A Midweek Refresh

I saw some irises.

Hi friends.

My friend Anne Gisleson—superb memoirist, talented educator, and my original #1000wordsofsummer accountability partner—is writing a book about Louisiana irises. So we have started a group chat with Brooke, purely about sharing pictures during this stellar iris season, and it’s honestly saving my goddamn life right now. Because it involves only the purest of intentions.

It is a literal fucking joy.

Since Anne is doing intensive research right now, she’s generously sharing lots of little nooks in the neighborhood and beyond with us. Yesterday morning she reported seeing some irises in some wetlands I had never visited before but had always meant to. I decided to take my lunch break and look for them. (Coincidentally I needed my character to do part of that bike ride for my novel so there was a bonus reason for the ride but it was mainly just to look at pretty flowers. We do love a multi-task, though.)

So I took a bike ride across the St. Claude Avenue Bridge to the Lower 9th Ward and discovered a beautiful park that had been waiting for me all along.

At the park, in addition to the irises, I saw turtles and white egrets and hummingbirds and blue-gray herons and electric blue dragonflies. I did not see gators although I was told there were definitely gators in the water. I thought I saw something moving in the murkiness of the water for a second, but of course there were lots of things moving. Everything felt so alive.