cold

It was a snowpacolypse.

The late January 2026 ‘lypse.

It was madness to go outside, but my friend with the four wheel drive got his car running, and we were off.

I was wearing: regular underwear (sorry), two pairs of long underwear, a dress, a long skirt, a sweater, arm warmies, mittens, two wool hats, thick socks, and knee-high boots. And my krewe sash. And some fake hair. With a parrot attached.

The good thing about the roads being snowy is that there weren’t many cars to crash into. Ye olde Subaru had it, no problem. We pulled up, started up some stairs to the wrong house, and retreated to try the right house.

Inside were the people throwing the party, who were pretty bummed out that their party fell on the same day as the ‘lypse.

They had made us gumbo, beignets, hush puppies, fried okra, and punch so spiked I played it real careful.

And a beautiful 150-year-old house, with all the old woodwork. In the front window, a ship. Throughout, candles, little parrots, swords (actual swords!), dubloons, pirate flags. We sat on elegant furniture in our pirate garb.

More people showed, in time, with full dedication. Because it was so cold, the hosts had us stroll indoors, rather than out. The band, which sometimes numbers a dozen, was a drum, a brass instrument, my sister on the recorder, and me, with my tambourine. Usually the tambourine is an afterthought. I do play instruments, just not one you can march with. It’s hard for me. Don’t bring it up.

We marched upstairs, singing and stomping, and then from one bedroom to another, just the handful of us, greeting a host who was stationed there with a bottle of a cocktail that had pineapple milk in it. He had cups, and held them out, in our trick or treat/wassailing system. I was cautious with that drink, too, but it was a wonderful way to get children to drink milk! (This is a quote from “Guys & Dolls” that perhaps no one uses except for me and my sisters.)

We sang as loud as we fucking could, and the room boomed with sound from bodies that had made these songs many times: “It Ain’t My Fault,” “I’ll Fly Away,” “When the Saints Go Marching In.” I pounded my lil tambourine, as aggressively as always, channeling my dear dad, who has also bruised himself with overly passionate tambourining.

The lights were low, and the bedrooms are small in an old house like that. We marched through the jack and jill bathroom, past a pirate skeleton who was resting comfortably in the shower stall.

It was there we got to the Saints. Not the oracle, whom I would later consult, but the Saints in song. Mardi Gras, setting you up for Lent, does not shy away from death at all. It quickens the quick. Let’s go!

The host in the second bedroom held up his bottle in the air, waiting for a cup to be placed under it, and cups were, and then another round.

This kind of catharsis, I guess, people get from sports? This feels much more powerful than that, more powerful than experiencing catharsis from art you are observing. Because we made it.

We ended with a rousing “FUCK ICE!”

Joy is political.

I consulted the oracle. Much like western European ancestors, Mardi Gras here includes statues of saints and people dressed up as saints, or maybe the saints are statues, it’s hard to tell. This party had an oracle in the front window, what appeared to be a beautiful lady with disguised face (though we all had disguised face). Friends and I discussed what to ask her.

I am of the opinion that in middle age, one doesn’t want to know the future any more. One has processed one’s disappointments, and one is living in the moment (ideally).

Eventually I came to the question, “Where do we go now?”

I knelt in front of the oracle, because I love ritual and honor as long as they aren’t capitalist, and I asked her (her?).

She (she?) shuffled some cards, looked at some rocks, and said, “Forward.”

Which kinda pissed me off, but in the way that Zen koans piss one off. It’s annoyingly legit.

We danced, me swirling a long skirt, because at Mardi Gras, you can live in a time when skirts were floor length if you prefer.

We were broken, jagged. Earlier that week, an ICU nurse had been shot to death in Minneapolis by ICE. In front of God and everybody, as they say. Earlier that month, Renee Good, who had recently moved from Kansas City to Minneapolis, was shot to death by ICE. (I met a former neighbor of hers at a protest. She lived in Waldo.)

It’s been a decade of constant questioning for me: why don’t people see this man, and his followers, are escalating just like Adolf Hitler? Haven’t teachers been teaching people how to keep dictators from rising? Hadn’t I learned this from my (Republican) teachers, family?

“Forward,” the oracle said, so that is how we went home. In below-zero-cold, I hardly got chilly. My friend warmed up the car, ran the car heater on high, and when he dropped me off, I only had to walk home across the street.

I was inside before the cold could get me.