travelogue/homelogue
Mar. 23rd, 2005 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceWhen I moved away from New Orleans over a year ago, I was so ready to
get away that I felt as though I'd never miss a single thing about it,
ever again. Well, apart from the restaurants, which I missed from the
first day I left and several of which I had programmed into the speed
dial on my phone and never took off, as if I will be dialing for
takeout from Mona's tonight when I get home form work. But enough
time has passed now that I am feeling a little friendlier to the city
that broke my heart into a million pieces on the floor (spectacular
and humiliating heartbreak being a thing that New Orleans is
especially good at, that tawdry old whore).
Talking about moving, and being in love with cities, this week, has
reminded me that much as I hated The Banana Republic of New Orleans
when I left it, I loved it that much, too, for the longest time, for
years. Many of the things I loved about it at first are things I grew
to hate, and now, with hundreds of miles and lots of months between me
and the some of the worst bits of my life, they seem fun to me again,
adventures and not inconveniences, anecdotes and not psychotic
episodes.
And to celebrate my newfound peace with my ex-city, I feel like
talking about some of my favorite things about it.
1. That blast of frigid air conditioning when you walk through a door
in midsummer, that two-second juxtaposition of hundred-degree heat and
deep freeze. It's unpleasant after a few minutes going either way,
but that rush of air is like an emphatic trumpet blast. Did I mention
that I happen to like trumpets?
2. The Jackson Avenue Ferry, lonely and decayed and populated by few.
Blue collar workers and derelict escalators and stainless steel
seating and wet river spray and the workers tying knots in inch-thick
rope at the dock, eyeing you suspiciously until they know you by
sight, at which time they start complaining about their medical
insurance.
3. Innocently driving along some side street, minding my own business,
and suddenly finding myself in the Middle of Something. A film set,
or an Indian gathering, or a jazz funeral, or an unexpected, tiny
parade, and just sitting there with my car in park because I'm not
going anywhere until it's over. New Orleans is, I'm sure, one of the
few places in the world where the aforementioned are acceptable
excuses for being late to work.
4. The dry-cleaner near my house, run by an Asian family and which
closed not too long before I left. They performed repairs without my
asking for them and without mentioning the repairs to me, a button
replaced or a hem tacked up, or some such thing; the place was so
relentlessly tidy that I assume it was just that they couldn't bear
the asymmetry of my missing buttons and dropped hems. I never spoke
more than a dozen words to them. But I love them nonetheless. I
would have paid them for all those repairs they did, if it meant
they'd have stayed open.
5. Maple Street Books, where I think the workers just sit all day
waiting for you to come in so that they can talk to you about your
favorites.
6. The erstwhile apartment of my friends J and C. It was the tiniest
two-story apartment, one room downstairs and one up, a classic French
Quarter slave quarter setup, and it had a positively treacherous
staircase and overlooked a classic, mossy, shadowy courtyard. It was
the sort of apartment that novels about New Orleans are set in, and it
was the only only one I ever knew personally. I miss it as if it had
been mine, now that J and C have traded their two-room life for
children and suburban space.
7. Those tiny, useless, stunningly beautiful, architecturally
wondrous, practically book-free branch libraries. And their
canned-goods-for-fines amnesty days.
8. Being able to walk to just about anything I might want.
Restaurants, movies, video stores, groceries, banks, convenience
stores, hardware stores, thrift stores, drugstores, funeral homes
(:D), dry cleaners, car repair shops, dog walks along the bayou. You
name it. God, God, I miss that.
9. House tours, which are not the showcase Town and Country
tours you might think. Oh, sure, you have your pristine,
lovingly-and-accurately restored Garden District mansions. But you
also have your shabby old places in the Bywater with bicycles chained
to the bathtub, and your Quarter houses with giant papier-mache
dragonflies hanging precariously from the ceiling, and your mildewed,
tragic-beauty-queen Bayou St. John wrecks. They are better, trust me.
10. The way people love it or hate it--or both--so extravagantly. It
is a place that inspires high-running passions. Anne Rice may be
totally insane, but she is perfectly right about that part.
It's funny how it happens, isn't it? I broke up with my city after
a long, codependent, rocky relationship, and it felt like grief
seventeen months ago, but now I am feeling stronger and happier and
reminiscent, as though I may be able to visit one day without having a
psychotic episode of my own. Right on schedule, man.
get away that I felt as though I'd never miss a single thing about it,
ever again. Well, apart from the restaurants, which I missed from the
first day I left and several of which I had programmed into the speed
dial on my phone and never took off, as if I will be dialing for
takeout from Mona's tonight when I get home form work. But enough
time has passed now that I am feeling a little friendlier to the city
that broke my heart into a million pieces on the floor (spectacular
and humiliating heartbreak being a thing that New Orleans is
especially good at, that tawdry old whore).
