why New Orleans?
After my most recent emails to friends and family, I received an email from an old high school friend who said he was interested in reading my blog because he hoped it would answer the questions on so many people’s minds: “Are people going to return to New Orleans? And if so, why?”
I wrote him back today and basically told him that I didn’t think my blog would answer that question, largely because it was not a question I ever asked myself. In fact, despite the fact that I have seen that question asked by the media of late, I’ve always dismissed the debate with no small amount of distain. How can people even ASK that question? It’s our HOME. Of course we’ll return. Of course we’ll rebuild.
But when my high school friend asked the question, I realized it wasn’t just ignorant, naysayers asking this question. I can’t really imagine why I thought that was the case. (I guess because I’ve heard this most often from places like Fox News and Dennis Hastert) My high school friend is brilliant and sensitive and the fact that he questioned made me feel like I needed to answer.
I need to preface my answer by saying that up until Katrina, I’d been 75% sure that this would be my last year in New Orleans for a while. (If there are any school colleagues reading this, please hold this information in confidence). I always thought I’d return, but I felt very strongly that if I didn’t start exploring the world again soon, I’d never have another chance. Another admission: I never in a million years wanted to be an English teacher. I became an English teacher sort of by accident, discovered I loved it, and decided to stick with it this long. But more than anything else, I really felt like it was time to try something new. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough with my life. And I was prepared to go. Not to mention the fact that no one in my family lives south of the Mason-Dixon, my grandmothers and extended family are elderly, and my best friend in the world, my cousin, lives in Boston (and now, post-Katrina, I’ve learned she’s pregnant). The Northeast seemed a logical place for me to go. Jason and I spent five days in Providence this summer, basically to see if it was someplace I could live (it was).
Jason and I were going to ride out the storm. Up until Saturday night, we’d decided that if things got too hairy, we’d “vertically evacuate”—we’d evacuate to a high-rise hotel in the Quarter. I spent hours online, on Travelocity et al, looking for a cheap hotel with a pool. I’ve been in New Orleans for 8 years and never evacuated. All hurricanes have been near misses or total misses. And when evacuations are called, people sit in traffic for tens of hours trying to get to some shit hotel in Jackson or Houston only to have New Orleans get a good hard rain, some wind with fallen limbs, and little else. Then those of us who have stayed have had to endure the curfews, the closed businesses, etc, until everyone (braving more traffic) returns home. So, we figured, if we went to the Quarter, at least we’d have some bars and restaurants to haunt.
On Saturday night, Katrina jumped from a 3 to a 5. And we started packing our bags. Sunday morning we jammed Tony, Jason’s car, full of everything that meant anything to us, and set off. I don’t care how brave or stupid you are (and I am both), you do not mess with a 5 unless you have to (ie, no transportation, no money to leave, hence all those left behind).
And when we drove out of the city Sunday morning, down I-10 past the French Quarter, the sight of the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral in the quarter set me off. And I started to sob. Deep down, I knew. I’d never left the city before during a hurricane, I was leaving now, and I knew I would return to something very different.
Why? Why New Orleans? What’s so special about it? I don’t even know where to begin. My answer probably won’t satisfy anyone. In order to truly understand, you’d have to crawl into my body and look out through my soul. Why?
I told my high school friend that the simple answer was this: love.
Love. Because. Because any adult who could live anywhere else in the world but still chooses to call New Orleans home does so because he or she knows that there is no where else in the world that would feel the same way New Orleans feels.
Because, throughout history, New Orleans has been the home of outcasts, artists, misfits, criminals, liberals, traditionalists, decadents, foreigners, riff-raff, pirates, the richest of the rich, the poorest of the poor, do-nothings, innovators, tyrants, and fools. And that spirit, all of those spirits, run through the very pipelines of the city still.
Because, I have visited just about every “great” city in the US, and I have seen none as beautiful. I live in the heart of the city of New Orleans—in most cities, living IN the city means living circumferenced by concrete, but all around me it is green. Giant live oaks, hundreds of years old, line the streets. Great, three+ story magnolia trees bloom giant dinner-plate-sized pale blossoms. Tall palm trees stretch to the sky raucous with the sound of wild parakeets—parakeets, wild and green and noisy. The nursing home across the street from my house has a jasmine-covered fence; during the warmest months, the groundspeople must trim the jasmine bi-weekly, as the branches snake onto the sidewalks, reaching to trip passersby with their warm-smelling, tropical vines.
