Not sure if I've ever really revealed my obsession with the Crescent City. I have a craving for the City of New Orleans. I've been going there since I was a little girl. My dad's cousins live there and he spent every August (yes, August for pete's sake) there as a child.
I was there for a nursing conference 3 months before Katrina. In the same convention center where you saw all those people dying, crying and all other horrible things. I could hardly watch the TV coverage. My friends and family were safe, although many experienced losses.
Last year I took Dr. Arm for his first visit. In his opinion, the city is a dump. And if you are only using your eyes, then he could be right. (He did change his tune after he relaxed and got some mojo back. No, I did not give him "mojo." Gutter brains. I'm talking about the hoodoo voodoo kind of mojo, you know like the mental kind?)
How can you resist a city where the best place to get a Po Boy looks like this (yes, my hat matches my shorts):
But if you use all your senses, and open your heart, this city will bring you alive (aka mojo). And that is why it is thriving. Outside magazine just listed it as one of the top cities to live in.
Last year we saw this:
That would be Fats Domino in his final live performance. To describe it as "moving" is simplistic and almost disrespectful. Here's an article if you want to read/listen more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10470031.
If you want to support something in NoLa, I recommend this: http://www.tipitinasfoundation.org/. It's helping to rebuild Fats' house, his neighborhood, and the lives of musicians.
I don't claim to be any kind of music expert. But this city is music. The music is everywhere. It speaks to your soul. It makes you feel so alive when you walk those streets. No matter how close to drunk and unconscious your 3 Hurricanes have made you.
Only my experience as an EMT has brought me the same electric feeling as this city. Maybe it's because both of them have brought me in contact with life, death, ugliness, beauty, crime, love, destruction and renewal.
Preserve it. Live it.
