It’s Carnival Time!

I made peace with her mortality, so the only regret I have about my grandma no longer being here is not being able to make a Carnival mask with her.  I’ve mentioned that she was an artist in found objects.  Hindu- and Indian-themed dioramas, wall hangings and decorative room partitions with strips of shiny and colorful cloth, cardboard and glitter, they all came from that head and tiny body.  What I didn’t tell you is that my grandma loved sequins. I mean, LOVED them!  So much so that my otherwise proper mother and her siblings sprinkled sequins on Patti’s sari during her wake.  And laughed when they showed up in her ashes and again in the water collected from the Mohican River where those ashes were dissolved and dispersed.  You know how happy and carefree you feel when you see a sequin?  Maybe that was Patti telling us to chill, take a load off.

When I moved to Ohio in March, Patti and I decided to make a carnival mask together that I would wear in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day 2010.  Now, I am going to have to make it myself and hope it comes a country mile within the pattern, colors and charms she would have picked for it.  This one’s for you, Patti, wish me luck.

Folks, this year, do everything you’ve wanted to do with someone before it’s too late and they’re gone.  This Mardi Gras, go all out, make the coolest and loudest costume your creativity can muster and wear it proud, before it’s too late and you’re gone.  Eat every piece of king cake, catch every bead, glue every bead, sew every sequin and live and love every minute of it all.  Just roll in the glitter of life. And why not?  It’s Carnival Time, y’all!