GPS Rumi

Artist: Jenny Gould (http://www.jennygould.com/Contemporary.htm)

The show is over. The apartment fell through. (I am apartment hunting...again). My duet partner is on vacation. Michael Jackson is dead.

New Orleans feels like a jungle to me now. It is very hot. Hot enough for even New Orleanians to comment upon. Staying cool is 24/7 mental preoccupation: always at least 7 frozen water bottles in the freezer. Whenever I return home -- very often drenched in sweat -- I get out of my clothes and hold a frozen bottle or ice pack between my knees. Near-instant air conditioning. Thanks to Karo for that tip.

I'm hot. And in a sort of limbo work-wise. The studio is closed to students for one week after today. The show just ended (I did not quit, but I am not sure the bridge has not been burned... (See "Burning Bridges" post.)) My initial plan was to investigate other musical theater options in the area after this show closed; instead, I am looking for a place to live. Hustling work will have to wait at least a week.

The landlord at the former "new place" turned out to be an emotionally fragile middle-aged attorney who felt threatened by my questions about the apartment:

1. Where is the key to the mailbox?
2. How do guests (and my students) either get through the entry gate or let me know they seek entry? Would it be okay to install a doorbell and/or give them the pass code?
3. I know you don't require a lease, but could we put something in writing, to protect both of us?

Yeah, I know. I mean, I know now. Lots of people find my inquisitive nature off-putting or intimidating. Lots of people are emotionally fragile. I am, too, at times. I suppose I knew subconsciously that I ran the risk of creating a problem between us by asking questions. And I tried to convince myself that none of those things mattered enough to take the risk. Obviously they retained sufficient significance and I posed the questions. And the poor man exploded.

Today I am hunting through internet ads and making phone calls. What is it with landlords in New Orleans?! Duplicitous, paranoid, greedy, sloppy.... My sense is that "good" landlords are in the minority here. Or renting properties I can't afford.

And Michael Jackson's death. Observing the absence of emotional or intellectual resonance in my response to the event. It reminds me a lot of Christmas: being surrounded by people who care a great deal about something that holds little or no importance for me.

My piano duet partner is on vacation until next week. I'm a little surprised by how desperately I am hoping for her return, hoping she hasn't lost interest. Our weekly rehearsals were tremendously invigorating. After a month of focusing on the score for "Wanna Play," I am ready to return to "my" music. Oh, Amanda! Please don't leave me....

I'm forgetting my mantra: "I have everything I need", feeling needy because my life involves so many ending or pending situations right now. Where is solid ground?

Artist: Anita Desmoyers

I don't know.

Then, just a moment ago, I checked my email and found this Rumi gem in a post from Brian:

Sometimes you enter the heart.
Sometimes you are born from the soul.
Sometimes you read a song of separation.
It is all the same glory.

You live in beautiful forms,
and you are the energy that breaks form.
All light, neither this nor that.

Human beings go places on foot.
Angels, with wings.
Even if they find nothing but rains and failure,
you are the bright core of that.

-Rumi

OK. Rumi as psychic GPS device. It works.