Mardi Gras
For Fat Tuesday this year, I’ve arrived in Biloxi with my mom and grandmother because they both got free nights, free meals, and free play.
When we got on the road, I told mom she could turn on the radio if she wanted. “No, we’ll be talking the whole way,” she replied. Instantly I felt exhausted just hearing that, but I am glad we were or else I might not have had the epiphany that I did. We were talking about fruit trees because a lot of people in Florida have citrus trees but they never collect the fruit. Instead, you’ll often see several orange dots on the ground, circling the tree off in the distance. Grandma has commented on this several times, and wonders why they do that. My mother, who always, like her dad, has an answer (even if it isn’t always right), replied “So that it can just absorb the nutrients back in the ground”.
I’m not sure the validity of her statement, especially with regards to the motives of the owners of those trees. What I do know is that my mother was a soil surveyor, and before that she had several jobs that allowed her to be outside in nature. I found myself imagining a time-lapse visual of this, where the tree dropped its fruits and they decomposed and settled back into the ground. I had recently learned from Andre the Farmer that plant roots absorb nutrients at the end that grows, though a lot of gardeners apply fertilizer to the base of a tree. His brilliant gardening hack informs that a plants roots grow out about as far as the perimeter of the span of its branches. The thought had never occurred to me and now all of a sudden I was extrapolating further meaning from that.
I began to think of the fact that this loop is how life works. Its more difficult to describe than it is to visualize but I’m still going to try, if for nothing else than my own future reference. Life, the organism, spreads out into many individual lives. There is a term in biology (meristem) which describes the place at which new growth occurs. That, to me, is like young people or fresh ideas, connected to older growth, but exploring new frontiers.
The roots in my mind’s eye represent the unseen, un-living world, and the living world is represented by the leaves and branches. If strong roots are not established, but continue to grow out away from the tree, it will likely topple over and without leaves, the tree is unable to collect all the nutrients it needs from just the soil alone. So far this metaphor is pretty intuitive but I had this thought about where I fall in that equation.
While I am clearly alive and I am relatively young, I’m not out exploring like the meristems often do. I communicate messages from the old growth to the new. I am constantly reframing the mainstream news so that my grandpa can have a different perspective. I don’t do this to piss him off or start an argument, I do this to be helpful and in a way where he knows we are on the same team. I remind him that a lot of the garbage they report on isn’t even news but just a way to get people riled up so they can retain viewership. As long as he knows we have a common enemy and that I’m aware of that fact, he and I are in the fight together. For young people, I am writing these blog posts to archive what I’ve learned in my experiences. I try to distill an arbitrary lesson with relatable stories that I can look back on later to inform the greater collective.
That connection is the most important part for building a strong fruit tree. So what is that fruit? It’s knowledge that, as my mom pointed out so eloquently, is absorbed back into the ground for the roots to be nourished. “That’s it!” I thought, “I’m a fruit!” I imagine myself creating a channel between the living world of experience and the unseen world of experiences had, and those that are possible. With my intimate connection to the dying process and processing after death (taxidermy), I am deeply involved in ushering souls from the land of the living to that of the dead. I feel like I am only growing stronger in that with my background in biology and my interest in anything ancient and esoteric.
When we arrived in Biloxi at the Casino Hotel, I realized I was surrounded by debauchery and I rather enjoy being an observer of that. I’m only playing penny slots to hang out with my family, but I’m sitting in a cloud of cigarette smoke and getting clicked at by drunk men who have absolutely no chance with me. And they know this, I’m almost certain, but the entire vibe is just playful and also ridiculous. There are flashing lights and loud chimes that go off when you win a few dollars, and waitresses wearing corsettes with giant trays of drinks on their shoulders. Nearly everyone on the gambling floor is elderly. They are using that tunnel of luck to peak back out into the land of the living where there is sunshine and a fountain of youth.
There are so many dualities in this analogy such as, sin and virtue. Virtue would be the land of the living and sin the land of the dead. I even had to use a different elevator to get to my room on the smoking side of the building, which my mom accidentally booked because she didn’t specify on her reservation. Even the view from my grandmother’s 28th floor non smoking room was a Heavenly, overlooking the bay with not a cloud in the sky.
I told my mom she should room with grandma which was only possible because grandpa stayed home. My mom had polio and tuberculosis as a child so her lungs are much more susceptible to infection when she is exposed to cigarettes and I didn’t want her to try sleeping in that. Long ago, when my dad figured out that my mom’s bronchitis flared up when she was around him, he quit smoking. Walking across the lobby floor, I felt devious. Since I just quit smoking because of covid, this is the second time the Lord has tempted me, but I resist, knowing that indulging is the height of existence, and holding back prolongs the wanting and this makes life more enjoyable. When I got to my room I was expecting an equally spectacular view, but instead I got a dusty trucker parking lot.
While Fat Tuesday is about indulging before Lent begins, I like straddling the desire. I enjoy being in the presence of sinful gratification, while not participating to the degree that I might like. I wonder if I will feel the same when I am deep into my Vision Quest at the end of this week, isolated from all of this immoral overconsumption.
Happy Mardi Gras, you little devils!
