THE STUFF WE DID

I’ve been a regular New Orleans visitor since the age of two. In all of those times, I have never participated in a swamp tour. We visited the zoo a number of times and rolled down the tallest hill in New Orleans (which is a man-made hill in the middle of the zoo). I have ridden the streetcar all through the city. I have walked down the most touristy streets, but I have never done a “Cajun Adventure Tour”. Michael wanted to see alligators on this trip, so we booked ourselves on a two hour flat bottom boat ride through the Honey Island Swamp just east of New Orleans. I could not convince Michael to ride an airboat or do a kayak trip through the swamp. Those things didn’t feel safe to him but a large boat carrying twenty people with a captain that often joked about losing tourists in the swamp felt safe.

There have been drives through swampy areas where Michael will ask me about what I might be looking at out the window. I always say that I’m looking for alligators. It is not really true because an alligator is pretty impossible to spot from a speeding vehicle. Alligators spend a lot of time mostly submerged with only the tops of their heads sticking up out of the water. They are the color of the water and look more like floating bits of wood than animal. The things I’m really looking at out the window are birds. White egrets and gray herons mostly dot the swamps along the road side. This trip, I saw two flamingos fly overhead. One our way down through Arkansas, I spotted a bald eagle just sitting in a field. One our drive up through Mississippi, I spotted another bald eagle flying away from some smaller birds he had made unhappy. Bird spotting is easy. Also deer. I see lots of deer on our road trips.

So this cajun goofball version of my dad gave us a tour of the Honey Island Swamp. He pointed out the wildlife which was mostly just alligators and raccoons. He told us about the spiders and snakes in the area. He thumped the boat canopy regularly to scare us into thinking a snake had fallen into the boat. When he wasn’t being silly, he told us about the plants, pointing out wild rice and irises. At one point, we came across a small pink cocoon like structure. This was filled with apple snail eggs, a highly invasive species that will wreck havoc on the ecosystem. I leaned over and told Michael about how we had to get special permits to use these as model organisms in research. We use them in the study of eye regeneration because apple snails can regenerate their eyeballs. This was so fascinating to Michael that he almost shouted out to everyone else on the boat that I am a scientists and I know about these snails.

Thankfully we managed to keep my knowledge just between the two of us.

Along with animal sighting, we collected license tags, forty two of them to be exact. Though four of those tags were Canadian and the Alaska tag was discovered at our very last roadside stop on the way home. Since Michael is a teacher by trade, he likes to give us ‘grades’ on our tag collections. He said we earned a solid B on this trip. Between alligator searches and tag collecting, we had sort of a scavenger hunt to find Banksy art pieces. Michael was unfamiliar with Banksy, an England based street artist, political activist and director. A while back, Melissa and I went to a Banksy Exhibition Show that felt like more of place to be seen, sipping fancy cocktails than a place to see and learn about the art. Frankly it was a little disappointing and now I think the disappointing display of work was by design. The thing you are supposed to take away from that showing is that Banksy’s art must be seen in the wild and part of the art is opening your eyes to the sights around you.

Banksy was in New Orleans in 2008, three years after hurricane Katrina. He left behind around fifteen stencils scattered all over the city. Most of those have been destroyed, painted over or part of buildings that were demolished. The first one we found was a piece called Looters that had been rescued from destruction and put on display inside a hotel lobby. The hotel has a small room off to the side of the art that explains a little bit about the artist and the efforts made to save this piece of art work. It helped that this was the first one we actually saw because this gave Michael a quick and dirty education on Banksy. Banksy’s art, for me, perfectly conveys the impermanence of life. Every thing. EVERY. THING. is temporary. Even that ‘permanent’ tattoo you had placed on your low back in 1997 will be dust someday. The map I was using to hunt Banksy art had not been kept up to date. There was supposed to be one of his stencils just two blocks down from where we were staying. We went looking for it on our first evening and when we got to the building, the stencil had been removed, the wall painted over with pink paint.

Someone must have recognized the importance of Nola Girl with Umbrella because a protective plate of plexiglass had been secured over her. She resides on the side of building that is boarded up and covered with graffiti. It looks like it used to be a walk-in clinic which is funny because right next door is a Voodoo shop. We found ourselves walking with a tall lanky young man who we shared pleasantries with while waiting for the street light to change. He had just found out that he had the day off and the weather was beautiful. He asked if we were looking for “the Banksy” and when we said yes, he guided us there because it was on his way. Michael and I stood there, the only tourists in the area, marveling at how temporary all this art happens to be. Not just the Girl with Umbrella, but all the other brightly colored graffiti art. It reminded me of something I had seen and experienced a long time ago.

