Best City To Embrace A Broken Heart In.

Scrying antique shop windows in the city of feeling and floods, I lose my face in the Virgin de Guadalupe right next to the civil war saber and the heavy plantation keys. Three hours of rain and my boots are full of water. Lightning behind me. Like the not too distant past,it strikes and splinters the sky. It sends my aura into disarray- radiant vibrations of remembering, real enough to break down my walls and send me whirling. I'm holding my own hand trying to hold on. What a small world. How can she hold so much love and hurting?

At the coffee shop, the traveling kids adorned with bells and patches had their dogs sleeping under the table. They smelled like trains and sweat. I recognized their faces so far away from home. They are Rick's friends and she was definitely wearing his sweater. That is whats-his-name, with the van named Pheobe that we parked next to Kenai when we were all healthy and whole, calling ourselves vanarchists and van cousins. What are they doing here where I ran to to forget? I say hello and we talk, they ask about him and they tell me exactly what they were doing when they found out he was sick. We remember together and she gives me a letter. I say it's lovely to deliver a letter by hand that traveled over land and sea. She says it's very Rick. I agree. I walk out before I show too much worry. I stop in front of a window and pretend to be looking inside of something besides myself.

We need Mary's and Saviours that cry and are remembered crying. How else can we trust the divine unless they are human? And why did the traveler girl tell me she thought of me and my tarot that day as the death card of her new deck laid daydreaming in her small, pretty hand. Are there always two cities inside me, there and here never clearly marked, never clean? Marie Laveau, was it torture doubling your spirit, being at two places at once? If you could choose your remembering, what would you forget? Do all these shrines and painted portraits keep you here when you need to be somewhere else? Maybe no one is as carefree as they seem. Maybe every drunk reveller on Bourbon street has a secret pain burning inside them. Probably. Surely.

I walk away from the me in the glass and I feel so guilty for not being able to just let go and have the perfectly happy vacation in a city of constant celebrations. I want to feel completely carefree and unattached. I want to float, not fight to swim. If I could cry, that would be better than numbness.

I sit down to coffee and I hear a man singing outside. It isn't unusual. This city is full of charm and life. People are always performing, singing, selling art and destiny. On any night, rain or shine, you can find a psychic reading palms and tarot cards on a milkcrate in an alley with one candle and two bricks to sit on. But this song- I know this one and it is exactly what I need to hear. Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come." Everyone inside runs to the door to hear him. In this city everyone has a hustle and the homeless have big, amazing voices full of duende and feeling. He sings with his whole heart and body and I listen and cry. Behind him the old world cottages and colonial houses sit timelessly with gas lanterns and elaborate iron fenced balconies and lazy, enchanting spanish moss swaying in the wind. The skyscrapers jut up in the distance, perfectly out of reach. A frosty the snowman figurine leans against a palm tree. His wife waits under an awning, smiling, watching over their shopping cart as he sings. He keeps his eyes on my sister and me and we hold hands and listen. The song is so sad, but so hopeful, translating into something spoken that small seed of faith you always have deep inside you, no matter what you've been through, no matter who you've seen hurting when you couldn't help them, couldn't save them from the betrayal of bodies and flesh and time. He finishes and we drop money in his box and I run into the bathroom to cry privately. I cry hard and it feels like everything I have been through in the past two years is having its final say and leaving, happy to move onward. I realize there is no better place on earth to be sad in. Why not be broken hearted and humble and hurting here, New Orleans, where everywhere you walk, someone sings your pain right back to you as something beautiful? New Orleans, voted by me to be the best city to embrace a broken heart in.

I wipe my tears and my twin sister and I walk out into the rain. I feel so light. No pressure to pretend to be happy if I am not feeling it. But suddenly, I'm feeling it. Out of nowhere a huge crowd of people dressed in decadent Santa Claus costumes rushes past us. They are drinking and singing and all of them are half naked. They smile and cheer and try to drag us with them. We break free, laughing. We are walking to the riverfront. Seeing the Mississippi at night is big on my list. Two years ago I was driving home from Alaska and I was so surprised to find the Mississippi running way up in Minnesota. I knew things were hard and getting harder, so I left a prayer there by the shore behind a reststop and I said I'd meet it down here when it found its way. I saw where it began and now I need to see where it ends, or, at least, lets go into something greater.