As Isaac hits shore

My Epic Road Trip blogging was terrible & I think I was a failure by the time we reached New Orleans. As Hurricane Isaac heads toward New Orleans, I thought I'd belatedly share some thoughts on New Orleans. I've been to New Orleans three times in the last couple of years. About 3 weeks in total time spent there. Once it was disgustingly hot & humid while I was there. Of course, the heat was not New Orleans' fault. If you head down there in the middle of summer, you ought to be prepared for the consequences. The other times were in the spring & it was gorgeous.  On that first trip, I visited my friend Amy from high school - all by myself. For the first time in a really long time, I was doing something as Me - not as Mom or Wife. Even the nasty weather couldn't put a damper on how awesome that felt! Maybe that's part of the reason I'm very fond of New Orleans but I think there's some other reasons.

I'm a NorCal girl. Generations of NorCal. And because that is the case, I love San Francisco. There are a million good SF memories floating around in my brain, some from so long ago they're not actually memories but tiny wisps of happy that tickle whenever I see The City. It's beautiful. It's unique. It has its own history & people that march to a uniquely SF drum beat. Part of the lure of New Orleans is that it has all of those things, too, and it's WARM. (Cold & I are not friends.)

New Orleans' history is unique to NO. French, Spanish, American is all mixed up into a perfectly lovely city. New Orleans also has a culture unique to NOLA. I met someone who migrated west after growing up and going to college in Louisiana. When she said she was from Louisiana, she said "Louisiana, NOT New Orleans. It's not the same thing." And she's right. New Orleans belongs only to itself. Having recently made my first trip to NOLA, I understood perfectly what she meant.

There are many things that I could describe about NOLA that I like. The architecture. The history. The weather (most of the time). Second Line. Music in random places at seemingly random times. (See Second Line)  The fact that it is different. Every single person that I met while I was there. Truthfully, though, most of the wordy descriptions don't quite do it justice. It's hard to convey in words the beauty of the parks we spent time at or how nature awes with thunder storms that set car alarms off. It's impossible to put into words the feeling of New Orleans. Part of that feeling for me is probably the circumstances under which I visited there but it has its own feeling.

I had an argument with someone about NOLA after we returned home from our trip. Their experience was that it was dirty & smelly and I'll grant them that I didn't spend a ton of time on Bourbon St. Not drinking is kind of a draw back in enjoying that part of town. I did not find NOLA to be dirty or smelly and I think we went to most of the different areas of town. We took lots of walks around different areas, drove through 'ghettos', road the ferry, dipped toes in both the Mississippi & in swampy waters at a bayou. I never felt like we were at risk, I never felt like I was in a nasty spot & I never felt like it was something the kids shouldn't be seeing. *again, we didn't take them to the seediest parts of the Bourbon St. area.

NOLA doesn't seem to be as broken up into 'bad' or 'good' areas. My own personal tour guide explained that everyone just lives next to each other & gets along. Seriously, you'll be in a "poor" section & 3 houses down it is obvious that the residents are no longer on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder. Nice house, really nice house, nice house, nasty house, house with X still on it from Katrina, nasty house, nice house, really nice house. Same street. Same neighborhood. One of the things I think is unique to NOLA.

When Katrina hit, my heart broke for the people of New Orleans. I, like most of the country, watched in horror as a combination of nature's power & human folly brought the city and its residents low. I also watched as people came together to regroup and rebuild. But at the time, I didn't understand the feeling of New Orleans so my heart didn't break in the same way it would now. Over the next couple of days, I will hope and pray and watch as Isaac heads onshore. Isaac doesn't look like a Katrina but weather is unpredictable. What is predictable is that no matter what Mother Nature throws at New Orleans, it will remain its own unique, lovely, friendly city & the people of New Orleans will love & cherish it.