Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?

This is a shot of Pirates Alley, in the French Quarter, New Orleans. Can you feel the magic? Feel your stories stirring deep in your soul?
Copyright by WyoJones. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

It doesn’t matter who is singing the song, or where I am when it comes on. My breath catches and I have to stop and listen. I grew up in Wyoming. When I was little all I knew of New Orleans was some dimly remembered news footage of hurricanes and Mardi Gras. I never expected to live there.

You could search the world over and probably not find two places more opposite than Wyoming and New Orleans.

• Cold most of the time.
• Hot most of the time.
• Dry.
• Humid.
• Spare.
• Lush.
• Restrained, don’t make a scene or call attention to yourself.
• Mardi Gras.

Colorfully attired members of the Krewe of Rex pick out people in the crowd to be recipients of their throws, in this case beads. Rex is the second parade to go down the traditional St Charles Route on Mardi Gras Day.
Copyright by WyoJones. All rights Reserved. Used with permission.

I could go on. And for a while I did. About three years after we moved to New Orleans, I penned a column for my home town newspaper about adjusting to life in New Orleans. I’m a writer and I needed to write to understand my experience. Or at least try to understand. LOL

I’m not sure when I fell in love. At first I felt like an alien dropped into a different planet. Falling for the people was easy—even though I had to learn to let strangers hug me and call me “baby.” I’m not sure my wide, personal space was from having wide personal space growing up or my DNA. But I left New Orleans a hugger. Grin.

New Orleanians are charming, friendly, kind, and ready to laugh. They’ll invite you in and teach you how to shuck a crawfish and the best places to catch beads. They promise you the heat and humidity won’t kill you. You believe them because they aren’t dead.

Falling for the city, for the place took longer. I grew up in a small town. I was not a city girl. I thought I’d drown in the humid air my first summer. And there was so much to see, so much to take in. But New Orleans is as charming as her people. She sneaks into your heart and settles down. She whispers in your ear, “Settle, girl. It’s gonna be just fine.”

She’s old and graceful, seedy and shady, and boy, can she serve up awesome food. Let me pause and remember the food. Sigh. Okay, now I can go on.

Morning light shines on the tombs in the Metairie Cemetery located near the New Orleans Country Club on the northwest edge of the city of New Orleans . Notice that the tombs and sidewalk are on a gentle curve. This is because the cemetery is laid out in an oval matching the horse racing track that it replaced. In one of the best example I know of peaceful protest, when the Yankee carpet baggers outlawed horse racing in New Orleans following the Civil War, the Creoles turned the old horse race track into a cemetery. Part of their way of life had died along with many of their men who served in the Confederate Army. Many say the angels wept.
Copyright by WyoJones. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Everywhere I looked, there was history. And so much green. Even in the winter it stays green. Old beautiful houses. Old falling down houses. And the smells. Flowers and food and damp. I could do a whole blog on what it’s like to be a landlubber seeing the Mississippi River for the first time. The peculiar delight of riding a ferry across Old Man River.

The thick, humid air teems with creativity. I can remember walking through the Quarter on streets trod by heroes from history and famous authors and I’d wonder, “Did they feel this tingle down their spine, this sense that the stories were stirring deep inside them? That they tapped into something special here? That only this place could set those stories free?”

We moved ten years ago and I can still write but…I believe down to my toenails that it was the Big Easy that set my stories free. I wrote a little before we moved there, but my first sale came while we lived there. I finished and published my first novel there. And returned to her streets (fictionally) for novel number 13, Relatively Risky.

I wondered if I’d forget, if I’d be able to write New Orleans after being gone for ten years.

She doesn’t let you forget.

And yes, I know what it means to miss New Orleans. And I’m so grateful I know. 🙂

Street Car on Canal Street at 11PM in New Orleans.
Copyright by WyoJones. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans? Do you wish you knew? All comments are entered into my monthly drawing for $20 AnaBanana gift card (this month only because my March comments got messed up about halfway through the month). Winner is announced in the first blog post of the new month.

Perilously and wistfully yours,

Pauline

Pauline enjoyed her fictional journey back to New Orleans in Relatively Risky and plans to return to the city, and to the Baker family introduced in Relatively Risky, in upcoming stories. For updated news visit her website at paulinebjones.com or subscribe to her newsletter (at the right in the widget bar). And if you haven’t yet, check out Relatively Risky on my website or at these stores:

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