Before I left LA for my somewhat dreaded trip back to Tennesee, I told myself that I wanted our one day in New Orleans to be a day of freedom, free from my daily life in Los Angeles and free from the preoccupation of selling a business in the beat-up economy of Tennessee. Lucky for me, New Orleans would have it no other way.
It was my first time in the city and we were directed by our hosts to visit the French Quarter with the limited amount of time that we had. Anyone who has been there before can attest to the fact that this neighborhood is extremely special, to say the least. After the floods, when I saw displaced residents saying that they would return and rebuild, I thought they were crazy. But, you would hear people saying over and over again that there is no place in the world like New Orleans. After a mere half day there, I understand wholeheartedly their sentiments.
Let the earth open up and swallow Phoenix, Dallas, or Knoxville. The surviving residents can then relocate to St. Louis, Minneapolis or Houston where they will find their Best Buy/Safeway/Ross Dress For Less/McDonald's corners and ease right back into the familiarity of it all.
But, oh, to imagine having lived in the magic of the French Quarter all of one's life. To begin and end the day with cafe au lait and beignets. To walk amid jazz bands and horse drawn carriages on the way to work. To have had your first kiss beneath the crumbling balconies of Royale Street. And then, one day, to be whisked away on a crowded bus and plunked down in Lincoln or Wichita! And try as you may to search out the new loft developments and downtown revitalization projects, you would never, ever find the soul of New Orleans there. And at night you would fall asleep only to dream of its sounds and smells.
I understand now.
If you can, before the world ends, find a fabulous lover and a second story flat in the French Quarter. Stay there for at least a week. Love the food, the music, the thick air, the galleries, and a sidewalk hurricane now and then. Then tell me where else in the US of A you could possibly feel so alive.
