Archive for the ‘The Big Easy’ Category

6 years and a day ago, I was on the phone with my then boyfriend, giving him a lecture on why he needed to evacuate to northern Louisiana. He wanted to ride out what was then a Category 5 storm, because he had just gotten settled in his new home and didn’t want to leave. And also because I had tickets to fly out to visit him and he thought somehow that I’d be able to make the trip. After a lot of nagging and some time to let his deeply buried common sense activate, he gave in and packed.

6 years ago tomorrow, we talked on the phone as we watched news coverage of Katrina. She made landfall during daylight and initially we thought everything was going to be okay. My then boyfriend (now husband) even talked about heading home the next day. Obviously we knew there was substantial wind damage and probably some damage from the rain, but when we went to bed on August 29, we felt like we had dodged a bullet.

August 30th was a different story.

We turned on the news to see a city completely underwater. To see people in boats, others on their roof. To see homes, lives devastated. We woke up to commentary from people saying that New Orleans deserved this disaster because they chose to live below sea level, because they didn’t plan well enough. The entire gulf coast was drenched in heartbreak.

Less than a year later, I moved to New Orleans, where I would live for the next 3 years. I saw the devastation and I saw the restoration. I saw neighborhoods that couldn’t be restored, homes that were abandoned with the spray paint x and a number at the bottom indicating someone had perished within the home. I saw devastation that was bone chillingly sad and scary.

In my 3 years in New Orleans, I had a front row seat to the rebirth of a culture, of a people who are more resilient than any others I’ve ever seen. A people who rose above those who said they could not rebuild, those who said they should not, and they restored their city. A people who made the hard decision to start over, to come home and try to restart their lives.

There are still neighborhoods and areas that show the very real scars of the floods. And there are still families who have yet to come home, and others who will forever be incomplete because of that storm.

As the East Coast starts to assess the damage brought by Irene, I hope they look to New Orleans, to Mississippi, to Alabama, to Florida and all the people whose lives were forever changed by Katrina and they realize that everything will be okay. Maybe not right away, but with time. I hope they realize that homes can be rebuilt, roads can be repaved, power can be restored. That if there is a true fighting spirit in the people, there is almost nothing that can’t be overcome.

It has been 6 years since Katrina devastated my favorite city in the world. And it has been 5 years and 364 days since a city rose up together, reclaimed, and began rebuilding their city of ruins.

There’s a blood red circle
on the cold dark ground
and the rain is falling down
The church doors blown open
I can hear the organ’s song
But the congregation’s gone
My city of ruins
My city of ruins
Come on rise up
Come on rise up
Rise up
(Lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s My City of Ruins)

We landed yesterday morning, way early and after little sleep, in New Orleans. It’s hard for me even to think about this city without being a bit more poetic than usual. When you drive through it, it’s unassuming. It’s a city, an old one, clearly, it has home and businesses like any other. Many parts look run- down, and they are. And I think it would be easy to dismiss as just another city.

But it’s not.

There’s something about this city that’s hard to put your finger on. NOLA just has a personality and a culture that is different than others. People make it a point to have a good time here. They are fiercely loyal to their football and basketball teams, they have their seasonal beers and their favorite bars. And you’ll be hard-pressed to find most of those favorite bars on Bourbon Street, just so you know.

Another part of it, I think, is in the homey-ness. There’s just something about the narrow streets with tall, narrow homes and flowers out front. There’s something about the rocking chairs on porches and families out walking to parks with children. This place is a city, but first and foremost, it’s a home to families.

It is easy to miss this. I almost did the first time.

When you think about New Orleans, it’s hard not to think first of Bourbon Street and second of Mardi Gras. And these are two big parts of this city’s culture, but they are hardly her whole self. This is a hard working city and a hard playing city. Traditions are of the utmost importance to them and they rarely aren’t carried out exactly as they should be. And the food. Yes, most of it is pretty bad for you, but there’s something totally refreshing about not stumbling upon a chain restaurant every block. If you’re in NOLA proper, you’ll hit 10 family owned restaurants before you’ll find a chain. New Orleans is filled with families that are many generations old. It’s filled with homes that are older than my oldest living relatives and people who can tell you stories about how they came to be built all those years ago.

This city is different than any I’ve ever stayed in. Not because it is the most beautiful, because it’s not. Not because it’s the most clean, because it’s not. But because it has a heart bigger than any other place I’ve been and it has character that no words can properly capture.

