The city of my dreams
"And I wish I was in New Orleans, 'cause I can see it in my dreams,
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me
New Orleans, I'll be there" - Tom Waits
I have always wanted to go to New Orleans. My dad has a band that plays zydeco music and when I was a kid, listening to my dad play, I developed this idea that New Orleans was a magic town. When I learned about Mardi Gras I desperately wanted to go t0 New Orleans and see it first hand. Not the girls-gone-wild version of Mardi Gras, but the tradition, and the music and the magic. Eventually I started thinking, even if it wasn't for Mardi Gras, I had to go to New Orleans. It's a city that's always held a mystique for me.
A couple years ago I was finally going to go. I had a couple days off work around Labor Day weekend and a friend of mine was going down there to reunite with some friends she hadn't seen in a long time. So, I decided to go with her. I bought a plane ticket and started planning out the trip. As you may remember though, two years ago, a few days before Labor Day, a pretty big hurricane hit New Orleans.
At first the airline was telling me that, by the weekend, the city would be fine and flights in would have resumed. It wasn't until the day my flight was supposed to go that they finally acknowledged that it was going to be a while before flights into New Orleans started back up and even longer before the city was "fine". In fact, even two years later, the city is still not really fine.
I'm still captivated by the magic of it though. It's seeping into the things I write, not here (aside from this), but the other things I write. Years ago I was first inspired to write by the music and the magic of New Orleans and the city featured prominently in that first piece I wrote. Now, as I'm starting to write again, it's finding its way back in. Only now, it's a different city than it was then. In my mind it's still just as magic, maybe even more so. Now it's a little like a rescued Atlantis, nearly swallowed by the sea, but not quite lost.
If I don't go and see it for myself it will be one of the great regrets of my life.
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me
New Orleans, I'll be there" - Tom Waits
I have always wanted to go to New Orleans. My dad has a band that plays zydeco music and when I was a kid, listening to my dad play, I developed this idea that New Orleans was a magic town. When I learned about Mardi Gras I desperately wanted to go t0 New Orleans and see it first hand. Not the girls-gone-wild version of Mardi Gras, but the tradition, and the music and the magic. Eventually I started thinking, even if it wasn't for Mardi Gras, I had to go to New Orleans. It's a city that's always held a mystique for me.
A couple years ago I was finally going to go. I had a couple days off work around Labor Day weekend and a friend of mine was going down there to reunite with some friends she hadn't seen in a long time. So, I decided to go with her. I bought a plane ticket and started planning out the trip. As you may remember though, two years ago, a few days before Labor Day, a pretty big hurricane hit New Orleans.
At first the airline was telling me that, by the weekend, the city would be fine and flights in would have resumed. It wasn't until the day my flight was supposed to go that they finally acknowledged that it was going to be a while before flights into New Orleans started back up and even longer before the city was "fine". In fact, even two years later, the city is still not really fine.
I'm still captivated by the magic of it though. It's seeping into the things I write, not here (aside from this), but the other things I write. Years ago I was first inspired to write by the music and the magic of New Orleans and the city featured prominently in that first piece I wrote. Now, as I'm starting to write again, it's finding its way back in. Only now, it's a different city than it was then. In my mind it's still just as magic, maybe even more so. Now it's a little like a rescued Atlantis, nearly swallowed by the sea, but not quite lost.
If I don't go and see it for myself it will be one of the great regrets of my life.
posted by Beth at
12:58 PM
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