Dear New Orleans
Originally posted Jan 7th 2009, on myspace
The day falls gently in the smoking gun sky, leaving as gracefully as it came. There are no lights on in my house, but as the sunlight retreats, I can see absolutely everything that needs to be seen. The outlines and the darkly contrasted colors of the millwork on the porch, the angel trumpets closing their eyes, my two little dogs lounging on the armchair of the blood red couch.
There is a sincere peace in this place, as much as in the physical location as in the state of mind. Like the universe just condensed and entirely opened up simultaneously. The infinite, the truth of so many things, all fitting into an open palm.
Since the start of this new year the days just roll right in to one another, effortlessly and with a grace I haven’t seen in so long. It’s good to be in a place that makes you feel deeply, truly, at home. Music has been seeping out of corners and shadows, out of long unrequited loves, bellowing up from a formerly stifled heart.
This city speaks the most eternal of stories and sings the most body shaking blues. The soul of it’s tap dance vibrates the concrete streets and when the rain & thunder come, it explodes like firecrackers in the wet skies, but no one staggers, as we all know this place isn’t going anywhere. Come hell or high water, you can’t shake down a place with roots like this. The whiskey drunk bodies may stumble in the street, but it is out of excessive merriment and far from lack of vision. This vision is precise.
You will be offered a hand when you need it, and a drink at all other times. No one scoffs at your decisions, because they are all satisfied with their own. You are a quick friend, if not family, and strangers will sometimes hug you in the middle of a busy street. You will hug them back. And mean it.
Conversations are slightly softer and more focused. You cook with friends, and if you only have one or two, don’t worry, you’ll have plenty more soon. We make recipes we know by heart and with heart, the deepest of nourishment that sticks to your ribs eternally. A meal is never a perfect science and this truth is easily applied to life here… so we improvise as called for, add a little of this or that, let it simmer…. and with patience…. everything comes out just right.
The alcoholic gambler and the rocket scientist can sit at the same table and have a conversation that carries both their mind & hearts for days to come. It’s in the air, in that great Mississippi River, in the coffee with it’s chicory root, in the musicians peddling their sounds on so many street corners, in the stranger you just met at a bar, in a woman showing a little too much leg, in the columns of the mansions on St. Charles Avenue, at the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain, and at the top of the St. Louis cathedral. There is soul in this place like no other…… a deep, eternal love for life that preserves, perpetuates and inspires true living. Joie de vivre is alive and well here in New Orleans.
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