Back to New Orleans

The French Quarter has changed since my last visit, twenty five years ago. But then again, so have I. On my first visit, I was in my twenties, a passionate public radio professional-- here with my boyfriend for a romantic getaway. Now, I am a middle-aged mom with bunions on my feet, here with my 18-year old son to tour Tulane University.

Hurricane Katrina has left her signature everywhere. I had thought that by now, four years after the hurricane, that the recovery would be complete-- at least in the main tourist areas— that everything would be fixed up, whitewashed, repainted. Well, the French Quarter is still the French Quarter, but you can tell it has been through something major. Mildewed stains tell the terrifying story of water rising to second story windows. The old buildings droop, their balconies propped up precariously. They look tired and seedy—yet simultaneously bright with color and life. They have lost their grandeur, yet retain their charm. Noah takes photographs of sagging wrought-iron balconies filled with colorful flower pots and Mardi Gras beads.

We walk down Decatur Street through the French Market by the riverside. The Jackson Brewery is not what it once was. When I was here in the 80's with Daniel, it was new and swank. Now, lots of the stores in this shopping center/eatery are closed. It has a broken, rejected and boarded up look. But we still go in and order fried oysters and sit on the balcony overlooking the broad, brown waters of the Mississippi River.

We stroll down Pirate Alley. The fake pirate culture is still alive and well—and the costumed pirates with their bandanas and gold earrings are still singing raucous sea chanties at the bar.

When I was here around 1985 with Daniel, we had our fortunes told and had our pictures taken in old wild west costumes toned in sepia. Now, as I walk into an antique store with Noah, I swear I feel Daniel looking over my shoulders at the Civil War era guns and the shipwreck coins.

We pass some young street musicians—a girl with the pink overalls, sunglasses, and green curly hair, playing the banjo singing “Arabian Fuck”--about a magic carpet ride of sorts. She's accompanied by a wild clarinet player, suggestively swinging the part of the charmed snake, and with the scrape of spoons on washboard. A few feet away, a long haired poet, with a ferret in his lap sits with his back against the low stone wall. He watches, jots down phrases.

I decide to follow my friend Kristen's advice and just “give in” to New Orleans. I stop worrying about how much money I'm putting on my charge card. Our dinner begins with oysters on the half shell and ends with “death by chocolate.” I have a couple of mixed drinks—a “Louisiana Lemonade” and a strawberry daiquiri. A guy on the street calls to Noah that he should fall down on his knees and thank Jesus that he has such a wonderful mother because his own mother has died.

We enter a souvenir shop called “Jazz Funeral”, where you are “dying to go in”. We handle dried alligator heads and voodoo dolls; finger purple and gold Mardis Gras beads; consider Cajun spices and New Orleans Saints T-shirts; touch soft feathered masks.

In a gallery on Royal Street, I am drawn to a photo of a saxophonist by the river. Lined up diagonally behind him are a bright full moon, and a ferry boat gliding over on the Mississippi towards the musician in the darkness. To me, this picture emanates audio. I can practically hear the deep call of the ferry horn, as well as the plaintive wail of the saxophone. The full moon calls forth it's own sounds-- a cry of longing from deep in the soul.

It's a sensory adventure just walking down Bourbon street,--catching snatches of blues from one club, Dixieland from another, and Trop Rock (as in Wasting away in Margarita-ville) from another-- spying people savoring their dinners in the windows of the oyster bar called Desire. I remember slurping up oysters on the half shell with Daniel, deciding they tasted better with our eyes closed. I remember dancing down this street with my lover, knowing we could be as crazy as we wanted to and no one cared-- enjoying the novelty of strutting openly outside while sloshing a big ass plastic cup full of beer.

Just as it did then, the street boasts numerous strip joints, with signs that say “no cover”-- proffering shows that are “barely legal” or feature “live girl on girl action”. Barely clad babes lounge in doorways luring leering passersby. It's a bit embarrassing to pass these places now with my teenage son. We both look away. When I was here with Daniel, we went to a drag show. The glamorous queens looked believably feminine-- until their male voices shocked us into reality. This is not the sort of place I would take Noah.

I WOULD take him into the jazz club, where Daniel and I sipped Irish coffee and enjoyed the trumpeter who could blow his cheeks out like Louis Armstrong. However this time, when we try to enter, they card Noah and won't let him in because he's under 21. I find this surprising, since the atmosphere inside is tame—with middle aged and older people listening to well-preserved, traditional jazz. You would think it would be an appropriate place for a mom to take her son-- unlike the bar where people get down to I'm a Soul Man. They wave us in without checking ID, and offer both of us drinks.“Don't ask, don't tell,” I smile to Noah , though I stop short of buying him a drink.

