass it on, and add you fity cents.
In the mean time... Stay tuned here because there's gonna be more blogging coming immediately (well, at least this weekend).
Friday, August 21, 2009
Hazel Stage Web Design :: Web Marketing Strategies with Audio
Hazel Stage Web Design :: Web Marketing Strategies with Audio
Posted using ShareThis
This was actually an experiment using one of the tools we will be demonstrating in the above mentioned (click the link) seminar this coming Thursday. Not exactly sexy, but useful in its way.
I suppose this also reflects the fact that after nearly two months away from blogging (except for the blogs I get paid to write at http://hotelmonteleoneblog.com and http://carouselbarblog.com ) I am on the verge of a sparkling return!
My 55th birthday is Tuesday... That kind of says it all.
Posted using ShareThis
This was actually an experiment using one of the tools we will be demonstrating in the above mentioned (click the link) seminar this coming Thursday. Not exactly sexy, but useful in its way.
I suppose this also reflects the fact that after nearly two months away from blogging (except for the blogs I get paid to write at http://hotelmonteleoneblog.com and http://carouselbarblog.com ) I am on the verge of a sparkling return!
My 55th birthday is Tuesday... That kind of says it all.
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