New Orleans: Hop On, Hop Off, Enjoy!

They take photos as if one frame; one moment in time can begin to embody the soul.  Royal Parisian crests melded into cast iron and painted in a gooey tar black. The underbelly of balconies holding up rusty chains dangling with tangled manes of drooping green strands. The grey humidity weighs down saunters. A liberating slow motion; there’s no reason to move when the city lives on every block. The ones who do it right walk without intention. To feel the thigh stretch as their heels go click, their boots go clomp or their sandals go nick nack. The circus cruises by the circus in a gluttonous red bus that boasts “Hop on, Hop off, Enjoy!” Snap, Snap. Snap, Snap. The scenery changes like a scrolling film. One image after the next. Seen, but not observed. There’s too much so we pretend there’s too little. Too little of the inside of the inside and the outside of the outside; the inside of the outside and the outside of the inside. Just too much, certainly not worth our time! Snap! Hop on the bus. Snap! Hop off the bus. Snap! Order food. Snap! Get a drink. Snap! All the while a gaping internal space; as big as the universe; stagnates like the slow whirl of twigs and wrappers in a salty brown pool. And then, it’s over. 

New Orleans: The Hibernating City

Swirls of white frameworks and pastel-colored clapboards. Cotton candy streets and the merry go round melody of a majestic steamboat interspersed with the howling of industrial trains sweeping through town. The nostalgic soundtrack echoes through porches of swing benches covered in leaves and stoic rocking chairs.

Dozens of black cats scurry into the warm lairs of the hibernating city; the magic shacked up behind tightly closed doors adorned with little strands of colorful Tibetan flags. Smiling passersby huddle by space heaters from the drugstore in their haphazardly curated nooks of melted candles, used books and the local art they couldn’t afford, but couldn’t pass up. Louis Armstrong sauntering down Royal Street in the starry night humidity, the crooked grid of roads blurring into a whimsical, twisty-turny row of rainbow stoops lit by the soft orange glow of French street lamps, Mardi Gras Indians covered in neon feathers dancing with devotion to a life of festivity…reminders of the spirits that wait to be awoken as unbearable chills transform into seductive beads of alcoholic sweat and music, music, music blends into a delirium that reminds us we’re alive. Until then, we wait; masochistically embracing this cold as the opposite end of the twisted spectrum that fuels our desire to feel, even if it’s sadness. Dirty dishes, a wine glass stained with cheap Cabernet and a beckoning unmade bed. Tea steeps, incense burn, pens move across journals…the warmest town in America is frigid and so are our words.