My eyes are still drying.
About 10 minutes ago, listening to Tom Waits' Small Change, track 4 came on — "I wish I was in New Orleans." I sat on Molly's lap and cried hard on her shoulder. It's been 13 days since the storm and yet up until just now I was able to deal with the mulitude of hardships that came with it, until that song came on. I just couldn't keep the cap on the bottle anymore, and the tears ran hotly down my face and onto her shirt. I shuddered a lot and wheezed a little bit, while sniffling back the nasal discharge that always comes with weeping. With a trembling finger, I dabbed a tear from the bridge of my nose and pressed it to Molly's lips.
Well, I wish I was in New Orleans
I can see it in my dreams
arm-in-arm down Burgundy
a bottle and my friends and me
Despite how generally goofy that song is, it's always touched me deeply, even before I moved to New Orleans six years ago. Tonight revealed why.
I'd had a feeling that that song would have such an effect on me. I guess that's part of why I wanted to hear it. I'd been feeling downtrodden and depressed all day up to tonight, and those feeling culminated with a teary outburst the likes of which I haven't experienced since Waka died. That realization made me cry harder, since I still don't know the fate of Pepper and Jena, and that I will be truly devestated and inconsolable if/when I find out they've died, or if I don't ever find them.
I miss my kitties, and I want to go home. I want a sense of security and the serenity of safety. I'm not asking for much. I'm not even asking for anything at all, since such an asking would require a belief in a diety, which I lack.
I just want to go home to my previous life. My adult life thus far has been centered on non-conformity and abnormality, but I crave normalcy now like nothing else I've ever known.
And meet me at the old saloon
make sure there's a Dixie moon
New Orleans, I'll be there
Take me home. Please. Take me home.
Lyrical interludes by Tom Waits ©1976
CST Approved