On the first day of spring I’m in New Orleans among the live oaks, some of them over a thousand years old. Research warns us that loneliness kills, which may explain the oaks’ secret to survival: they are never alone, the Spanish Moss and Resurrection Fern clinging to trunks and branches with the fierce loyalty of first love. I’ve read that two trees can supply the oxygen needs of one person for one year, a gift so disproportionately generous that I’m sure the trees have noticed, and have long ago closed their eyes and imagined us gone.
*
The white azaleas of Louisiana are soon replaced with the familiar wildflowers of California. I rehearse their names as they rise from the ground——Indian paintbrush, fiddleneck, buttercups, goldfields——and by the time they blossom their names roll off my tongue.
*
I drive away from the city before 5 a.m. and study the high rises alongside the highway, a scatter of lit windows that double as signs of life. The inhabitants beam out their lives absent of details so I imagine the familiar shapes of routine and ritual. The everyday is a strong edifice until “you sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends,” writes Joan Didion, whose husband died at the dinner table. I remember the increased anxiety surrounding air travel after September 11, and the common retort that there was no reason to worry as we were far more likely to die in a car accident anyway, as if consolation can be found in disasters of “the ordinary instant.” (Didion first writes, “life changes in the instant,” then adds, “the ordinary instant,” then determines there is no need because there is no forgetting.)
*
I walk up Taylor Street and first notice the immaculate red brick, then the bronze owls, and finally the inscribed motto. “Weaving spiders come not here,” a fairy sings in Midsummer Night’s Dream. The line was adopted as motto — and the owl as symbol — of the Bohemian Club, a private boy’s club that confirms what we already know about wealth, power, and privilege: it pools into a pinprick. Rumors of elite members and bizarre activities swirl, lending the club an allure largely indebted to mystery. But then in April the club’s dishwashers, cooks, servers, and front desk attendants went on strike because working for the rich paid less than minimum wage, and despite decades of employment, raises were measured in single cents. Suddenly the club looked terribly familiar and behold the mystery vanished.
*
Within steps of the club I pass an alley, look up, and the street sign reads Hobart. I whirl around to share my disbelief but of course no one is there. I arrive at the small bar where I’m meeting a friend and because I’m the first and only customer, a bartender bounds over to take my order, a miracle on most nights. I dutifully smile and rattle off an order and then I see the owl, a wooden brooch that sits atop the bartender’s necktie. I turn around as if I’m being watched but of course no one is there. Soon my drink arrives and then my friend, so I tuck away these signs I’ve collected——the owl, weaving spiders, Hobart Alley, the other owl——because the magic of serendipity fades under the withering gaze of others, and I plan to conjure up some meaning for a bit longer.
