It's January in the Crescent City, and many of the city's deciduous trees, having changed color only last month, are now dropping their orange and yellow leaves. The streets and sidewalks are clogged with leaf litter, swirling in today's brisk wind. (In some areas to the east, tornado warnings are in the forecast.) At the apartment complex being (re)built across the street from my house, workers are laying fresh sod. It is so muggy and warm, I am contemplating turning on the a/c at the house, and I'm sure using it in the car. My hair is frizzed out to the nth degree. Welcome to January in New Orleans.
Adding to my list of "things you only hear in New Orleans," I overheard two women talking at my sister's New Year's Eve Party. One said to the other, "I couldn't believe it! It was awful! I called my brother the day after Christmas and asked for his turkey carcass to make gumbo, and he said HE HAD THROWN IT OUT. Can you imagine?" The other woman sadly shook her head, "It's terrible. Same thing happened to me with my neighbor's carcass -- just threw it out. How are we supposed to make New Year's gumbo like that?" They tsked-tsked together over this complete lack of forethought and consideration for the traditional niceties. I don't know how they ended up making their gumbos, but, being New Orleanians, I know they found a way.
Later that night, I headed to Bourbon Street in order to be with Big Man at midnight -- a custom of ours no matter where his gig is for New Year's. The Quarter was packed, but the out-of-towners celebrating in the French Quarter apparently didn't realize they could have parked in the CBD, for my son's parain and I had no trouble finding a free parking space in all the madness. We made our way past the brand-new, elevated, mobile police station, deployed at the hotspot corner of Canal and Bourbon, and through the partying throngs of Hawaiians and Georgians in town for the Sugar Bowl football game (in terms of physical attractiveness, the former have it all over the latter) and pushed our way into the club where Big Man plays. I've never seen the place so crowded. There was some confusion over exactly when it turned midnight, and so the band played "Auld Lang Syne" twice, Big Man and I kissed, and somewhere in there, 2008 officially began.
We held a Jazz Funeral for 2007 at my church, and we laid to rest all the cares and stress of this past year. Fear, anger, worry, grief, pain, rage, despair, bitterness, alcohol and drugs as a way of coping -- everything was put into the casket and symbolically buried, and we second-lined around and through the ruined and not-yet rebuilt church complex. Let us start the new year with open hearts and clean slates. Let us deal with what we have to deal with, and leave the rest to God. What else can we do?
Cautious optimism is the order of the day, and it is how we start this year.
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