AND THE RAIN COMES DOWN.

When I left Key West my jasmine tree was in full bloom, taller than myself with bulbous bells of tiny white delicious smelling buds so that as I packed last night I was drunk on the night bloomer mingling with rainy season laden air.

I only ever travel on one-way tickets so as much as I know is I’ve come north to fetch my miserable possessions strewn over the eastern seaboard. And thank you to whomever it was with the absolute best suggestion -bonfire it shall be.

Now there is the bonus side trip to the Metropolitan Opera, opening-night quite the swell invitation. At 4 AM in the sweltering heat mingled with the sounds of the night birds calling I packed my dark wool tuxedo, my only black-tie costume.

I wonder if I can get away with flip-flops? But no, I shall be respectfully shod. One of the last times I saw the best in this field was Karajan at Salzburg.

Sometimes a childhood as privileged as mine makes regular life look like it’s in black-and-white.

Extremely privileged and yet slowly gradually pockmarked like a perfectly composed creepy story with telltale signs that all was not as I thought. I would learn.

Chances are I’ll be traveling a long while and I don’t expect my jasmine tree to make it, fussy little bitch that she is needing tender watering regularly. I didn’t get a pet, a cat or dog like I would love because I crave to touch the soft fur and have that wondrous friendship, but I deprived myself so as to be free of obligation and responsibility. Insidiously this Jasmine tree has roped me like a stalker girlfriend. I am seduced by her, she’s beautiful, she smells good, she is sensuality nightly blooming but she is needy and dependent and has become something that makes me feel guilty.

After giving away my last cat, a scene from Act III of any Tennessee Williams play -oh the anguish, I have no more heart for the guilt relationship. And yet Jasmine has got to me. And tonight in the cold north the rain is falling and I think of my tree and hope the rain is falling on her too to give her one more day of life.

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