It is a chilly morning here in New Orleans. I arrived home late last night from a one day trip to New York – my fourth so far in 2020. I am first chairing a series of evidentiary hearings, so I fly up there for a short four hour hearing, and then fly home. If Delta is ever short on flight attendants, I could happily hop up to the mic and describe the snack box offerings available for sale and explain the limited-time offer to get 100,000 miles if you sign up for their credit card. I am enrolled in TSA Pre-check and Clear, so I’ve got my airport check in process to the shortest possible time. In NY I have a very set routine which helps with the discombobulation of such frequent travel – I stay in the same hotel, eat the same meals, do the same workout in the little hotel gym, etc. The stays are always very short – usually once I arrive in NY, my Delta app is prompting me to check in for my return flight. As I’ve mentioned previously, I am leaving this Firm, and so each time I fly up there I presume it is my last time – but instead these hearings keep popping up and I once more find myself rolling up my suit into a non-wrinkly little capsule in my carry-on bag and re-stocking the trail mix and Advil I keep in my purse for emergency sugar shortages/headaches on the road. So it goes.
For this last one, I flew out on Fat Tuesday. This is my second year in a row of flying out of the city on Fat Tuesday – last year I went to Puerto Rico for a conference. (Next year I’d like to STAY HERE and walk in St. Anne’s on Fat Tuesday.) While annoying, it could have been worse – I am happy I got to be here to enjoy Lundi Gras and all the revelry that came before. It was a wonderful Carnival season – my sister came to town with her 2 year old and infant, and the whole family really enjoyed the street fair atmosphere of the parade season. Carnival 2020 was a time of beautiful weather and precious, blessed community connection, that was also somewhat marred by the first 2 (TWO!) float-crush deaths in years. (A child was crushed by a float in 1981, and a rider was run over by a float and killed in 2008 – that’s been it, until this year). The deaths occurred on different nights during different parades – each of the revelers was a 58 year old who was jostled or tripped in between tandem floats and crushed beneath the wheels in a horrific accident. (Floats are pulled by tractors – a tandem is a series of floats connected much like train cars are connected, all pulled by a single tractor. The folks who died somehow found themselves in the gap between two floats and could not escape.) There will be new safety measures next year – ideally, captains will walk along the route and guard the gaps, although there are all sorts of different ideas. As Mardi Gras gets more and more crowded year over year (especially during seasons of beautiful weather, like this year), there will have to be discussions about what to do to prevent these tragedies. As for this year, after each death, you could sense the crowds were hyper-vigilant. Adults snatched back any children around them, whether they knew the kid or not, and I myself threw my arms out every time a throw fell close to a float and glared at any kid who looked like they might walk forward and grab it (“Wait until the float goes by!”). People took care for their drunk friends, pushing them to sit down away from the route, and we all talked about it unceasingly – about what to do, about how to keep this precious festival and also keep everyone safe. Jack, for his part, lectured every younger child he met about safety at the parade. It was sort of beautiful, our collective concern for each other, the communal care, even while it was also tremendously, heartbreakingly sad.
I will share some photos in another all-picture post for those who would like to see. Pictures can’t do justice to the atmosphere of community. America is divided, our communal fabric torn apart by forces that make money and/or power from driving us to hate each other. But here at Carnival, those drop away, and I feel a sense of community that is unparalleled, and part of why we still live here. It is a difficult place to live as a practical matter, but it’s also a place where people cling to each other, regularly choose community over wounding self righteous anger. A balm for the weary soul. We aren’t perfect – our schools are segregated, our housing is becoming increasingly available only for a tiny percent of the very rich, gentrification/air bnbs and resulting property taxes are challenging our poorer long-term residents. But at Mardi Gras, everybody wants to be up front to see Muses and catch themselves a glittery shoe, and the parade route is only so long, so gay couples end up elbow to elbow with Trump supporters, rich private school kids run up and down the street with poor kids in failing schools, and black people and white people mix more than they do just about anywhere else. You guys, it’s kind of wonderful, and I want to write a book about it, in a Bill Bryson style that mixes present-day experience with a little history and humor.