I have missed this city more than I ever imagined I could. And I only wish we had more time here.

Five years ago, my husband had been a resident of the city of New Orleans for 3 weeks. He had just finished building all of his furniture and had completed the first unit of classes in medical school and was preparing for his first round of exams. I remember I had a plane ticket to visit him on September 1st, but he wasn’t in New Orleans that day, and neither was I.

Five years ago, I remember that I watched helplessly, with so many other people, and saw the images, the video on the news. The cities underwater. The homes, the lives destroyed.

I remember that I cried tears for people I didn’t know, for the lives and livelihoods lost. But I was living in California, my husband got out, we didn’t lose anything. Five years ago, Katrina made landfall on the gulf coast, but it hadn’t made landfall on my life yet, at least not in the way it did on so many others.

I remember the first time I experienced New Orleans was Mardi Gras of the following year. I was only there for a whirlwind weekend, and I will admit, my first impression of her, of New Orleans, wasn’t particularly great. I hadn’t really wanted Slappy to go to school there in the first place and now I was going to leave everything I knew to live somewhere that was rebuilding after so much devastation.

In August of 2006, I moved. I got a job in New Orleans and I started work.

I fell in love with my new home. And for first time, I saw the true face of Katrina.

I saw it in the devastated homes that laid untouched a year after the storm.

I saw it in the neighborhoods that even three and four years after the storm, were empty. Were virtual ghost towns. The shells and foundations of homes remained, but there were no children. Nothing lived there anymore.

I saw it in the faces of my students. Students who terrified of the next hurricane season, of the strong rainstorms that they didn’t know were coming. Students who were unsure of everything. Whose lives had been set on foundations that still seeped flood waters.

I saw it in the work of a community that was pulling itself up the best it could. Where people volunteered to clean, where they accepted the help of outsiders who tried to sort through the damp remnants of the storm, of the tears that fell after.

I saw it in the city that regrew, that stood strong and faced a new threat, another storm 2 years ago, on the very anniversary of the last one.

I saw it in the rebirth of my city, of my home. Of a place that I never wanted to live in the first place, but now can’t remove from my heart.

Though there are two thousand long miles between my life now and my former home, I will always love that city. She holds a piece of my past, of my heart, and hopefully someday, of my future as well.

And on this 5th anniversary of the day of such sadness and destruction, of lives lost, of homes and families devastated, I remember the face of Katrina. I remember the ashes and the beauty that has risen from them. I remember a city that refused to give up hope.

A city that refused to be washed away.

I remember.

Today did not start out the way I had planned. In fact, rather the opposite. And there will be time to talk about that, because it needs to be talked about. But not now. Not tonight.

I know that there are many people who think that football is silly and that what happened today was just a game. And maybe it was. But it was a game that meant a lot for a city that I love. It was one that meant more than just a victory in a sporting game.

The Saints won the Superbowl today. 4 seasons ago, people said that they’d have to take the Saints out of New Orleans and all the New Orleanians were outraged. Tonight, I hope everyone can see the symbol of hope that this team has been for the city. And more than that, how the city of New Orleans has risen up beside their team.

Congratulations to the Saints, and to the city who refused to give up on their team.

Tomorrow night, I’m flying to New Orleans.

Before you ask, yes, flying is a horrible idea. Yes, I am aware of this. Yes, I’m doing it anyway.

I NEED this trip.

I need to go back to that city, my city, and I need to get out of this one.

I need to see my lovely friend (who comments here under the name of SSB, and who I cannot even begin to describe to you how much I love) get married to her fiancee, who I also love dearly.

I need something to look forward to.

Because after this weekend is the call to the doctor to schedule the cisternogram. And after that is a big scary test, with big scary answers and probably really big scary surgery.

After this weekend is 4 exams in 2 weeks. (That is assuming that the cisternogram doesn’t sideline me for a week like I’m pretty positive it will.)

Right now, I can’t read, it’s taken me HOURS to try to write this and it’s only 8:45pm and I’m in bed because I cannot fathom even trying to be upright. Even though this trip is, by all logic, a terrible idea, it’s what I need.

I need to make stupid decisions. I need for my brain, my pain, to not be in control of my life.

I know I won’t see normal for a long time, but I need to be able to pretend like I have a chance at it. Because I have nothing else right now.

A year ago I was driving riding dead asleep in a car on the way back from Nashville. We were on the way back to New Orleans, after evacuating from Hurricane Gustav. On the way back from a week filled with fear, worry, frustration, elation, Sara Palin and most of all, homesickness.

