My Darling New Orleans

It's been three months since I was in the Crescent City, but just in case anybody has doubts on where my heartstrings are tugged, I want to make some things perfectly clear.

New Orleans is, and will forever be, my home.

I am currently, and will probably be for a long time, a resident of San Francisco. As most know, before moving to New Orleans last summer, I had been a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area (a term I really detest by the way) for nearly 30 years and there was a time when I felt like San Francisco was likely the only place I could ever live. That changed a few years ago when I first experienced New Orleans tugging – consciously – at my heartstrings for the first time. I later became aware of the fact that the city had been tugging at me since I was 15 (maybe even earlier) and I was just a bit too dim to notice.

Now… as I have mentioned here on several occasions, I feel a somewhat divided loyalty. There are some things that are very important to me about California in general, and San Francisco in particular. First and foremost, my daughter is here. She's one of those rare people who was born and raised in San Francisco (probably a species that is even more rare than the person born and raised in NOLA). Secondly there is the ocean and to prpoerly discuss my relationship to the ocean would take a much longer posting and perhaps an entire blog of its own. Thirdly, there's the City itself – the food, the wine, the art, the music, and the theater – the entire aesthetics of the place I have loved and been at home in for so long that it feels like it’s a part of my body and my soul. Fourth on the list, there's Northern California in particular (Big Sur especially, but that's another other story) and the whole state in general. Lastly, but by no means leastly, there are the people whom I love throughout the state. These days – because of the people, and even because of the place – I'm even in love with LA, and that's a real challenge to admit for a diehard San Franciscan like me.

But… it's interesting… I have a very different reaction to both of the places that I love to call home.

San Francisco, with my history and my daughter; with the conversation and the politics (and the beer… oh my god, the beer) and the deep sense I possess that I have been here before, is a home for me in a completely wholistic, connected, and interesting way.

New Orleans, on the other hand, with her people, her food, and the ubiquitous, effervescent music that I love, has captured my heart in a way that I have never experienced before and which I certainly never expected. I love New Orleans like no place on earth. Over the last year – and particularly over the last three months while I have been solidly back in California – I have had people engage me and ask me point blank if I'm actually planning to move back. It's such an unbelievably odd question I can't even be polite about it any longer. Yes, I say. Then I just go on (or off, depending on your perspective on my particular commmunication style) about how I can't get Louisiana outta my blood. On a day like today, when I've spent a number of hours listening to New Orleans music and thinking New Orleans thoughts, it fills me up so completely that I can hardly stand it. Like some sort of strange shamanic force, New Orleans pulls at my soul, lifting it from my body and drawing it through space and time on a journey that lands me, fully awake and aware, in the middle of St. Charles Avenue, across from Popeye's, and down the street from Cooter Brown's.

I am in love with My Darling New Orleans more than I have ever been in love with another place or (with the exception of a handful of dearly loved folks)most people and I want to be there so badly I could scream (in fact, sometimes, I do scream). My challenge right now is to figure out how to bring something to the New Orleans table. There is so much needed and so much to do, but there is little business, and even lesser resources. When I moved to The Crescent City over a year ago, I was prepared to work and dig and scrape to find the work and the resources that what I do always requires (especially in a new location). After Katrina, it's another story entirely. Everyone – or nearly everyone – in New Orleans needs help, and as a wet behind the ears newcomer I don't feel that I have the credibility, or even the right, to go after what others need to persue as well. My calling, on this side of The Thing, is to find resources to bring back to my city. To add to, or hopefully even MULTIPLY, the resources available in order to help more than just myself.

New Orleans really is my home and I am sure that I will ultimately live out the last of my life, "On the Avenue." For now, I am content – in fact there are days, sometimes even weeks, when I am significantly more than content; when I am downright happy – to be living on the western edge of the continent, looking out at the ocean and planning a way to go home.