“Starry-eyed and laughing, as I recall when we were caught.” - Bob Dylan: Chimes of Freedom
I remember it in two distinct scenes.
It was right after Halloween in New Orleans. I was staying at the Writer’s House. There were three of us on the third floor balcony. It was way past midnight. Smoke wisping in the air, conversation too. And the pumpkins… they were rotting.
Words like time passed. Never to be known again. At some point she looked down at the pumpkins… rotting.
“We’ve got to get rid of these pumpkins,” she said, “they’ve been sitting here for so long.”
“More than a month now,” I said.
From behind me another said “I guess we can get rid of them tomorrow.”
There was no response. Except now all of us were looking at the pumpkins. Suddenly, she picked one up and held it for a while. She looked down, past the balcony to the street. We just watched her, no one said a word. She threw the pumpkin off the balcony into the street where it smashed into pieces. It took a while, but everyone started laughing hard.
It wasn’t long before another pumpkin went off, then another. Until the street was littered with smashed pumpkins. We went wild every time a car came and drove over one. It would inevitably send more pumpkin guts flying.
From behind me I heard “This is fun! This is what life is supposed to be like!”
Luckily in the French Quarter street cleaning is nearly every day. By the time we woke up, it was like it never happened.
The second scene was at the same location, just downstairs. Near the carriageway entry, where the pumpkins had previously smashed. We were all sitting street-side playing music. Same cast of people, but add in the occasional passerby. We were all playing with our fingers and singing from our hearts.
Bilau heard the commotion we were making and approached us with his guitar in hand. He was the curator of an art gallery across the street from the property. We saw a lot of him, he was a nice guy. Dark skin, deep voice and grave. You could tell he’d been smoking for a while. He joined in and played and sang with us. He would strum a G chord but the way he’d move his body and feet, you would've thought he was doing a Hendrix-type solo. He was funny.
We went on playing into the night. No one can remember how long. But at one point I heard behind me “This is really living! This is what it’s really supposed to be like! This is real fun!”
Sometimes it is just the simple things. But one day Death will find me and when he does I hope he finds me starry-eyed and laughing.
Your a man out of time. I hope you read my stories and see how I tried to live life till it ground me to burger
I see part of my younger self in you.