Some of you might have noticed that I didn’t write a post about the 4 year anniversary of Katrina. I wanted to. I planned to. But when I sat down to do it, I just couldn’t. Talking about that city makes me sad, not for what happened to it (of course that too), but for the distance from which I am away from it. I’m sad for the 2000 miles that stand between me and my former home.

I’ll be perfectly honest with you- I never imagined that I’d miss New Orleans. That city was foreign and strange. It was hot, humid and drunken. It was unsafe and crowded.

It was also filled with character. It was filled with people who cared. It was filled with non-chain restaurants, friends and something new to do every. single. day.

And I love being close to my family, I really do, but I miss New Orleans in a way that feels almost tangible some days. I wake up, and for a brief moment, don’t realize where I am. I am always brought back to reality when I set foot on carpeting instead of hardwood flooring. Or when it takes me 15 steps to get to the kitchen, instead of the flight of stairs it was for 3 years.

Fridays are always the most difficult. We had an AMAZING temple in New Orleans and we went each Friday and then out to dinner with friends. With the kind of friends you’re just not always able to make in your 20s. The kind of friends that you sort of want to selfishly keep for just yourself. And now we go to a temple with strangers. Where the Rabbi is great, but he’s not the one we came to know and love. Where the community is lovely, but it’s not ours. We’re strangers where we used to feel like family.

I’ve been in California for 3 months now, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of that city. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t fantasize finding a way to move back there. That city that was my home. That city made me into a grown up. That city will, for as long as I can imagine, always hold a piece of my heart.

That city.

I know what it means to miss New Orleans. To miss that city.

Goodbye New Orleans. It has been a privilege to be a citizen of this great city and though my tenure here was only 3 short years, the memories will be with me forever.

We will miss you tremendously.

Laissez les bons temps rouler.

At Slappy’s graduation, someone sang a song, probably one that a lot of you are familiar with called “I know what it means to miss New Orleans” and at the time I sort of laughed at the song because for a few weeks now, I really haven’t thought I’d much miss it here. Truly. I’m going back home. Back to the place I want to be, or so I have long believed.

When Slappy was applying for medical school, we had only been dating a few months. I had no pull, no sway and no real say in anything in the process, and I watched from the sidelines. In the end, the choice came down to a school in New York and a school in New Orleans. Honestly, I prayed that he’d pick New York. I know that sounds crazy, but what I knew of New Orleans was dirtiness, and drinking and raucusity and other such stereotypical things.

And yet, to New Orleans he went. I had my first tripped planned to see the place on September 1st, 2005. If you’ll check any history book anywhere, you’ll know that I did not get to go on that trip. Just 3 measly days after Katrina, the hospital was still a hospital, the city still very much underwater. In fact, I think it was on September 1st that Slappy came home to California for a while.

And in August of 2006, after visiting twice, I moved to the Big Easy. The transition was actually much easier than I imagined. It helped that I started work almost right away and had that as a time occupier. It helped that Slappy had some friends and was my very best friend, so I was never lonely. But I was not at home either.

People in New Orleans don’t watch each other when they drive like they do in California. They don’t just say hello when they see you outside, and they really want to know where you’re at. I was not in Kansas anymore. But in time, I grew to love it.

I love the city and its changing personalities. I love the trees that cover the neighborhood we live in and tell the story of generations before us living in these very walls. I love the street car, even if it makes our house shake sometimes and even if I’ve never technically ridden it, because it reminds me of far off days and of scenic histories. I love the food, oh my God I love the food. The flavors are more amazing than one can even begin to hope to put words to and it has been a travesty that in our most recent eating jaunt, my sense of taste has been not functioning well.

I love the people here. I love that the person bagging up my groceries calls me “baby” and they’re not being condescending. I love that if you accidentally bump into someone, they also say excuse me, as if they weren’t sure if they were at fault. I love that waiters and waitresses will sit and have a conversation with you and I love that chefs and cooks wander around their restaurants chatting left and right.

I love the profound lack of real traffic, I love the ever changing weather, I love the feeling of community I get and I love the special feeling I have when I realize that, even if for a short time, I am a New Orleanian. I am a part of this city and this city is a part of me.

And in 9 days, when Slappy and I get in our car and moving van and drive out of here, I will shed a tear and I will remember this home, this period in my life with great fondness.

