Old, rickety yet decadent, history and booze laced, New Orleans can be overstimulating. Intoxicating. Utterly exhausting.
My obsession with the city waxes and wanes, but my love never wavers. I love her most when I can't decide if I'm ready to be here forever, or if I think I should leave tomorrow. Or next week. Or maybe after jazz fest.
That's the thing. New Orleans gives and gives, a series of events strung together, beckoning people to be part of the festivities. It doesn't matter who you bring or don't bring, as the entire city is at the same great party. Even when they don't know it. It's not uncommon for people to visit New Orleans for an event like Mardi Gras, and cancel their flights and stay through Jazz Fest. Or move to the city indefinitely.
I fell in love with New Orleans during my second visit from California. The slower pace, and social ease resonated well with me, as did the incredible music scene. I was there for my spring break, and contemplated staying an extra week for French Quarter Fest. As a teacher, of course I couldn't. But when I returned to work that first Monday, hearts still floating out of my eyes, I had a speech prepared for the following year's Jazz Fest.
The speech went like this:
Me: How was your trip to Paris?
Principal: It was so fantastic (insert romantic details about a lovely symphony here). How was your trip to New Orleans?
Me, in exactly one breath: It was amazing and I want to go to jazz fest next year, the whole 12 days and I know it's right before testing so it's a bad week to take off but I will make sure the kids are prepared and the sub knows exactly what to do, what do you think?
Principal: I think we can make that work
**note- most principals aren't this cool, and it helps to ask when said principal is on a romantic vacation high!
Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans five months later. This changed my plans.
It changed everyone's plans.
When Jazz Fest rolled around again during the spring of 2006, I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to go. I asked my friend, an evacuee who I had housed for a while in the fall through moveon.org, what he thought. And he told me exactly what I already knew after the horrible Asian tsunami the year prior to Katrina.
Go. Spend money. Spread it around. Enjoy it.
I did. We did. It was an extremely difficult time for the city, and signs of the storm were still everywhere.
But those little cartoon hearts were still flying out of my eyes. That was the last weekend of April. I was back in June. Twice in July. Once in August, and back again in September signing the papers on a note for a condo just outside the French quarter. In hindsight, I probably should have sublet an apartment for the summer. But committing to this sultry city didn't seem plausible then.
Six months later, I came to New Orleans for two months. It's been five and a half years since then.
You can see how that worked out.
The city has changed a lot since I moved here. NOLA's greatest supporters will complain about the change, while simultaneously encouraging friends from different places to come and be part of it. Locals sometimes naysay the out-of-towners moving in. Locals who mainly came from somewhere else, at some other time, when others were complaining about them moving in from far away places changing what was then New Orleans. Though change is a bit slower in these parts, it is inevitable, and I believe New Orleans will always be different than the rest of the USA's cities. Tennessee Williams wrote years ago "America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland."
Both Caribbean and European aesthetically, linguistically, and culturally, one often feels it is not a part of the United States at all. We still have fruit peddlers driving down the dilapidated one way streets, bellowing through a megaphone out the window, "I've got watermelon. I've got corn. I've got eatin' pears. I've got the mango." A woman walks down the roads with a rolling crate full of pies, singing, "pie lady pie lady pie lady!" Social Aid and Pleasure clubs, a remnant from the benevolent societies in the 1800's, have second line parades every Sunday from Labor Day through Memorial Day with brass bands and people dancing in their finest fines, for miles and miles. If that isn't enough, twice a year we are blessed with Super Sunday, devoted to the Mardi Gras Indians parading themselves in their beautifully handcrafted and intricate beaded suits.
New Orleans is a feast for all senses, and the first place I've lived where I feel a sense of loss when I leave. I never tire of the colorful architecture, the incredible culture, the creative people. Every year I learn more and more, and unravel yet another layer of this mysterious and fascinating place.
I quit my job this year and rented out my condo to go have some epic adventures around the globe. They've been delayed and organized a bit differently than I imagined, but amazing nonetheless. For about three weeks I was certain I would be leaving for a job in Africa, so I booked a few days back home in Nola just as the more local Mardi Gras events were starting. Both the travel abroad and the visit home gave me such pleasure in knowing I had chosen the right city to call home. I think I cried at least five times, knowing I was, indeed, leaving again. When I used to deal with homesick children at sleep away camp I would tell them that it was ok to miss their moms and still have fun at the same time. And that their moms loved them and missed them, too, but were so happy they were enjoying themselves at camp. I'm operating on my own advice. It's ok to miss New Orleans and enjoy some time away from it at the same time. She knows I love her, and I know she loves me. After all, home is where the heart is, and I'm lucky enough to have heart in many many places. So until I return it's ok to miss her and continue on my adventure.
Carry on.
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