taken from the bridge on Hwy 10 over the Mississippi at Baton RougeOur trip took me over familiar territory, since I once lived in Louisiana and used to spend some time down in Baton Rouge, both for the music and to visit friends.
I can't drive through that area without my mind going back over the last seven years, which was the time I moved from California to Louisiana. I often think back as to the reasons that I left California, some good, some maybe not so good, but once I had made up my mind there seemed to be no turning back. So I flew out to look at a place up near Jena, 10 acres, and during this visit I fell in love with the state of Louisiana. It is hard to describe why, maybe it was the still and welcoming calm that I felt in the dead of night when I arrived, at 4am. I had flown into Houston, rented a car and drove to Jena. Someone told me it was a four hour drive, well it was more like five, but who's counting? I came into the town of Tullos at about 4am, and the only sounds were the sounds of the night creatures, an owl, some animal rustling in the woods, and the chung, chung, chung of oil being pumped from the ground. I was not familiar with this sound and I thought it was someone playing drums off in the distance.
The house that I went to see, was not sold to me, I think they were afraid to sell their land to a lady from California. So they made up some last minute excuses, one being, I was the third person in line to make an offer on the place. It would have been nice if they had told me this on the phone before I made a plane trip, rented a car and drove 200 miles. By this time I had made up my mind I was moving to Louisiana, so I looked around and found a beautiful five acres in Effie, about 60 miles south of Jena. I bought it in December, moved in May, started the kids in school with less than three weeks to go, and then we spend a wonderful summer just enjoying the country and fixing up the house. When school started again, nothing went right, they hated the school, they hated Louisiana, they hated having to learn French, so we moved to Georgia. But I left my heart in Louisiana. I still own the house, I still have all of my furniture there, my family memento's I had to bring with me here, but everything I have here I have bought in the last seven years. When I want to see MY STUFF, I must drive to Effie.
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4 comments:
you left your heart there? oh...why dont you move back if you really love Louisiana? well...i shan't comment further...:)
anyway how you manage to find out my art blog? anyway i haven't update the blog so it's considered half death already...you can exclude that Nea :)
take care and glad you are back!
Hi Elween, a person is supposed to leave their heart in San Francisco, huh, haha. Well I left mine in Louisiana. :) Someday I will move back, but the kids aren't out of school yet. I am hoping when they do, I will be able to move back there. But maybe not, then I won't be near any of my kids, and that won't do either. Decisions, decisions. haha Isn't that what life is all about. Making good decisions. I have made many that weren't so good.
I don't know how I found your art blog, but if you say it isn't being kept up, then I will exclude it, I just thought it was nice, also. I used to have about three, but I like you, found it hard to keep more than one going. It is time consuming to blog....but I enjoy it.
It's a shame your kids didn't settle when you loved the place so much. We have to make sacrifices for our kids don't we. x
Hi Akela, I see that you understand, we just make sacrifices for the good of the majority. I had two kids that were not doing well, and I was feeling guilty. I just couldn't stay, because I loved the place when everyone else was so miserable, they were making me feel awful. It hasn't been a bed or roses here in Georgia, because I gave up a lot, but it was the only thing that I could do.
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