And I’m pretty sure that then I’ll know what it means to miss New Orleans.

How about two?

Okay, here goes.

I hate Mardi Gras. There. I said it.

I know. I need to get in the spirit. Cut loose. Have some fun. But I don’t know. Mardi Gras and I do not see eye to eye. Mardi Gras means standing for hours at a time, yelling for people to throw things at you. Or if you have the luxury of having space to sit in, it’s most likely near a very large group of very drunk people, who are always operating a barbeque or something else with fire and it’s like a train wreck. You just know one of them is going to light another one on fire or something equally brilliant and in the end, half the people are going to be hurling just mere feet from where you’re standing.

And then there’s the beads. I will admit that I love getting the “special” catches, especially glass beads. However, having beads thrown at my head a) scares the bejesus out of me and b) makes my neck really really really sore.

The only thing that salvages Mardi Gras for me is the company. For example, Slappy. On Mardi Gras morning, he and I arise at the ass-crack of dawn, throw on whatever clothes seem like they might match, pour half a container of orange juice into a different plastic container and then fill up the rest of both containers with champagne. Then we take our humongous mimosas and a few beers (to barter) and walk to Zulu, which is a solid 2 mile walk. In the morning. But it’s he and I (and not his mother!) and it’s great fun.

This year, Daisy is joining the fun. Whether she’ll take part in the Mardi Gras Mimosa fest is yet to be determined, but she’s only been in town 10 hours and we’re already having a kickass time. Or I think so anyways.

The other secret? Despite the fact that I really don’t like Mardi Gras? I lied to skip my class tonight to go to parades with Slappy and Daisy.

Perhaps my third secret is that I’m crazy. But then, that’s really not a secret at all, is it?

Okay, so a weird thing happened. You’re shocked, I know.

On Wednesday The Fiance and I went out to dinner at Le Crepe Nanou, which is arguably my very favorite restaurant. I’ve never eaten anything there that wasn’t outstanding and the fact that you can get a small cup of chocolate mousse to go at the bar, makes me seriously in love with it. As usual, we had a lovely dinner outside on the patio and just relaxed. It was great food and company.

We were seated at a table in front of a table with a man, a woman (who was not his wife, but who he was totally digging), and two little girls, probably about 7 years old. They were totally tolerable as dining partners (save for when one of the little girls turned around to play with the orange cat and proceeded to chew steak with her mouth open in my ear), but I could not help but notice that the man was talking with the thickest Yat accent I’ve ever heard.

I was in awe of the Yat. I listened intently. And I was spectacularly surprised when all of a sudden the Yat man was speaking to an Asian couple in a different language (I truly do not know which language it was, if I had to guess I’d have said Japanese, but now I’m doubting that a little). But seriously, after hearing my students try to speak spanish through their chalmation accents, I was very entertained at the idea of the Yat man speaking another language fluently. I wondered if it sounded as funny in that language as it did in English.

So fast forward to tonight when I had a craving for Thai food (Nola, so help me, if you even say it, I will hunt you down and rub my armpit all over you), the best I’ve had is located across the street from Le Crepe Nanou. Before I send all of you there, it is not the cheapest meal you will ever eat, but it is freaking awesome. So we go in and get seated and decide to order an appetizer (Calamari) which was blowing our minds, when the head chef of the restaurant walked over to our table and introduced himself and explained that he was the Yat man sitting behind us at dinner and because of that, he’s going to be fixing us something special. For free.

After a fantastic dinner of cashew chicken stir fry (chicken, veggies, cashews and rice) and Thai Coon (shrimp, crawfish, veggies, rice, etc.) he came back out with a free dessert. This man is totally speaking my language, even if it is oddly accented. He came back later with sweet coconut sticky rice with mango, blackberries and strawberries. I can’t begin to count the number of times I said “holy crap” in response to what I was eating, but it was a lot, and it was awesome.

So the bottom line here is if you’re in New Orleans and you’re looking for a great meal, in that little corner of uptown you really can’t go wrong. Be sure and tell the chef we sent you.

P.S. Look for a new genre of posts tomorrow: a recipe from my love of baking, to you. Pictures and everything.

P.P.S. In case you were wondering, the insurance company informed me that due to the fact that I’m good about taking generic prescriptions, I haven’t met my 100 dollar brand name prescription deductible so I do in fact, have to pay 12 dollars a pill. Whatever, it’s done and the staph seems to be resolving, though rather slowly if I do say so myself.