And now Fat Tuesday has ended, and our season of Carnival is through. I still have an absolute mountain of throws to go through in my living room, and the Mardi Gras decorations need to come down (including our trusty old Christmas/Mardi Gras tree). But the season of celebration and gluttony is over, yielding to the penitent crucible of Lent.
This time of year is slowly overtaking Halloween as my favorite season. I absolutely love fall – the dwindling of the really hot days, a new school year, the creative ghoulishness of Halloween, college football starting up, the anticipation of the winter holidays. But it is a season of busy-ness. There is little time left over for contemplation and silence, in between each of the holidays. The season stretching from Twelfth Night through Easter is different. We have the festival of Mardi Gras, stretching over several weeks and culminating in what we call “Thoth Sunday” (Thoth is a big parade that rolls the Sunday before Fat Tuesday) and Lundi Gras (“Fat Monday”), and the beautiful, belligerent, often somewhat weary feasting on Fat Tuesday. And then comes Ash Wednesday and Lent – a time of quiet reflection and penitence, that is followed by Holy Week and Easter.
Given that this season of the year happens to fall on a season of my life that is quite reflective (i.e. looking for a new job, watching my children transition into Bigger Kids, getting further into my forties and all the Mid Life Feelings that brings), and also that my billable pressures have eased up somewhat and left me room for thought, I’ve made some commitments to myself this Lent. I have chosen to give up alcohol as my Lenten penitence (which is more of a Catholic thing, but whatevs – I steal what traditions I like!) My wine and bourbon have become an important part of each evening – my reward for a hard day – and so I decided that in order to set myself up for success, I needed something to replace them. I have my fancy teas and last night I enjoyed the most exquisite orange blossom tea after my flight and before bed – yum. But I also wanted something contemplative, something for me to focus on in the evenings if I needed help to get through a desire for wine on a particularly hard day. I googled around for ideas, and eventually settled on a choice that spoke to me.
First, I thought of my meditation practice, which is patchy but largely consistent. I find it easiest to meditate if I focus on something – a word or two, usually “in” and “out” as I breathe in and out – so I decided that having something to focus on would be helpful here, too. Eventually I landed on prayer beads. I looked at rosaries, Muslim prayer beads, and Mala beads, and eventually settled on the latter – mostly because they apparently smell pretty. (I later realized that these are the beads mentioned in Eat Pray Love, which I only recently read – that’s probably why I was subconsciously drawn to them and also probably why they are EVERYWHERE). Having settled on those, I thought that I’d like to have some handy short prayers to pray, one for each bead, rosary style. After a little searching, I settled on a pocket set of the Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle. This is a modern re-working of the monastical fixed-hours prayer – one for morning, one for evening, and several in between (vespers, compline, etc.). There are several sets of the Divine Hours that are large and contain different prayers for every day, based on the season. This particular one, though, is designed to be small and fit in your purse, so it just has a set of prayers for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc. – one for each day of the week, which are to be repeated each week, plus a few bonus extras for specific holidays or needs (illness, grief, Easter, etc.) in case you want to replace one.
And there you have my Lenten practice. A mixture of traditions – monastic, some Hindu, some Buddhist and meditative, and a little traditional Christian (but with a slightly Catholic bent). I have removed a practice that was a coping mechanism for stress and pain (i.e. nightly alcohol treats) and affirmatively replaced that practice with contemplation, spiritually centered, rhythmic and pre-determined (to keep it easy to do). I am not particularly good at keeping up routines like this – they can sometimes feel like a trap – but I’d like to do it this time for forty days and see if I can find some freedom in the self-imposed constraints.
Spring is coming, loved ones! All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
I love what you have chosen for Lent. I hope it works out well for you!