We are “blown away” by a couple of amazing brass bands playing for tips out on the street. The first one is all young guys—with a dented tuba, a couple of trombones and trumpets and a bass drum with a high hat on top. They are high energy and tight, yet ragged and dissonant. The sound is blown out raw—like oysters on the half shell with sharp edges. The beat is contagious. It makes you move your feet, makes you swing and sway. A black man of about forty approaches us and raves on and on about how cool these young guys are, this next generation of New Orleans musicians. We smile and nod agreement. He praises their talent to the skies—then tries to sell us the New Orleans Saints cap he's wearing as a souvenir. I tell him I'd rather support the band directly, and put a couple of bucks in their cardboard tip box.

A few blocks away, in front of the shoe store, on the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets is a bigger, fuller, inter-generational brass band. Their traditional repertoire is more familiar. “When the Saints Go Marching In” is pretty much the national anthem around here these days after the miraculous New Orleans Saints super bowl victory. It's preceded by the chant “Who dat? Who dat?”. This chant, which originated in minstrel and vaudeville shows and was taken up by jazz players, has become the slogan of Saints fans. T-shirts and posters boast “Who Dat Nation”.

Street dancers pull pretty young tourists into a dance. The dancers mime jumping rope—double dutch --the one in the middle jumping double time to the music with fancy footwork. A guy with dreadlocks does a clown version, miming getting whipped in the butt with the imaginary jump ropes. Another poses sitting on top of a milk crate holding his cellphone-- still as a statue, with one leg kicked out. A shoe shine rag is a prop, air shining shoes, flicking in jest. Multiple trombones slide to the beat. A legless trumpeter blasts out notes from his wheelchair. Cardboard boxes are passed around repeatedly—the tourist dollars tossed in with smiles. I add my own greenback to the mix, knowing that alone it will not go very far, but hoping all these multiples will at least add up to a water bill payment or a tank of gas for a couple of them.

Noah says thinks it's so cool the way jazz is the true music of the street here—alive and pulsing—being taken up and transformed by young people. I am so pleased with Noah, with his openness to the sights and sounds and smells and tastes: craw fish etouffe, alligator po' boys, bread pudding and pralines.

Yet, the next morning at the Cafe du Monde over beignets and cafe ole, Noah says he doesn't want to wear his hoodie on our college tour even though it's chilly outside, because when the temperature warms up later in the day, he'll have to carry it. “Just tie it around your waist”, I tell him. Noah explains that he could never do that, that it doesn't look cool, that the only people his age who tie their sweatshirts around their waists at his school are hopeless social rejects. I tell him I don't understand why. I always tie my purple Patagonia fleece around my waist when I don't need it, and then it's there when I do. I tell him I like being of the age where you don't have to worry about “cool” anymore, that I find it liberating. “When exactly does that happen?” he asks me. “I really don't know,” I answer. “ I suppose it happens gradually, over time.” Then I add, “ But for some people, it never happens, and they never let go of looking cool.” “That's a little sad,” my son remarks, his lips coated with powdered sugar. I'm guessing that's a bit of back handed approval from my son-- the closest thing to a compliment I can expect at the moment.

Daniel told me he loved me on the antique brass bed where we spent our New Orleans nights. “Come here often?” was a favorite joke. He and I were conducting a long distance relationship between Texas and Kansas. We met as often as we could— specializing in intensly romantic weekends--in Galveston, in Kansas City, in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Before the days of email, we wrote copious, heart-felt letters to each other several times a week, and talked long distance on the phone as often as we could afford to. Yet our different career paths eventually drove us further apart geographically, instead of closer together. Sadly, we parted ways, and both eventually wound up marrying other people.

In the years that followed, I survived some serious storms--including a work conflict that left me no choice but to let go of my beloved career in public radio. And four years ago, right around the time of Hurricane Katrina, I weathered the destruction of my fifteen-year marriage, which scattered its emotional debris everywhere. Every item had to be sorted through and sifted. I had to touch everything I owned, and decide whether to keep it or to throw away. But we are still here, New Orleans and I.

Like this glorious city, I rise from the wreckage of what once was. I'm no longer a young lover , but a middle aged mom, hair streaked with gray, whose feet hurt from all the walking we've done. I may be sagging a bit, yet I'm still dancing and singing, still wearing those Mardi Gras beads. When I look at the pictures of me and my son on our trip-- I don't notice my jowls or my glasses, or that decidedly uncool jacket tied around my waist. Instead, I see a mother whose face is glowing with love. I have full confidence that my son will fill the world with his own amazing music and I can't wait to hear it.