RIP Ann Rice, The Queen Of New Orleans - @thebeast

I know celebrity worship is uncouth.  However, when that celebrity is a true artist who touches you in your soul and has a true and lasting impact on your life, that artist is worthy of love and adoration.  Anne Rice was this person in my life. I am 43 years old, and when I was a young teenager in the early 90's, I stole my mom's copy of The Witching Hour from her bookshelf.  My life changed forever.  My first trip to New Orleans was in 1996.  I had longed to experience that place after reading Anne's books.  And I did, and I have been visiting that sacred place for all of these years.  While many look at New Orleans as a place for food and shopping and nightlife, I see it for it's darkness.  It's beauty.  It's death and rot and history and pain and suffering and constant rebirths.  I experienced it through Anne's love for it.   I ALWAYS take a walk through the Garden District when there, always stopping by Anne's house.  I can always see Diedre Mayfair and Lasher on the old side porch.  I can smell the magnolias and decaying wood.  The roots of old, mighty oak trees pushing the sidewalks up.  I always stop at the little café and bookstore there near Anne's house to enjoy a latte, a sweet treat, and a new Anne book on the patio, which I then take home to add to my collection.   Her stories were filled with history and tragedy and beauty.  She shaped my aesthetic, my love for dark romanticism and occult and the spiritual journey in all forms. I owe so much to her.  I am thankful for her books that fill my shelves, but the thought that there will never be a new book from her truly devastates me.  It feels as though I have lost a mother figure.  A friend.  A mentor.  This is such a sad day.  Hail to the Queen. Goodbye to the traveler as she embarks on her new journey.  Thank you, Anne, for everything. ❤ I love you. Anne Rice - Raven Moonla “She had learnt a painful lesson, she thought – that as they die, the ones we love, we lose our witnesses, our watchers, those who know and understand the tiny little meaningless patterns, those words drawn in water with a stick. And there is nothing left but the endless flow.” ― Anne Rice, The Witching Hour
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