New Orleans, LA, Summer of 1987
Innocence and Magic
We had only been here a few days when my family went
to a park my Dad calls a swamp. Baby alligators
on lily pads surrounded the wooden trail that winds through heavy trees and
screeching cries of creatures unknown.
It was there I saw my first and only unicorn. I saw
her as I leaned over the bottom railing, too short to see the point of view
everyone else did. I saw her hoof prints
first and my eyes followed them to her lovely eyes. Her mane was the color of the moss hanging
thick and rich from the trees. Her body
was a ghostly breath against the wildly green terrain. She was taller than a horse and a great deal
more slender.
And her eyes… There was something terrible and
lonely in her eyes as she looked back in me. I stared at her as hard as I could,
trying to memorize her; I knew I would never see her again. She stepped back and back and back, into the
shadows, watching me gently until she vanished forever into the trees.
The sun is hazy this morning as it filters through
humid branches covered in bright caterpillars.
Wild onions and magnolia trees scent the air and my sweat makes the
mosquito bites on my legs itch. It is
important to wear shoes here; there are many things that bite.
I see dark clouds down the river’s edge where
black water moccasins dance on the surface.
I know welcome rain will soon arrive to clear this heavy humid day. Far away, the Wind Woman is grinning and I
grinned too.
Not just a reprieve from the heat, rain brings an
exciting treat. Rain means toads and
frogs will lay slippery strings full of eggs in giant puddles that will form into
miniature lakes that will spread through streets and sidewalks and stay for a
week. I will carefully collect thick
gooey strands; draping them around my fingers and arms to bring back to my aquarium.
Mom has perched it on the bathroom counter, already filled with water, ready
for my mess. Once deposited, I will
stare at them daily until the strings melt away and eggs turn into tadpoles and
tadpoles into minuscule frogs and toads.
Magic.
That next spring, the children’s Mardi Gras parade dazzled my eyes with glaring Green, Purple and
Yellow. Pounding music dashed ear drums as beads and candy rained in a torrent
of glittering paper confetti. Masks on
stilts sprang by as jazz popped from golden instruments. The bewildering and spectacular floats, rolled by, heavy and slow, weighted down with audacious colors and themes. King Cake be doled out daily at school was created with clapping as each waited to see who found the plastic baby and then each of us created our own masks in art class
for the week.
As
it became early summer, the sun became even hazier in the humid branches
covered in bright dangerous caterpillars.
Wild onions and magnolia trees scented the air and my sweat made the mosquito
bites itch terribly.
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