New Orleans... How I Love Thee...

My Love Affair with the City of New Orleans

I think my love and adoration for this city started the day I picked up the paperback the Witching Hour by Anne Rice. I will never forget it. I was at the Naples airport with my Uncle Tom to pick up someone coming for my grandfathers funeral. Their plane was delayed so we each picked up a paperback at the newsstand and went outside since it was a beautiful day. I remember laying in the grass reading this book and I was mesmerized with the visual descriptions of this city. I loved everything about it. The French Quarter, the Garden District, bougainvillea hanging on porches, the whole mystique and aura of a city I had never been to struck something in me. Something deep down, I don’t even know where. Like tapping into another life, I could feel the draw there. The history and all that goes along with the plantations of river road and the oldest parts of the city felt like a kindred spirit.

I finally went there for the first time in 2007. Of course my husband had been before but I wont bore you or myself with that story. When I got out of the car at our hotel and took a deep breath I could feel all the synapses firing and I felt more alert and alive than ever. We were there for three days. We walked miles in the French quarter. 

Could anyone love this city more than me? So FULL of everything… I dream of winning the lottery and buying one of those houses in the French quarter that is a couple of stories and having a balcony with ferns and bougainvillea, above the street  and just outside the chaos of Bourbon street. I want one of the houses with a courtyard and a fountain. And the wooden gate to my own personal parking. I want to sit on my balcony and drink coffee in the early spring and summer mornings and let my soul soak up everything, smells, sounds, sunshine and even the rain. I would need to win the lottery so I could afford one of these places and go there for the spring and summer months. Come home to North Carolina in the fall for the chill and the trees changing colors. I also want season tickets to all the New Orleans Saints home games. I do love me some football!!! Don’t forget my son’s name is DREW. Wish I could help them again with that special mojo I had going on in 2009. They are going to have to find someone else to do it – I am too old.

I want to watch all the mardi gras and other parades from my beautiful balcony. Observing – not participating. Touring all the plantation homes on river road till I find the one that clicks for me – which I believe will be Houmas House – and get a job there. I can imagine driving to that place to work every day. What an amazing place to work. I can do that … if I have survived 13 years where I am I can do anything!

Sometimes I can close my eyes and imagine the smells and sounds of the french quarter first thing in the morning. It is my happy place :) If I go on my deck when all my flowers and greenery are at peak, sit there with my coffee and close my eyes... take a deep breath... for a brief instant I feel the magic. It can be intoxicating if I linger too long, like an out of body experience.

Heaven.