Talking about moving, and being in love with cities, this week, has
reminded me that much as I hated The Banana Republic of New Orleans
when I left it, I loved it that much, too, for the longest time, for
years. Many of the things I loved about it at first are things I grew
to hate, and now, with hundreds of miles and lots of months between me
and the some of the worst bits of my life, they seem fun to me again,
adventures and not inconveniences, anecdotes and not psychotic
episodes.
And to celebrate my newfound peace with my ex-city, I feel like
talking about some of my favorite things about it.
1. That blast of frigid air conditioning when you walk through a door
in midsummer, that two-second juxtaposition of hundred-degree heat and
deep freeze. It's unpleasant after a few minutes going either way,
but that rush of air is like an emphatic trumpet blast. Did I mention
that I happen to like trumpets?
2. The Jackson Avenue Ferry, lonely and decayed and populated by few.
Blue collar workers and derelict escalators and stainless steel
seating and wet river spray and the workers tying knots in inch-thick
rope at the dock, eyeing you suspiciously until they know you by
sight, at which time they start complaining about their medical
insurance.
3. Innocently driving along some side street, minding my own business,
and suddenly finding myself in the Middle of Something. A film set,
or an Indian gathering, or a jazz funeral, or an unexpected, tiny
parade, and just sitting there with my car in park because I'm not
going anywhere until it's over. New Orleans is, I'm sure, one of the
few places in the world where the aforementioned are acceptable
excuses for being late to work.
4. The dry-cleaner near my house, run by an Asian family and which
closed not too long before I left. They performed repairs without my
asking for them and without mentioning the repairs to me, a button
replaced or a hem tacked up, or some such thing; the place was so
relentlessly tidy that I assume it was just that they couldn't bear
the asymmetry of my missing buttons and dropped hems. I never spoke
more than a dozen words to them. But I love them nonetheless. I
would have paid them for all those repairs they did, if it meant
they'd have stayed open.
5. Maple Street Books, where I think the workers just sit all day
waiting for you to come in so that they can talk to you about your
favorites.
6. The erstwhile apartment of my friends J and C. It was the tiniest
two-story apartment, one room downstairs and one up, a classic French
Quarter slave quarter setup, and it had a positively treacherous
staircase and overlooked a classic, mossy, shadowy courtyard. It was
the sort of apartment that novels about New Orleans are set in, and it
was the only only one I ever knew personally. I miss it as if it had
been mine, now that J and C have traded their two-room life for
children and suburban space.
7. Those tiny, useless, stunningly beautiful, architecturally
wondrous, practically book-free branch libraries. And their
canned-goods-for-fines amnesty days.
8. Being able to walk to just about anything I might want.
Restaurants, movies, video stores, groceries, banks, convenience
stores, hardware stores, thrift stores, drugstores, funeral homes
(:D), dry cleaners, car repair shops, dog walks along the bayou. You
name it. God, God, I miss that.
9. House tours, which are not the showcase Town and Country
tours you might think. Oh, sure, you have your pristine,
lovingly-and-accurately restored Garden District mansions. But you
also have your shabby old places in the Bywater with bicycles chained
to the bathtub, and your Quarter houses with giant papier-mache
dragonflies hanging precariously from the ceiling, and your mildewed,
tragic-beauty-queen Bayou St. John wrecks. They are better, trust me.
10. The way people love it or hate it--or both--so extravagantly. It
is a place that inspires high-running passions. Anne Rice may be
totally insane, but she is perfectly right about that part.
It's funny how it happens, isn't it? I broke up with my city after
a long, codependent, rocky relationship, and it felt like grief
seventeen months ago, but now I am feeling stronger and happier and
reminiscent, as though I may be able to visit one day without having a
psychotic episode of my own. Right on schedule, man.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-23 06:01 pm (UTC)Due to financial circumstances, I did not.
I wish I did. Especially now.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-23 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 03:40 am (UTC)Not to mention Ti-Eva's key lime pie, or gelato from Brocato's, or... okay, I am making myself unhappy. Also hungry.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-24 03:56 am (UTC)As a potential cheer-up maneuver, you could always satisfy my curiosity and list 10 things you like about where you are now! Or even five, if it's an unlovable place.
Writing assignment! :D
Date: 2005-03-24 05:36 am (UTC)Tommorow.