The Bare Necessities – Music, Art, friends and Home.

So, I took a bunch of pictures over the past two days.  Notice the artists and the musicians so involved in what they are doing.  There are tarot card readers and I believe the men on the stoop work at a hotel.   Corporate America is missing the the color and whimsy and music that makes life important.  Should we tell them?

Home of a million memories.

Old Friends creating art

dream home

one of many balcony gardens

music and art

Stella missed this one

Where the most important discussions are held and life altering decisions are born.

Jazz band playing near the Hard Rock Cafe

This is my cup of tea.

These are some photos I took while walking the tracks a week ago.  It was a good visit with Sally, my aunt who died today but will live forever in my memory.  She is so much like my mother that I won’t have time to miss her.  At 90 years old after a long illness, she deserves a rest.

The roses are Steve’s roses at the office.  He said they were beautiful before the last big storm.  I cannot imagine roses any more beautiful.  The tracks I walked are the sepia colored photo and the chair is one that Burt made and still sits behind the office in Wesson.

Still, the weeds outnumber the cultivated flowers – kind of like people.  Finding yourself in a person who is less than cultivated makes life interesting and reminds us that everyone deserves compassion.

So, it appears that I have a new part time home.  The last time I went to Clarksdale, I found myself almost depressed.  It took effort to find the change they promised on the red piano on the sidewalk.  On this visit, I got to know a couple of my client’s employees and I found that I really liked them.  I stayed at the Shack Up In and loved it.  The shacks were exactly that – shacks.  It is hard to find a shack there because blues musicians from all over the world congregate there.  Late into the evening you can hear a song if you listen real hard.  The people were quirky.  It must be a requirement for hire.  There was no internet in my shack so I couldn’t work all night long and I actually was up to see the sunrise on the mornings I was there.  I regret that taking pictures at dusk is not something I have had a lot of practice with but I am posting them just to prove I was up and about at the crack of dawn.

It looks like I will be headed north again next week.  It is harmonica camp week.  Maybe my opinion will change.

The Iris Time of Year

I love Irises.  In addition to everything else, they remind me of Hopi Jones who used to grow them by the side of her house and paint them – well pictures of them, anyway.  Hopi and I lived, by virtue of our circumstances, in Jamaica.  She lived directly down the hill from us.  When I bought my first house in Baton Rouge 15 years later, Hopi owned the one next door.  We hadn’t spoken to each other since our time in Jamaica but it seemed sort of normal somehow.

It is spring and we have irises.  I will quit photographing them when they quit blooming.  Click the thumbnail to see larger.

 

Afton Villa

Afton Villa gardens is what’s left of a grand Southern home where now decay and new growth come together to create beauty.  The raw ingredients of all that is beautiful aren’t always so beautiful but the truth that lies in nature’s beauty is unwavering.  I think life would be better if everyone spent some time in a garden now and then.