Bayou and Gulf: Search and Find

After a long night in New Orleans, complete with a five-star meal of bbq shrimp (with bibs! the photos are hilarious!), jambalaya, blueberry margaritas, and more; live jazz; intense conversation; long walks by the bay; an interesting political conversation with a man who coordinates a lot of peace events in New Orleans, and who is also the bouncer at the Pirate, and who is well into his 60s; and an endless drive through the Bayou to find a place to sleep... we awake in the middle of a wheat field. The ground is soft, muddy almost, and we have slept soundly in the tent all night, only to wake up hot and sticky from the humidity and rising sunshine. I marvel at how it is possible to follow a farm road in far enough so that you are almost lost, and then stop and pitch a tent right there on the side of the road in the middle of the field. I wake groggily, change clothes, and we are off. We traverse the road several times, searching for the historic plantations that seem never to really exist.

We visit the Oakwood Plantation and we walk around with the heaviness of the place, which seems unrecognized by the generally white tourists who peruse the grounds oohing and ahhing and making photographs. To me, this is not a glistening spectacle, but is rather an apparition, a malady in the beautiful swamp landscape that juts out of the ground with all the arrogance of the antebellum era. Imagining that there were slaves here once, reading the list with their names and worth in dollars, and looking at the place where their houses used to stand (of course they were built for impermanence and left to rot), all made me sick to my stomach. I found solace in the thick old oak trees lining the path: their mossy roots, strong trunks, and drooping, full branches. I took off my shoes and allowed myself to touch the soil despite all the warnings about bugs and worms. Grounding on the grounds of servitude and domination. I am in Tzadik's arms crying about personal connections and about this place. Then we are jumping over a small ravine, through flocks of dragonflies, illusions, and into a new world, or at least a new dimension.

Then we search for real Bayou cooking in a local restaurant, which is equally as difficult--lots of hole in the wall greasy chicken places and fast food chains, and even a brand new Walmart, but no roadside stands to get fresh cooked seafood or real Cajun cuisine on the cheap. We even try visiting a biker bar, which reveals a big confederate flag and is totally dark and creepy inside. We end up at a roadside cafe where we get our boiled shrimp and gumbo after all, but not until several hours later.

That night we intend to get to Austin, but when I pull over for gas in eastern Texas I realize that I am too tired to keep going. Out of nowhere, I see a small brown sign pointing to the left that reads, "Beach 20 miles," and so we decide to go to the beach. We drive down a small road and emerge out on the peninsula of the Gulf of Mexico. We park at an RV lot and walk out onto the beach, where we see bright, looming lights casting nets of florescent rays onto the muddy green water. Upon closer inspection, we find at least a dozen surfers surfing in the middle of the night! It turns out that Hurricane Dennis has generated these larger than normal waves, the surfers have flocked to the scene, and someone is filming them surfing. I find this fascinating and we watch and run around the beach, all the while innocent of the hordes of sand bugs that are attacking and biting us.

We camp by the road further down and spend a beautiful night under the stars, almost bug free, entirely in love. At night the sky is full of lightning and thunder. In the morning, a double rainbow.