existabovethenoise

I know this may come as a surprise to most of you, but Nola Darling has always been somewhat an idol and somewhat a muse in my adult life. She’s a woman aloof, but adored; young, but classic; adaptable, but certain. In so many liberating ways, she embodies the fine line between love and lust that we all need to get well acquainted with before we can say that we know and like ourselves. She lives in that intimate crevice of ourselves that we most certainly need to get familiar with well before we decide to commit to sharing that self with someone else. I like to think that Mademoiselle Darling (if she were European, she’d definitely be a Frenchie) is the most important still frame in a larger, coming of age, motion picture about finding balance between protection, pride and progress.

Perhaps, I’m the only person that sees Nola Darling and the Big Easy as one in the same being. Perchance, the modern beauty of an old soul is lost on the rest of the world. But, I have no doubt that what I saw in New Orleans has darling running all up and through it. Talk about hopeless romance… if you show me a person that hasn’t fallen in love with something about New Orleans, I’ll show you a person who is afraid of her own reflection.

I found something quite endearing about visiting a New Orleans that has so much youthful vibrancy within the remnants of a series of colonial eras piled up on top of each other. Whether in shotgun houses or on second floor porches, colonial and neo-colonial history glazed the faces of every drunken passerby and shone in the shadows cast by the hippie-dippie street dwellers, bearing filthy dogs in tow. What it is today appears to be a direct reflection of what it has always been: cultures misnamed as other cultures, living side by side with privilege and poverty, wrapped in sharp social distinctions that are only cross-cut by allowing passion, music and food to act as the currency of ‘passing.’

Darling, one thing New Orleans does not lack is passion. Somewhere embedded in resilience, passion must live, no? So, it makes perfect sense. To rebuild a city takes passion. To leave the comforts of some American metropolis elsewhere, to see what New Orleans has to offer, requires passion. To come back to the cinder block remains of your house takes a passion of proportions I have yet to fathom. To play the guitar way into nightfall, amongst bar crawlers, amid sex workers and in the face of so much work to be done after sunrise, takes passionate dedication to the potential fruit of one’s actual labor.

I’m willing to call NOLA my crush. I feel punch drunk and I don’t care what you sucker emcees have to say about it. I’m sure she doesn’t look like much to you, but I’ve been in her bed chamber and that’s a memory I won’t forget. Try as you may to tell me that she has old sewer systems, hoodoo in above ground cemeteries and Mystikal. My love doesn’t flinch. Call the politicians corrupt. Remind me that the graffiti on the houses isn’t all gang signs. Preach the injustice of the public school system. And I’ll respond that not in spite of all that, but because of all that, I’ll stay her Mars Blackmon.

Even if I have to share her with all you lames, I’m going to hold on to the bit of her I’ve got and never let her go. Because, even in her broken and exploratory state, she’s been more honest about her short comings and more inspirational in her quest to stay standing than anywhere else I’ve ever experienced. Something about watching the sunrise over the levies feels like a reflection of myself, a still frame in a larger, coming of age, motion picture about finding balance between protection, pride and progress.

Recent experiences with relationships that some people might call friendships have left me in disequilibrium as of late. I’ve pondered the existential questions that posit that we really are the company we keep. I’ve been asked about the qualitative difference between a relationship with a friend and that with a family member. Tentative conclusions? When family members become foes they may remain family, but they are definitely not friends. When friends become friends with benefits, they effectively excommunicate themselves from the family. Most foes have experienced the pleasure and privilege of friendship at some point. When people say ‘I want this friendship to grow,’ it is, in fact, code for ‘I’d like to feel on your booty now.’ (And you all wonder what I’m doing on the weekends that I don’t post… I’m living this material.)

My last two weeks have been met with nausea, headaches, tears, and over-indulgence in foods with high cocoa content, because the level of neurotic energy it takes to psychoanalyze all of my relationships makes me want to vomit, curl up in a ball, sit in a bath of epsom salt, read self help books, listen to whale music, lick my wounds and chant ‘Nam–myoho–renge–kyo,’ while “breaking dishes up in here…dishes…dishes…dishes.”

Really, I’ve been a basket case with trying to define relationships that have never served my interests. I’ve wracked my brain about why I gave up relationships with family members, and tried to replace that vacuum with friendships that were likely as fickle as the original relationship. I wonder how it is that people I’ve only hung out with while in the presence of this girl’s best friend, Sapphire, and my sexy Latin lover Patron, think that we are actually genuine, real, in this universe, friends. I’ve taken inventory of why it is that people seem to define friendship through trauma, and family as a bottomless pit of forgiveness.

I have no conclusions, just a lot of indigestion and a lot on my mind. Friendships, like all relationships, are malleable. They are reflections of the human condition – fallible and adaptive. But let’s face it, some friendships are situations of entertainment convenience that have just dragged on way too long. Others are born of a false sense of shared identity. If you have ever had your ass whooped before, during or after calling the whoop-er ‘big brother’ or ‘big sister,’ you and I need to brainstorm together how we can both mature in our friendships. Read: Something ain’t right.

I won’t bemoan the issue. I’m still exploring my ideas about the intersection between friendship, family and romantic relationships. In my exploration, though, I’ve realized how many people don’t step back and take a good solid look at with whom God has chosen to surround them (family) and with whom they’ve chosen to surround themselves (friends). To walk through life taking for granted the steps that we take in choosing the latter, and not exploring how substantive and/or superficial all those relationships might be, is – for me – to resolve to indefinitely misuse the word ‘friend.’

What I’ve found to be most astounding, though, is that while most of us haven’t put the time it takes to do the patented festival flamenco snap into our friendships, we are capable of prolonged introspection regarding romantic relationships. Think about this: X keeps telling Y they’re going to kick Z to the curb, but X keeps sneaking around because Z makes X feel like they’re floating on air. Is X even being a good friend to Y if there are lies involved? How can Y be a good partner to X if the communication isn’t there?

Ok. So, try this one: A tells B that B is the most important person in their life. B doesn’t feel the same, but feels like they can’t say anything because it would be too callus and A thinks a lot of B. So, B keeps taking A’s calls, even when B doesn’t have anything to say. A realizes a year later that the only time B initiated a phone call to A was a butt dial before Biggie died. A feels wronged by a lack of reciprocity, but B feels pretty good about sparing A’s feelings. I hear Maury BOOOOOOOOs from the crowd. This isn’t scripted though.

Let’s make this personal. Say, you are X, your best friend Y and any drug of choice Z. Would you stick it out? What if Y were your sibling? And… what if you are A and your parent is B. Is this healthy? Do you walk away? Is it ok to tolerate behavior from your significant other that you wouldn’t tolerate from your best friend? Do you forgive your siblings for things that you would end a friendship over in half a heart beat? By you, I mean YOU. Yes, YOU! These are not rhetorical questions. I want real answers. Don’t worry, I have time. I’ll wait…