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actually--olivia · 4 years

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15 January 2020

Day five: wear comfy shoes

Captain’s log:

5 days since being held by an Angel

Baby —

I am in Baton Rouge, LA and loving every minute of it save the moments I remember that my heart is in another time zone. Before I drift off to sleep in a few minutes, I will be holding your Rockets sweater loosely in my fists and burrowing deeper into these blankets. We are very dramatic, aren’t we? I miss you somehow worse now, I think because there is so much beauty and culture and newness around me that I want to experience with you.

The geography professors kind of just dipped after we got to the Baton Rouge airport, and I was somehow elected leader of the group at large. I must admit, I rather like the responsibility of caring for others. We had a small fiasco with taxi cabs but eventually made it to our picturesque AirBNB, located in Spanishtown near the newly-inaugurated governor’s mansion. I already love the people with whom I’m traveling and the opportunity to learn from this place, which right now has beads hanging from every tree in preparation for Mardi Gras and flamingo paraphernalia (still a mystery) staked in front of every house. There is live oak and palmetto in this neighborhood, along with many other species I have not identified yet but from which I have collected samples.

We ate at a cute ass locally owned Spanishtown market and waited while two poor employees ready for a slow evening served 16 of us. I got the shrimp po’boy and was not disappointed in the least. We played with the shop cat, Tails, and shot the shit until drinking games at home. Did you know that a “Brass Monkey” is orange juice and beer? It doesn’t taste half bad if the beer is pale.

From Irish Poker to Cheers to the Governor, it gets a little hazy after that. I think we ran through a fountain and explored the LSU campus (everyone’s obsessed with them winning some sort of sport championship?? Idk if it isn’t women’s soccer or your volleyball stuff, I’m not payin attention) and saw some fool ass sculptures. We walked a LOT.

But I remember most vividly sitting down by the river and thinking of you. We scaled this man made levee that the city chose to make interactive by carving large-scale steps across and sat by the Mississippi, listening to LSD by Jamila Woods and thinking about all the places the river had been — would go.

It was a spiritual experience for me, sitting near the water and noticing the peaceful flow of the river. I remember thinking of you on the receiving end of the Gulf Stream waters and about the way we flow together, about how different my today would be if we — if our lives never flowed in the same direction. I stopped myself before I could get too lost in thinking about multiverses. In this universe, I get the girl. And she gets me, too. All of me.

Tomorrow, we meet for crepes before heading to the Water Institute, and I have already preemptively set my alarm clock for 6 hours from now because I’m refusing to let travel get in the way of my fitness schedule. It is a balmy 78-80 degrees here and I wonder if I will ever get to name these trees with the familiarity I do at home. A friend from AmeriCorps, Lauren Clapp, will be in New Orleans this weekend, and I am keen to discuss my application with her. Wish me luck!

I will see you again tomorrow. I hope wherever you are, you’re thinkin of me (because let’s face it — we both know I’m thinkin about you and stupid smiling about it).

Your girl,

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