Welcome back! I am saying that to myself, I am back and so pumped to get back to writing. I have been gone from this site for 5 years. So hard to believe that this much time has passed. I turned 30 last summer, this summer I turn 31. Somehow I don't feel any older. Maybe my teeth hurt more, but my body feels great.
I daze off here, must be the mushrooms kicking in. My body waves in and out of focus. Jim Morrison begins to sing to me from his place in the frame on the wall. As he ends his melody he reaches out and places a glass of mushroom tea on the table at my feet. I sit up to take a closer look. Goddamn. It is mushroom tea, and Jim Morrison handed it to me. Hah. Sweet. I grab the glass and lay back on the worn loveseat I am laying on.
I am in the living room of a low end, second story apartment on the east side of New Orleans. Some residential area about 1 1/2 miles from The French Quarter. I got here sometime yesterday, having walked the long stretch of Canal avenue in the afternoon, watching the ebb of busy city traffic making their routes around the never ending city buses. I am always entranced in the change from the French Quarter bustle to the peaceful, tree hanging side streets as I get further and further towards Devin and Marlo's place.
Devon and Marlo are lesbians I met awhile back while singing in the quarter, or maybe through my friend Puck, another homeless person in this large city of souls. Marlo is a dark skinned, tough black woman. She has a floppy head of curls and a stocky stance. Devon reminds me of a daydreamer girl from an upper middle class family. Devin's hair is short, remanicent of Winona Ryder's haircut in the 90's movie Girl Interrupted. Devin stands a few inches taller than me and with her easy going and fun attitude, kind of reminds me of my sister. How I ended up in their apartment, looking back I am not sure exactly, but I know I usually ended up places because I needed food or a place to sleep.
I need a place to sleep every night truth be told. But that is another part of the story.
The coffee table takes a few teapot size steps towards me and I leap off of the couch and half fall, half leap into the kitchen. Devon, Shanti, Puck, and one other person are standing in the kitchen looking startled and entertained by my stumbling body and laughing eyes, at this point it has hit me that I just ran away from a table. I doubt it meant any harm were it really strutting my way.
Puck is holding his glass of mushroom tea, so is Marlo. I realize I as well am holding a cup of mushroom tea. Though, really 'cup' isn't the right word, it is definitely a glass. 8 ounces of fresh brewed, fresh picked mushroom tea.
I was sleeping not even two hours ago, and it is before even the sun had rose in the morning. I giggle to remember this.
I had walked all the day before. I walked most days an average of 20 miles. I figured that out at the library a couple of weeks ago by mapping the distance from my main travel points on google maps. I felt like 20 was an underestimation, but it was something. That morning I had woke up on the top of an RV in a parking lot on the north end of Bourbon street with a touring punk band who I had met the day before and spent the night being both amused and shocked by their outrageous behavior.
The rest of the crew had gone out to pick mushrooms in the fields on the edge of the suburbs of the city.
I was tired from all my walking and Devon hands me her cup and asks if I want to eat the mushrooms, she doesn't like the texture and that is totally understandable. I, however, and totally cool to eat the mushrooms, and gobble them right down. Mashing the chewy chunks down and tipping the glass up to get the last of the tea.
The sun was still not up, and the kitchen had a very midnight feel to it, though it was nearing 5:30 in the morning.