Because the Mississippi is just blocks away from my home, teeming with giant barges and boats and tiny, muscular tugs. Just two weeks before Katrina, I was feeling kind of low, so I stopped off at Audubon Zoo (around 10 blocks from my house, where I have a yearly membership) and spent around an hour hanging out with the orangutans and gorillas (if you live in a city with a zoo or an aquarium, I HIGHLY recommend buying a yearly membership—there is very little cooler than deciding you have a half hour to kill and knowing you can just drop by and visit your favorite animal/sea creature without having to pay a dime). And then, still feeling low, I stopped home, packed my mini-cooler with three beers (as a practiced drinker, I know I can drink three beers in a reasonable amount of time and still be well enough to drive) and a blanket and a book (ironically enough, in retrospect, Rising Tide about the great Mississippi flood of 1927), and drove up to the riverside park in my neighborhood. The park is called the Butterfly—or the Fly to locals—I don’t know why. And I sat there for three hours, drinking and reading and watching the boats lumber by, and every time I get very very lonely for New Orleans, I think back to those hours. Those hours alone are enough reason to save the city. That a woman can go and sit by the river and drink a beer and watch the sun set and watch giant boats do their business and be content and chase her blues away with the beauty and peace of this city oasis.
Because, and I have no reason to elaborate on this, there is no city with more beautiful architecture. Different, yes. But not more beautiful.
Because New Orleans embraces its history—good, bad, and indifferent. Because you have to travel outside of city limits for a sense of newness and development and exploitation of resources.
Because, in New Orleans, people call you darling and sweetheart and love and cher and baby and girl and honey and—my absolute favorite—heart (pronounced “hawt”) and it’s not in the least bit degrading or rude. They say it because they assume from the get-go that they’ll love you once they know you and they treat you accordingly. Because, in this past month, when I respond to emails that my students send me, I begin my emails “Hi sweetheart” or “So nice to hear from you, babycakes” or “My darling” and they know that I mean it. Because, despite the horrors y’all have seen on the tv, this is a city of love.
Because y’all is such a great way of identifying the second person plural.
Because ANY night of ANY week ANY time of the year, you can find exceptional music not too far from ANYWHERE you are in the city. I am a sinner. I have not taken advantage of this fully in the past eight years. I have taken it for granted, and now that I am not there, I am so sorry for that.
Ditto for food.
Because at one end of my block is a great big Victorian mansion that is (was) for sale for $850,000 and at the other end of my block and around the corner there are Section-8 apartments. Because in any neighborhood in New Orleans you live side-by-side with millionaires and people who are on welfare. And that, my friends, is beautiful.
Because it is hotter than hell in the summer. Because of WWOZ radio and Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras. Because of the Rebirth Jazz Band and Preservation Hall and Trombone Shorty and the Blue Nile and the Neville Brothers and the Marsalis Family and Harry Connick, Jr. and Grayson Capps and the Flamenco scene and the Tango scene and the late beloved Buddy D. Because of the Landrieus and the Mannings and Tipitinas and Fats Domino. Because, this summer, I saw a free Michelle Shocked concert in the business district. Michelle lived in New Orleans for years and had to leave during her ugly divorce. This concert was her first return to the city. And every song she played was a peon to her love for this place. She cried. I cried. We all wanted her to come back home.
All that being said, there is a “because” that outweighs all others. New Orleans was all that and much, much more before Katrina. Simply put, we have no idea what New Orleans will be like now. There are whole neighborhoods, whole gigantic suburbs, that have been utterly destroyed by Katrina. Some of these areas are a mere 10 to 12 blocks from my home. Why do I need to go home? Why do I feel like I may need to stay regardless of my prior plans? Because, simply, if I don’t return, if people like me don’t return, then who will be the stewards of the city?
Already rumors abound—giant conglomerations trying to buy up giant tracts of land in New Orleans and environs. Housing developments where there were historic shotgun homes. Strip malls where there were parks. Box stores where mom-and-pops reigned. If “we”—the young, the intelligent, the ambitious, the culturally attuned—don’t return, New Orleans will become… well… Florida.
Why? Love. Why? This is home. Tell post-9/11 NYC that their city is a sitting duck for terrorists. Or the people of DC. Tell San Francisco they live on a fault line. Tell Hawaii they live in the path of a future tsumani. Tell Los Angeles, today, right now, that there are wildfires blazing outside of their city and they really should leave.
Home. Love. Loyalty. Passion. Home.