There used to be a famous black sand beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. Photographs of the beach were plastered on prints and postcards and used in tourist promotional brochures. I was on that island with my parents in 1990 and there was a major volcanic eruption at the beginning of that week that sent lava flowing towards that beach. We went and stood on that beach and could see the smoke and glow of hot lava in the distance. By the middle of that week, half of the beach had been covered with lava and by the time we left, the entire beach was gone. Poof. Just like that in a week’s time this beautiful beach area was covered with molten lava. Now, years later, the ocean is wearing away some of that now hardened lava and a new black sand beach is forming. Vegetation is starting to grow up between the craggy lava rocks.

This is graffiti in nature.

New Orleans is, in itself, very temporary. It is torn down and flooded out only to be built back up again, very much like that beach in Hawaii. And we spent our time simply wandering around, soaking up the temporary beauty of it all.

THE BIG SAD

There was a small bit of graffiti that Michael and I passed a few times while roaming New Orleans. It simply said “Big Sad” with a sad face drawn under the words. I didn’t take a picture of it, which is weird because I took lots of graffiti pictures, but for some reason never pointed a camera at this one. It sparked a small conversation when we first noticed it. I said to Michael “You know how sometimes things make you a little sad? Like, I’m out of ice cream; this makes me a little sad. Big sad is reserved for things like when your favorite ice cream shop closes.” I told him that I think I’ll use Big Sad more in sentences.

Leaving New Orleans made me big sad.

On our first night in the city, we took a forty five minute walk through the Garden District to get to a dinner reservation at Basin Seafood. I was smarter on this trip and did some research, made reservations so we wouldn’t be floating with indecision on food choices. I found Basin on Eater in their best oysters on the half shell list. It’s a small but elegant restaurant on Magazine Street and the food there did not disappoint. Michael got the short ribs served on cheesy grits, which I tasted. They were the best grits I have had in years and the oysters and lima beans were so good that Michael, who does not really like raw oysters or lime beans, left thinking that maybe he was a raw oyster/lime bean eater.

On our walk to the restaurant, even on the walk back, we took turns pointing out various houses. Every time I saw a ‘For Sale’ sign I’d say “We could buy that one. We could live there.” I believe I even mentioned at one point that I had not seen any yoga studios in that area. “We could buy that one and I could open a yoga studio downstairs while we live in the top half.” Michael nodded and mumbled vague agreements each time I said something like this. While he agrees that we should visit this city often, he is less keen on the idea of living there full time. To be fair, summers would probably kill him. March is a tease in New Orleans. The weather was perfect with bright sunny days and cool breezes. The summer months are steamy and full of hurricanes (not just the fun boozy kind). I don’t know why I didn’t notice this on the last trip, but on our drive into New Orleans, we passed many stilt houses that you could only access by boat. “The only way to get to that house is by boat. What if we lived in house like that?” Those houses sparked more interest because Michael wants a boat. I think I wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of isolation. I need the street sounds and the strolling paths. I require the earth under my feet to be less squishy. Though, I wouldn’t mind kayaking through the swamps on weekends.

You know when your time in a place is time well spent if it breaks your heart a little to leave that place. In my case, I feel like I am always leaving something behind in New Orleans, something of great value so that I must return again soon to retrieve it. Then I leave something else and must return again, repeating this loop until maybe I’ll get that place out of my system. Maybe one day, it just won’t have the same appeal. I did notice a number of houses up for sale as though some of the residents of New Orleans have given up on the city. It didn’t seem as crowded with tourists this time around, but honestly we didn’t venture too deeply into those places. We skirted around them and into those residential areas that are often ignored by our government. That’s where you’ll find the best fried chicken and a Banksy that’s been left untouched by other graffiti artists or painted over by the shop owner.

