Masquerade parade

April is tricky; it holds the best and the worst moments in my life. Reflecting upon the day in City Park when We said “I do” — i fly high. Blooms and buds and love abounds. Recalling the moment He was hit, and later transitioned — i free fall. Cement and machines and permanent stillness. The mind tries to forget, but the cells remember.

So i usually try to ‘be gone’ from wherever my home base is for the entire month of April.

Destination Camping:
Backyard

Anniversary with Tommy 

Navigating daily life in a different locale keeps the mind stimulated…and distracted. (i did take one journey to commemorate our anniversary…to camp out back in our thirty-year old tent.) However this year there is a viral pandemic. There is no travel, diversionary or otherwise. Instead, there are sheltering-in-place orders and the world’s people are donning masks for protection.

 

Back in 2011, dear Mia designed a kerchief to be waved in the second-line at Tom’s Fare-Thee-Well.

Musician Alex
New Orleans

Designer Mia
New Orleans

Forward to early April 2020. Mia texts me a photo wearing the same kerchief as a mask. Seeing Tom’s image come to life in that way instills a sense of…sangfroid (look it up, i did). Then on Easter Sunday a photo arrives from another New Orleans friend, Alex, also wearing the bandana as a mask.

Earlier that morning my twin, Kurt, had sent me an audio message. In it, to playfully annoy his children, he belted out a best-I-ever-heard classic rendition of an old Easter Sunday school hymn about Christ’s resurrection, “He Lives!” Beholding Alex’s picture, I shout the chorus with name replacement, “He Lives! Tom Lives!” Tom Epps has been conjured to this earthly realm, and i ache for more. So i ask.

Looking back from the perspective of May, i feel shamefully selfish for that solicitation. And in light of our new surreal real, those sentiments seem trivial. But the sugar kindness in wearing Tom’s kerchief, breathed life into his image…and thereby, into me. In this time of unprecedented uncertainty and isolation, i feel neither. We are family, friends…we’re in our cells, our selves.

COMIC RELIEF AUDIO: HE LIVES by Kurt Miller

Stay well, please.

my Marcy
New Orleans

my Ryan
New Orleans

cousin Jenny
Cleveland

darlin’ Judith
Galveston

oh Nadene
Mendocino

artist Julie
Mendocino

cousin Beth
B’ham

Jo Joanna
Cleveland

cousins Guy and Jenna
B’ham

chef Marc
Mendocino

pal Cally
Mendocino

cousin Andy, namesake Thomas
Charleston

nephew Scotty
Los Angeles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sweet Anissa
Hermosa Beach

Julie’s Totem

nephew Brad honey
Hermosa Beach

Elvis Epps

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Ya’ll:

You are so beautiful to me. – Joe Cocker (had to)

You didn’t have to love me like you did
But you did, but you did
(And I thank you) – Sam and Dave

Hey Virus:

Don’t let us get sick
Don’t let us get old
Don’t let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight.  – Warren Zevon

 

 

 

 

 

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