Throughout our history, people have shed blood, laid down their lives for HOME. For land, for place, for culture. Why should it be any different now?
I wrote him back today and basically told him that I didn’t think my blog would answer that question, largely because it was not a question I ever asked myself. In fact, despite the fact that I have seen that question asked by the media of late, I’ve always dismissed the debate with no small amount of distain. How can people even ASK that question? It’s our HOME. Of course we’ll return. Of course we’ll rebuild.
But when my high school friend asked the question, I realized it wasn’t just ignorant, naysayers asking this question. I can’t really imagine why I thought that was the case. (I guess because I’ve heard this most often from places like Fox News and Dennis Hastert) My high school friend is brilliant and sensitive and the fact that he questioned made me feel like I needed to answer.
I need to preface my answer by saying that up until Katrina, I’d been 75% sure that this would be my last year in New Orleans for a while. (If there are any school colleagues reading this, please hold this information in confidence). I always thought I’d return, but I felt very strongly that if I didn’t start exploring the world again soon, I’d never have another chance. Another admission: I never in a million years wanted to be an English teacher. I became an English teacher sort of by accident, discovered I loved it, and decided to stick with it this long. But more than anything else, I really felt like it was time to try something new. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough with my life. And I was prepared to go. Not to mention the fact that no one in my family lives south of the Mason-Dixon, my grandmothers and extended family are elderly, and my best friend in the world, my cousin, lives in Boston (and now, post-Katrina, I’ve learned she’s pregnant). The Northeast seemed a logical place for me to go. Jason and I spent five days in Providence this summer, basically to see if it was someplace I could live (it was).
Jason and I were going to ride out the storm. Up until Saturday night, we’d decided that if things got too hairy, we’d “vertically evacuate”—we’d evacuate to a high-rise hotel in the Quarter. I spent hours online, on Travelocity et al, looking for a cheap hotel with a pool. I’ve been in New Orleans for 8 years and never evacuated. All hurricanes have been near misses or total misses. And when evacuations are called, people sit in traffic for tens of hours trying to get to some shit hotel in Jackson or Houston only to have New Orleans get a good hard rain, some wind with fallen limbs, and little else. Then those of us who have stayed have had to endure the curfews, the closed businesses, etc, until everyone (braving more traffic) returns home. So, we figured, if we went to the Quarter, at least we’d have some bars and restaurants to haunt.
On Saturday night, Katrina jumped from a 3 to a 5. And we started packing our bags. Sunday morning we jammed Tony, Jason’s car, full of everything that meant anything to us, and set off. I don’t care how brave or stupid you are (and I am both), you do not mess with a 5 unless you have to (ie, no transportation, no money to leave, hence all those left behind).
And when we drove out of the city Sunday morning, down I-10 past the French Quarter, the sight of the steeple of St. Louis Cathedral in the quarter set me off. And I started to sob. Deep down, I knew. I’d never left the city before during a hurricane, I was leaving now, and I knew I would return to something very different.
Why? Why New Orleans? What’s so special about it? I don’t even know where to begin. My answer probably won’t satisfy anyone. In order to truly understand, you’d have to crawl into my body and look out through my soul. Why?
I told my high school friend that the simple answer was this: love.
Love. Because. Because any adult who could live anywhere else in the world but still chooses to call New Orleans home does so because he or she knows that there is no where else in the world that would feel the same way New Orleans feels.
Because, throughout history, New Orleans has been the home of outcasts, artists, misfits, criminals, liberals, traditionalists, decadents, foreigners, riff-raff, pirates, the richest of the rich, the poorest of the poor, do-nothings, innovators, tyrants, and fools. And that spirit, all of those spirits, run through the very pipelines of the city still.
Because, I have visited just about every “great” city in the US, and I have seen none as beautiful. I live in the heart of the city of New Orleans—in most cities, living IN the city means living circumferenced by concrete, but all around me it is green. Giant live oaks, hundreds of years old, line the streets. Great, three+ story magnolia trees bloom giant dinner-plate-sized pale blossoms. Tall palm trees stretch to the sky raucous with the sound of wild parakeets—parakeets, wild and green and noisy. The nursing home across the street from my house has a jasmine-covered fence; during the warmest months, the groundspeople must trim the jasmine bi-weekly, as the branches snake onto the sidewalks, reaching to trip passersby with their warm-smelling, tropical vines.
