"Welcome Home"
Other people, my friends and family who have been displaced, are apparently stronger than I am.
Maybe it's the distance and sense of powerlessness, but I've been breaking down all week long. All the people I'm seeing in pictures and on TV, they seem like my friends. I keep thinking back to the guy who serves oysters at the New Orleans Fairgrounds during Jazzfest -- I call him "Shekkie the Shukker" -- and I wonder where he is, how he survived.
I kept telling everybody that everyone I knew about was safe, but in the back of my mind I wondered about Poncho, my old neighbour on Oak Street, a hustler true but a good-hearted man, and whether he made it. Today I found out he survived.
I mean, I never *really* lived in New Orleans, at least not more than for a month or two at a time. But it's amazing to me how much my identity is tied up in the city. In a way, I grew up there. I've often told people that it's the only place where my true self comes out to shine.
There is absolutely no other place I go in the world where I'm greeted with a "Welcome Home."
For time immemorial, the rest of the world has spun round. New Orleans, in many ways, has stood still.
For the 15 years I've called New Orleans my home-away-from-home, there have been some minor changes in the cast of characters, but there are so many people who I can count on seeing there every time I go... from my friends, to the bar staff at the Maple Leaf, to another oyster shucker -- the poor soul who has been sitting behind the counter at Cooter Brown's apparently forever.
Until this week, New Orleans has thrived and stagnated below America's radar. The city couldn't have remained what it was without this tacit deal with the rest of the country: you can do what you want, as long as we can play too when we make it down there to visit. Listening to a radio interview with Mayor Nagin on WWL today, he pointed out something that really resonated: the mere mention of New Orleans can make eyes light up around the world.
Truth is, the deal has allowed New Orleans to swing more than its own weight for a very long time. That is the dichotomy of the city. People "get by." Ambition isn't running rampant in New Orleans, but creativity is. It's a dark economy. Music, art, booze, and food are the currency. Tourists pay the bills.
Think about it. How many sentences could you start with the words "New Orleans is the only place on Earth where..."? Here's a good one to start: New Orleans is the only place on Earth where a person could be an oyster shucker as a career.
And, call me delusional, but I'm still managing to avoid succumbing to the urge to write "New Orleans was..."
So if I can put the sum of my fears in the wake of this disaster into one sentence, it would be this:
I fear I'll never hear "Welcome Home" again.