I have decided to save all my driving practice for New Orleans. By then, I will have enough road sage saved up to make up for whatever skills or experiences I may lack, and hopefully enough to counter the city traffic. I hope to be scary in my big car. :)

A month ago, I learned something so earth-shattering it mentally shoved me into a state of limbo. Turns out certain things (or people) refuse to be buried. Turns out, it was never a ghost. Turn out, it was never past-tense. Turn out, I get a second chance... A second chance to examine some bandaged wounds, not yet scars, but no longer dripping with ignorance and stubbornness.

I anticipate no ownership or acquisition, only knowledge. And the truth shall set me free. =)

I have a people-I-cherish list. So dear are its occupants that they are unrankable by either importance or affection. Last Tuesday night I went to Books-A-Million to see Mrs. H, where she is in a knitting group with a bunch of girls/ladies/mothers/grandmothers. She brought me plastic knitting needles with blue yarn, and I began to knock out a scarf.

Sitting along side those women, I felt myself in the middle of an Amy Tan novel. They weren't Chinese, and I wasn't separated by some generational/cultural gap, but their quick hands and quicker conversation so strangely focused my perspective. How lucky they are to have a grandchild who needs a pink scarf and a pink hat, to have an unborn baby demanding a prayer blanket, to have a friend sitting close by so when the scarf/hat/blanket start to look unlike a scarf/hat/blanket, they can just lean over and ask for help.

Mrs. H went with her daughters, and I wondered at my own haste to leave home. What was my hurry anyway? Independence in the sense of emotional and physical distance is over-rated. Really, it is.

I'm leaving Shreveport forever... my home for the past 11 years. It is my personal belief that once a home, always a home.