Laissez les bons temps rouler

I got married in New Orleans.  I never planned on falling in love a second time - with the city itself.  Prior to the wedding, I had never been there, and prior to Hurricane Katrina, I'll admit that I never thought much about it.  Now, I'm thinking about making it home.

New Orleans is one of the world's greatest treasures - and the most magical place I've ever been.  She has a heartbeat and energy all her own.  If you were to ask me what's so amazing and wonderful about the city, I would tell you to go visit.  Now.  Often.  Always.  Because I don't think it's something that anyone could ever put into words entirely.  Maybe I can try, but I seriously doubt I'll do her justice.

New Orleans is not the "center of the universe" like New York.  She is not a clean city or a safe one.  She has more than her fair share of political problems, and there is a constant, palpable threat of another big hurricane that will wipe out the city entirely.  Somehow, though, I don't think the Crescent City and the spell she casts could ever be eliminated completely.  Because part of what is so magical about New Orleans is that she isn't just a place. She lives inside the people who reside there.  She becomes part of you the moment you take your first step onto her uneven sidewalks and warm, sun-drenched streets.

Of course there is the French Quarter and all its debauchery.  The beer-soaked streets, strip clubs, tourist traps, and t-shirt shops.  Coops, known for it's terrible service, long lines, and fried chicken so good you'd give your left arm to have some if it was your last meal on earth - even if it wasn't.  Cafe du Monde, with coffee and beignets so fresh and...well...southern, that they practically lead you to the bench by the Mississippi to enjoy your breakfast - as if it were impossible to enjoy such goodness indoors.  There are the voodoo shops and the street artists; Jackson Square and the Moon Walk; and bars as far as the eye can see - all with "go cups" ready, should you want to take in the city before you finish your whiskey.  New Orleans isn't modest, either.  Sex and nudity are as prevalent as the bars and restaurants - and just as celebrated.  And why shouldn't they be?  They are as much a part of experiencing life as anything else.  New Orleans doesn't see any reason to cover them up.  Frankly, neither do I.

But New Orleans is much, much more than the French Quarter, even as that section, in some ways, defines the city in the eyes of the rest of the world.  It's been said that more than a few people who go for a visit to New Orleans just never leave.  That she takes such a hold of them that they go back only to get their belongings.  That they return to the Crescent City with a single bag and make her their home.  I have been close, oh, so many times, to doing it myself.  When I say that New Orleans lives in the people, I mean just that.  She gets into your heart and your head and your bones - hypnotizing you with a song so beautiful, the Sirens themselves would probably quake in their boots were she to pass by in a ship.

Outside the French Quarter, New Orleans becomes a little more down-to-earth - but not in any way you or I might recognize as such.  She is a city, after all.  Beyond the tourist-saturated streets of booze and sex, t-shirts and ghost tours, there exists another world entirely - of music and local color, artisans and drug dealers, depression and beauty, and a sheer, immortal vibration.  A sense that no matter what happens, it's going to happen.  A death in the family results in not just a funeral, but in a parade and a celebration of life in general, and a recognition that it doesn't last forever.  When crime escalates and politics oppress, the music just becomes louder.  It's a sense that, good or bad; sane or crazy; ugly or beautiful; life happens.  You can either let it happen to you, or you can be a part of it.  The people of New Orleans are part of it - every day, with every breath.  Because they never know when it might be their last.  Because life is temporary, and the very least we can do is make it beautiful.  So, when I say the city lives in the people, she truly does.  Her heart beats in every neighborhood, on every street, in each resident young and old.  In the homeless man outside that bar on Tchoupitoulas.  The street performer in metallic paint on Jackson Square.  The 80-year-old woman living in a house of ruins in the Lower Ninth Ward.  And me, here in Brooklyn.

The streets of New Orleans are as varied and unpredictable as the people - and as dynamic.  When I ran the New Orleans Marathon this year, every other mile was different.  From abandoned warehouses at the start, to Audubon Park (which may just be the most beautiful place on earth, no joke), to City Park and Lake Ponchartrain, to the residential neigborhoods in Mid-City, and all the stretches of highway, depressed and isolated streets, and trash-coated blocks in between.

In New Orleans, every day is an event.  An occurance.  Every time you walk out your door, you may be met by a tuba player walking the streets making beautiful music for no reason at all, seemingly.  To be sure, others will join him soon enough.  When someone stops you to say, "Good morning," that's not an end, but the beginning of a conversation.  Bright colors punctuate the streets and everyone on them.  Because New Orleans "gets it" - that thing that we always forget, particularly here in New York - that even when things are bad, or, perhaps, especially when things are bad, there is always something to celebrate.  And, chances are, by celebrating - by making something beautiful - that bad thing and all the negativity that goes along with it, will melt away and become part of the beauty itself.  Life can really suck sometimes, but it doesn't have to be ugly.

That's one of the reasons why I think New Orleans can never die - because she "gets" life.  In the same way that Anton Chekov found humor in the human condition, New Orleans finds beauty in life - no matter how bad it gets.  There's never a reason not to pick up your instrument and make something transcendent. So when I see the condemned markings on the homes and businesses that I pass on the streets in the Crescent City, I know it's not forever.

New Orleans has most definitely gotten into my blood, and it's only a matter of time before it calls me back and doesn't let me leave for good.  As a person, I am compelled to be there.  As an artist, I need to be there.  New York doesn't need any more artists.  I'm not necessary here - expendable, really.  New Orleans, on the other hand, can never have enough.  And it will never run out of room for one more. 

So that whisper I'm hearing, that slight gravitational tug?  It's New Orleans.  I tell her I'm on my way, and I'll be there soon.  I don't have to worry about time running out - she'll be expecting me whenever I get there.