We are declaring ourselves (my brilliant, PTSD musician husband, two puppy mill refugee Bull Terriers, both with PTSD, 2 cats, both entertained by our Addams-esque antics, and me, your PTSD/MST haunted, Pagan connector of dots. Your pattern seer and constant Cassandra (told you so) host): "New Orleans in Exile." We are readying our Classic 46.5 Pacemaker Flybridge motor yacht to live the live aquatic in the Caribbean in retirement.
At will, we will travel in our sumptuous sea condo, will we? I'm one of the last of the Nuanced writers.
We are leaving the hive. Our late 60s past is calling. We're not retiring - we're going 'On Sabbatical.'
I tend to wander in strange directions as I assume my Cronehood and start my 'I learned this' for the dead bloggers files. I'm no longer a competitor, I'm a spectator. And judge. My niece plays in an amazing school band. Competitive Music and dance/gymnastics instead of sports. I LOVE it!!!!!! Getting to watch the seeds we planted bloom. Who could ask for more in life? My mother's father, Stephan Barron, was a devoted Irishman, close to the Old Country. The Barron clan's motto translates to "Fortune Favors the Bold." And according to my loving, but bewildered family, "Impetuous" is the genteel and kind way of describing my life since the comedy of my birth.
And! I have company, this time. The problem of running wild and free is that you're not one of the pack. You barely register them. Unless or until you have to. Thid time, my house goes with me, like Baba Yaga, whose house walked about on chicken legs.
Thank you, Nerds. Geeks. The people who bring us more, better and faster ways to connect to each other instantly. Visually, emotionally and unabashedly.
Or as we used to call it: Telepathy. We did it! We did it! We did it!
The bullies are restive, and we're hitting the local riverside bistro/bar for dinner. Love the first of the month!
And I'm pleased to be able to watch as the world goes telepathic. If I was part of it, I probably wouldn't be able to connect so many dots. I'm ready to be the voice of the old ways. Doctorate in American Studies will do that for you. Being a 2nd Lt. in the Air Force in 1977 will do that to you.
I am also past my technological competence. It's new magic. I'm tired of new spells and rituals of communication.
If my attention span holds up, I'll use this as my journal. Another glorious leap into the unknown. Just like accepting that commission, guessing what was ahead, but grossly underestimating how quickly resistance would fade. How a deeply corrupted Congress would sell womens' citizenship to the 'Moral Majority' - an oxymoron, since it was neither. (PTSD)..
look! It's Haley's Comet!!! Now. Where were we?
Ah, yes. F*ck it. We quit. Better the unknown than 'settling.' As Lyle Lovett sang: (How do I find and link to the file?)
But Tonto, he was smarter, and one day said: Kimosabe. Kiss my ass. I've bought a boat. And I'm heading out to sea."
Off we go.........
I'm an obsessive connect the dottter. Dotty. CTD Disorder.. Sheldon. Sorry.
When I'm long gone, This will still be there. Or not. But calculating the arc of connectivity, this journal has a million times better chance of survival than my Grandmother's.
After a nightmare few years in New Orleans (not the immediate post -Katrina ones) We are going into self-imposed Exile. The VA finally conceded defeat, and the portion of back pay we received (still waiting, VA..) wouldn't claw us out of our mortgage and medical bills.
So we invested the money in a yacht. But not just any yacht. Sabbatical is one of the few remaining Pacemaker 46 tri-cabin luxury motor yachts. Pacemaker was entwined with pacemaker, egg harbor, historyof Egg Harbor yachts.
Words used to be Sacred. (Leonard Schlain's "Alphabet versus the Goddess.") Now, with information so generalized, the delicate differences in meaning that make reading so emotional are rather quaint, right now. We're involved in reincorporating the role of the visual impact in our worldview. The direct line to our souls. Emotion without barriers. Research suggests Hitler (stay with me!!!) was so effective with a population that was overwhelmingly literate (90+%) was that they didn't have a way to filter the immediate emotional messages of radio broadcasts. And the group emotional experience of the films like "Will of a Nation" were the Superbowl spectacle of the time. a common cultural 'feeling.'