Our Affair with Neda

     Halfway through the movie, “Streetcar Named Desire,”  Blanche is getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon alone in Stan & Stella apartment.  First she hears the flower ladies on the street calling, selling flowers for the dead.  Then a teenaged boy knocks at the door collecting for the paper.I think the name of the paper is the Sun, he’s collecting for the Sun. She tells him, “Don’t you just love these afternoons in New Orleans after a summer rainstorm they are like little slices of eternity.” 

When I first heard that line I was awestruck. I fell into that bit of eternity Blanche talks about.  I not only took it into my heart I visited with it and stayed awhile.    

Not only is it a good Idea to notice things and pay attention its a good Idea to pay them a proper visit, stay awhile, have some cookies and tea with a little whiskey in it.  

    Sue is napping, I am sitting outside under the awning reading, “Under the Volcano.” A green dragon fly lites on my boot Lowers and rests its four nylon stocking wings on my toe, looks nervously around at our camp site. Its brainy eyes ponder the warm afternoon. Wasps on the hunt under the picnic table---Children screaming off through the woods at the water park---Olive dip & beer---I play my bamboo flute and all the frogs start up--- Eddie & May May start up in the next camp site.  They are an old married couple from Punta Gorda Florida.  In their 80’s with heavy New York accents. They have entered into what they call their second retirement, their third or forth childhoods. They get into an argument on what number of childhoods they are in. The Hawaiian shirt Eddie wears makes him look like a 10 year old. Eddie explained how here he is Jewish and he retired in a marina development on a canal and the property is in the shape of a swastika. Oy vey. They are a very nice couple; instant old friends; funny