Because the Mississippi is just blocks away from my home, teeming with giant barges and boats and tiny, muscular tugs. Just two weeks before Katrina, I was feeling kind of low, so I stopped off at Audubon Zoo (around 10 blocks from my house, where I have a yearly membership) and spent around an hour hanging out with the orangutans and gorillas (if you live in a city with a zoo or an aquarium, I HIGHLY recommend buying a yearly membership—there is very little cooler than deciding you have a half hour to kill and knowing you can just drop by and visit your favorite animal/sea creature without having to pay a dime). And then, still feeling low, I stopped home, packed my mini-cooler with three beers (as a practiced drinker, I know I can drink three beers in a reasonable amount of time and still be well enough to drive) and a blanket and a book (ironically enough, in retrospect, Rising Tide about the great Mississippi flood of 1927), and drove up to the riverside park in my neighborhood. The park is called the Butterfly—or the Fly to locals—I don’t know why. And I sat there for three hours, drinking and reading and watching the boats lumber by, and every time I get very very lonely for New Orleans, I think back to those hours. Those hours alone are enough reason to save the city. That a woman can go and sit by the river and drink a beer and watch the sun set and watch giant boats do their business and be content and chase her blues away with the beauty and peace of this city oasis.
Because, and I have no reason to elaborate on this, there is no city with more beautiful architecture. Different, yes. But not more beautiful.
Because New Orleans embraces its history—good, bad, and indifferent. Because you have to travel outside of city limits for a sense of newness and development and exploitation of resources.
Because, in New Orleans, people call you darling and sweetheart and love and cher and baby and girl and honey and—my absolute favorite—heart (pronounced “hawt”) and it’s not in the least bit degrading or rude. They say it because they assume from the get-go that they’ll love you once they know you and they treat you accordingly. Because, in this past month, when I respond to emails that my students send me, I begin my emails “Hi sweetheart” or “So nice to hear from you, babycakes” or “My darling” and they know that I mean it. Because, despite the horrors y’all have seen on the tv, this is a city of love.
Because y’all is such a great way of identifying the second person plural.
Because ANY night of ANY week ANY time of the year, you can find exceptional music not too far from ANYWHERE you are in the city. I am a sinner. I have not taken advantage of this fully in the past eight years. I have taken it for granted, and now that I am not there, I am so sorry for that.
Ditto for food.
Because at one end of my block is a great big Victorian mansion that is (was) for sale for $850,000 and at the other end of my block and around the corner there are Section-8 apartments. Because in any neighborhood in New Orleans you live side-by-side with millionaires and people who are on welfare. And that, my friends, is beautiful.
Because it is hotter than hell in the summer. Because of WWOZ radio and Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras. Because of the Rebirth Jazz Band and Preservation Hall and Trombone Shorty and the Blue Nile and the Neville Brothers and the Marsalis Family and Harry Connick, Jr. and Grayson Capps and the Flamenco scene and the Tango scene and the late beloved Buddy D. Because of the Landrieus and the Mannings and Tipitinas and Fats Domino. Because, this summer, I saw a free Michelle Shocked concert in the business district. Michelle lived in New Orleans for years and had to leave during her ugly divorce. This concert was her first return to the city. And every song she played was a peon to her love for this place. She cried. I cried. We all wanted her to come back home.
All that being said, there is a “because” that outweighs all others. New Orleans was all that and much, much more before Katrina. Simply put, we have no idea what New Orleans will be like now. There are whole neighborhoods, whole gigantic suburbs, that have been utterly destroyed by Katrina. Some of these areas are a mere 10 to 12 blocks from my home. Why do I need to go home? Why do I feel like I may need to stay regardless of my prior plans? Because, simply, if I don’t return, if people like me don’t return, then who will be the stewards of the city?
Already rumors abound—giant conglomerations trying to buy up giant tracts of land in New Orleans and environs. Housing developments where there were historic shotgun homes. Strip malls where there were parks. Box stores where mom-and-pops reigned. If “we”—the young, the intelligent, the ambitious, the culturally attuned—don’t return, New Orleans will become… well… Florida.
Why? Love. Why? This is home. Tell post-9/11 NYC that their city is a sitting duck for terrorists. Or the people of DC. Tell San Francisco they live on a fault line. Tell Hawaii they live in the path of a future tsumani. Tell Los Angeles, today, right now, that there are wildfires blazing outside of their city and they really should leave.
Home. Love. Loyalty. Passion. Home.
Throughout our history, people have shed blood, laid down their lives for HOME. For land, for place, for culture. Why should it be any different now?
posted by M at 9:10 PM
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