We stopped in Mississippi on our way back north to meet my cousin for lunch, a cousin I haven’t seen in almost twenty years. I didn’t expect the feelings of joy and delight in seeing her face and hugging her tight. It was almost as if there had been no space or time between us since our last encounter and I confess that tears welled up in my eyes when we said our goodbyes. She had asked if we would be traveling up through Louisville, the town where our parents had grown up, where Pepaw’s house and shop used to be. I told her that I couldn’t stomach to drive through there knowing those places were gone. My cousin said she felt the same even though she lives close, she always makes a point to drive around. It’s too hard to see the empty spots that once held so much. I wiped tears from my cheeks as we drove north through that state, brushing away my complicated feelings. It might sound as if I didn’t have a wonderful vacation. Complicated feelings and tears and melancholy and all. The truth is, the trip was too good. Misti sent me a text asking if I’d had a good adventure and I burst into tears because this adventure had ended. I am still full of oysters and crawfish. Making this week’s menu was a challenge knowing that nothing I make is going to taste as good as the food we ate last week. I don’t cook with bacon fat or ham juice. And I ate plenty of things cooked in meat juice last week, plus a piece of fried chicken.

Recently, I sat down to evaluate the wordy collage I had created for the things I wanted to do this year. I listed all the things that had been completed, made a list for things that have been planned and a list of things that are still a work in progress. I was surprised by the number of things that I have already completed. When we got home, I took New Orleans from the planned list and moved it up to the completed list, but not before noticing that I have several adventures still sitting in the planned section. I’ll be back in New Orleans in a couple of years. I have to retrieve a valuable item and leave an equally valuable item behind. For now, I have hundreds of pictures left to be processed and I will take my time pouring over each photo, savoring the memories.

I’m big sad this adventure has ended but I’m really excited about the next adventures.

DINER SCENES

The Diner Scenes photo series started in Mountain View, MO. We stopped in to eat lunch at a small town diner where we were the youngest people in the place. An older couple who looked to be about my parents’ age sat at a table near the window and talked to the two elderly women sitting at a table next to them. The man had the look and shape of my dad, white hair, rounded body. I could hear snippets of their conversation, talking about their younger days. He said that he and his wife had started dating when she was fifteen. “I pretty much wouldn’t let her look at anyone else.” I snapped a picture, light pouring in the windows, my lens slightly smudged. It was enough to give me the idea to keep the photos going. Each photo would be an incomplete list of all the food we ate during our travels.

We’ve been home three whole days, driving back from New Orleans in one shot. Josephine is curled up on my feet and snoring, exhausted from her week at Terry’s. Groceries have been purchased, house has been cleaned and laundry is done. I’m trying to gather my thoughts on New Orleans that isn’t just about food. We ate boiled crawfish in a town just before we hit New Orleans. We just stopped at a roadside convenience store and ordered two pounds of crawfish. Then we stood outside, using the tailgate of the truck as a table, peeling and eating crawfish as fast as we could. I took Michael to the places I remembered like Cafe Du Monde and Frank’s. Then there were new places like Willie Mae’s Scotch House where we stood outside waiting for almost two hours for fried chicken, catfish and the best butter beans I’ve ever eaten. That was the same day we stumbled onto a local’s bar in the French Quarter. We were the only tourists sitting at their outside tables. The drinks were cheap and the company was priceless. We stayed too long, saw a parade, drank too much. By the time we left, we couldn’t get into any nearby restaurants and Michael led me into a fast food fried chicken place called Willie’s. He ordered me catfish, but when I took a bite, I said “This tastes like chicken!” Then Michael looked at my food and said “That’s because it is chicken.” He made a move to go correct the mistake, but I shrugged and said “I’m eating this.” Then I proceeded to happily (tipsily) eat all of the four chicken tenders.

I was so drunk, I ate chicken and didn’t care.

We bought some art and walked twenty thousand or more steps a day. I got a sunburn. We rode the streetcar and the bus. We went to the art museum and the cemeteries. I took pictures, the kind of pictures I want to print and hang on the walls. I had my palms and tarot cards read by a woman in Jackson Square. She told me things I already knew like how I’m my worse enemy and I’m really good at my job. She saw my broken heart. She told me “You have a broken heart and you’re still holding onto that.” What’s funny about that is that I would not remember until we were home that I had forgotten what would have been my twenty fourth wedding anniversary with Chris. Michael and I were tailgating with crawfish and I was introducing him to New Orleans on that day. This seems appropriate for being in a city that is the same as the last time I was there, yet completely different. I’m like New Orleans before and after the hurricane.

And just like that, we’re home. Cleaning gutters and chicken coops. Responding to work emails and cleaning out inboxes. Meal prepping and gearing up for a return to an old routine. Right now, I have ‘couch/TV time’ scheduled on my calendar and I’ve settled in with my coffee and CBS Sunday Morning. Right now, I’m dreaming of strolling down the streets of the French Quarter.