Wrangler Dani

I admit it, for my first 31 days post, I’m phoning it in with a piece I’d already written earlier this fall. But somebody I trust liked it, and it boosted my confidence, and I wanted to share, so here you go:

Embattled, deep in spiritual awakening and the fear that attends it, I wandered through the streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, looking for something.

I wanted something to remember the moment, something better than a key chain or a t-shirt, for this had not been a simple check-in-to-hotel-eat-nice-food-check-out kind of trip. This had been an adventure of the soul, one that could not be fabricated or recreated or ever even fully remembered, at least not in its truest form.

I moseyed into a pottery shop, aimlessly, my mind on the things I’d seen all week, the tears I cried, the hands I’d held. Then I saw it – curved and welcoming, asking to hold eight ounces of chicory coffee and all of the memories I’d acquired in the Big Easy. It was butter yellow, that soft shade in-between fresh cream and bright sunshine, the perfect shade that my friends think of when they think of me, the color that I’m naturally drawn to, not the color that I try to like.

This morning I drank my coffee from it as I do every morning, felt it’s warmth under my fingertips and the uneven texture of a piece lovingly handmade. I thought of a dirty, little-known street in New Orleans, of a potter wearing a grey fedora, broken fingernails and a gentle smile, of a tiny shop filled with his work and no one to sell it to. No one except me, and I was grateful for the gift of his craft, the work of his hands. I still am.