do you know what it means to miss new orleans?
tonight i sat around with 10 friends, drank Abita Purple Haze, ate a mess of boiled shrimp and listened to NOLA music. it almost felt like home.
then the guests trickled home and we cleared the dishes. i scraped the coffee grinds into the trash and dried off the remaining bottles of beer. after placing them back in the fridge, i went outside to pourthe melted ice from the cooler into the garden.
in the quiet of a settled kitchen and sleepy house, i talked to my parents and then my brother. i gave my mom sudha's number so that maybe they could meet up sometime next week. i was happy to think of su visiting my folks. i sure wish i could.
i need to redirect my bills, figure out what to do with my now useless JetBlue ticket to NOLA for October. I already filed my FEMA claim. What else is there to do but wait for the water to drain?
I'm okay until I so much as focus on this. There is too much to consider at once and it quickly becomes overwhelming. I really want to go on amazon.com and buy a ton of stuff. All the cds and dvds I lost, books about NOLA architecture and culture.
I want crazy our lady of guadaloupe candles from Wal-Mart. I want religious medals. I want everything I lost in my house. I loved going home for many reasons, but one quiet reason was because I could immediately revisit so many memories by just being there. Now I have nothing to go back to. Do you know how that feels? How hard it is to even look back. Just thinking of anything -- a birthday party, a drive, dinner, baseball game, trip to the grocery -- makes me choke up. I always thought I would have to say goodbye to certain unique places that might get lost in the general homogenization of the country, but an entire city erased? And moreover, so many people in my exquisite city are dead, homeless and most of all hopeless. What will the dispossessed do? How will the city ever rise again?
I need a mournful trumpet. Give me my jazz funeral. Fats Domino is safe, but where is Irma Thomas?
Cue up "It's raining" on the turntable and call me. I've got the white hankerchief. It's of good use these days.
then the guests trickled home and we cleared the dishes. i scraped the coffee grinds into the trash and dried off the remaining bottles of beer. after placing them back in the fridge, i went outside to pourthe melted ice from the cooler into the garden.
in the quiet of a settled kitchen and sleepy house, i talked to my parents and then my brother. i gave my mom sudha's number so that maybe they could meet up sometime next week. i was happy to think of su visiting my folks. i sure wish i could.
i need to redirect my bills, figure out what to do with my now useless JetBlue ticket to NOLA for October. I already filed my FEMA claim. What else is there to do but wait for the water to drain?
I'm okay until I so much as focus on this. There is too much to consider at once and it quickly becomes overwhelming. I really want to go on amazon.com and buy a ton of stuff. All the cds and dvds I lost, books about NOLA architecture and culture.
I want crazy our lady of guadaloupe candles from Wal-Mart. I want religious medals. I want everything I lost in my house. I loved going home for many reasons, but one quiet reason was because I could immediately revisit so many memories by just being there. Now I have nothing to go back to. Do you know how that feels? How hard it is to even look back. Just thinking of anything -- a birthday party, a drive, dinner, baseball game, trip to the grocery -- makes me choke up. I always thought I would have to say goodbye to certain unique places that might get lost in the general homogenization of the country, but an entire city erased? And moreover, so many people in my exquisite city are dead, homeless and most of all hopeless. What will the dispossessed do? How will the city ever rise again?
I need a mournful trumpet. Give me my jazz funeral. Fats Domino is safe, but where is Irma Thomas?
Cue up "It's raining" on the turntable and call me. I've got the white hankerchief. It's of good use these days.
posted by lequincampe at 11:59 PM
1 Comments:
You are so sweet. Really, endlessly kind. I will have to think of what i've lost. tomorrow is a long day off. i'll put pen to paper.
sigh. much love, thank you.
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