Mastery

My neighbor tells people their future in Jackson Square. Sometimes she is gracefully awakened by the saxophone of my other neighbor who plays. I sat next to him for a good bit at the coffee shop this morning. We spoke of creation, of the necessity of doing something daily. He told me Duke Ellington had 10,000 compositions under his credit and that he spoke of the same.

Despite this, there is something inside of me that thinks I need to be inspired before sitting down. This comes despite my telling my saxophone neighbor the opposite. This comes despite my telling the Pastor of the church who collects fruit for a pig named Dude that without sitting there is no opportunity for God to enter. 

And this is what sometimes comes. So many become perfectionists. Look at what happened to Salinger or the guy who wrote White Noise. They could not find something as good as what they did the first time. They could not satisfy themselves. But I wonder if it was themselves they were trying to satisfy. 

There is a rift that comes in sitting, that may shift to Matthew sharing what he can do with his saxophone after our talk today in the coffee shop. I have what I'm playing. These words and these situations. 

The wonder of whether I should admit to having eaten a couple of the apples meant for Dude. I did slice away what was brown. I did cook what was left with oatmeal. And I did feed the mango to the chickens. Sometimes there is this strange feeling that everything is unfolding exactly as it is supposed to, that there are lessons in every moment.

The truth is that this is happening always. So how do the eyes open to see this? How do we stop chasing? I sat with Matthew and discussed how to offer what I know to the rest of the city, how to make money growing. He told me about twitter, about the algorithms of this machine. He said I might even be so bold as to send an email to the editor of the New York Times gardening section.

So I guess that this is my letter, an explanation of how I have never eaten a pitangatuba but how I pray daily, with and without words that at sometime in the future my plant will provide fruit. In this letter, I will say…wait, I am saying that I believe that the fruit that i have found will spread throughout the city of New Orleans. I believe that at some point there might be a t-shirt with Dude the Pig, and that now that I know, I should include his story, sent to me by Pastor Teresa.

You see I read through a book by Carol Deppe about how to breed plants and I consider what I have already done, how I have taken seed, how I have adapted the now famous dwarf tamarillo to New Orleans, how I have watched this spread.

Have you heard the word invasive? Let us consider who makes the money from the sprays and poisons set forth to rid our neighborhoods of these supposed invasives. Let us consider that in National Parks throughout the United States, in the name of ecology, multi billion dollar companies now spray chemicals to get invasives under control.

I say this only because what came from me is this consideration, this way of seeing in a different light, this concern about what does and does not belong. How might I watch? How might I see? How might I encourage others on their own pursuits, to let them know that what I have found is the opportunity to find God in the simple act of sitting.

So I consider Duke Ellington while listening to Charlie Parker, and I know the grace that comes of an evening, of sitting on my porch and hearing the saxophone drift over.

I know the glory of a story.

It’s time. I should tell you what Pastor Teresa texted me about the pig. She texted me this:

Check out dude the cool pig on fb to see his story.   He was found on the streets in New Orleans with chains around his legs at the age of three. SPCA picked him up and he was adopted and taken to the North Shore. A few years ago his owner developed cancer and was trying to rehome him back to the SPCA. The SPCA called us and we met the owner and gave him a new home. Few months later his previous owner passed away.

I should tell you how Matthew lived in the French Quarter before he lived across the street, how he was practicing the flute the second or third day in that apartment and an old lady approached him.

“About your flute playing,” she said.

He braced himself for her lecture about noise and peace and quiet and can’t you see I’m an old lady sort of talk.

“Next time you’re practicing,” she said. “Open your door so we can hear better.”

I should tell you of a Russian face painter whose sometimes boyfriend came to visit when I lived across from her in the Quarter. I remember how he told me of planting cherry trees in Virginia.

“Just like your George Washington,” he said. “The first year I only got eight berries. The next year the birds got them all. Eight years later there was enough for everybody. Me, birds, neighbors. Everybody.”

I guess that’s what God wanted me to tell you today. There’s enough for everybody. But only for those who believe.