Compass & Quill

So many Mardi Gras days under the bridge. It’s not a happy day for me. Maybe once it was, but I can’t remember any solid examples to lend that thought creedence. I keep wanting to turn it around, make it into a day of wildness and magick, the way it feels it should be. I want it to be a Bacchanalia, to be mad with wine and desire, but instead I keep it on an even keel. I walk around the city, maybe wear a mask and some sparkly clothes. I have a few drinks, do some people watching, then retire in the early evening to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for the rest of the week. I guess that makes me old and boring.

For me, the joy of Mardi Gras stopped that morning when I woke up in your bed without you. In the kitchen, WWOZ was listing out the day’s concert information, interspersed with snippets of old time carnival songs. You’d be playing your own songs that afternoon on Frenchmen Street. The sun streamed weakly through the windows of the pink house, falling in bars across that futon mattress on the floor. I lay there, thinking that I’d already missed Zulu, and would probably miss Rex at this rate. I wondered how I’d get downtown. I felt regret, but it was bigger than a missed parade. There was distance between us that had nothing to do with carnival plans.

It rained that afternoon. But doesn’t it rain every Mardi Gras?