Imbued With Spirits
We’re in the truck, stuck in a traffic jam. A little over halfway to our destination. We’re tired and maybe starting to feel the trip now, and I’m driving. Suddenly the opening refrain from Circle of Life as performed in the movie. We roll the windows down, turn the volume all the way up and just belt it out to the sun that’s now hanging low in the sky. I’ve taken road trips. I’ve enjoyed music loudly. I cannot say that I’ve ever done this though. I couldn’t help but recall that when that soundtrack had first come out, I was often found with my Walkman, transported by the beautiful scores and songs. Always a circle, always a circuit. Always feeling like I’m coming home.
Then Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody comes on and I feel it completely. This trip is going to be epic.
***
I’m standing on a sidewalk after thirteen hours in a car. My feet feel fine but my legs are a little stiff. My heart is racing as it sinks in that I am now at the mercy of the world. Anything could happen, good or bad.
The sidewalks and street are littered with beads, and Randi is cautioning us not to pick them up from the ground. We’ve ventured out to find dinner in our very first hours here, and as we walk, a solitary parade float appears. It’s garish pink and white, and I remember feeling it was unnaturally shiny, as if flooded with spotlights. It felt dystopian and surreal. Some future world where random, double tier vehicles full of screaming women in short pink wigs and masks threw toys to the disgruntled and drunk denizens of the night where they stumbled off to wherever it is people go after indulging too much.
And then they passed and the nearly empty street was once again any normal city street after any parade. Maybe a straggler here or there, but mostly just the remains of what once was, and we trudged on. Our efforts were fruitless and we ended up ordering a pizza for delivery.
I still cannot believe this happened and is not some fever dream.
The next morning dawned and found us excited to take it all in. We discovered the charm and life of New Orleans in a hundred mask shops and restaurants. The sights, sounds and aroma were intoxicating and everywhere people were smiling and calling out. We ate at interesting places, and walked the famed Rue Bourbon. I may still find a street sign to hang on my wall to commemorate this trip.
Given the things that have happened since, this reliving and rehashing feels bittersweet, but I am determined to record it as I felt it. Please excuse any melancholic overlaying that may happen in spite of that.
We discovered boozy slushees, perhaps my new all time favorite way to ingest alcohol, bought some souvenirs and explored. I remember standing on a corner and glancing up, seeing an older, historic building with the taller, modern skyscrapers behind it. The comparison tickled my fancy, and I recalled how I felt when we crossed the bridge and the city in it’s splendor spread out before us like she was holding her arms open to greet us.
Not unlike my first impressions of another city...
We found a tour to sign up for, an 8 in 1 affair of vampires, pirates, voodoo and ghosts. It was slanted towards sensationalism, but I appreciated the flair our tour guide had for telling a good story. It’s fair to say I absorbed a good amount of what he was saying and in the dark it was easier to see these past events happening.
Was it outside the LaLaurie mansion where I casually cursed myself that night?
We stopped for food on Chartres Street, enjoying the vague French appeal to it all. By the time the check came though, it was late and I was ready to lay my head down.
The walk back to the hotel was more absorption. Letting it fill me up, hearing the sounds and feeling like my years in Boston had built up an immunity to the overwhelming buzz of a city street. I walked through worse to get to work daily, this was very pleasant in comparison.
Sunday turned the weather cooler. During one of our excursions, a poor girl fell on beads and Dan had the good sense to stop and pick up those beads. It was day drinking and weed, and all kinds of adventure. I remember at one point being so full of joy at one moment, a pure state of being, that I thought I might have finally understood why hippies like tye-dye. It was what I pictured my soul looking like. And then I laughed at my own thoughts and experienced life just as it is. Perfect and golden inside one very temporary and fleeting moment.
That night we waited for the Bacchus parade. It quickly devolved from enjoyment and revelries to irritation and potential danger. I recall the parade stopping and looking at the knights that lead the parade. One big, fat knight who was obviously the commander of sorts in Roman tunic and cape as Cesar might have once been. His face was masked, and because they stood there so long, the illusion and original awe faded. He was just a man in a mask. Perhaps he was considering what he needed to do after the parade. Perhaps it was something mundane like thinking how difficult it would be to pick up the milk his wife had demanded.
How pedestrian, I thought, that I’m standing here in Mardi Gras and thinking about who that man really is. The masks were meant to hide your identity, but what if you were no one to begin with? What point of a mask then?
It began to rob me of the peace that had so easily found me before, so when the parade resumed, I found I’d lost my interest. Thankfully the celebrity honored in this parade was on the first float and once again it was dazzlingly bright. He wore a crown, that much I could see, and a similar Roman tunic with the same cape clasped to a single shoulder.
I should have cared that he was famous. I should have cared that as I stared at the million facets reflecting blinding light that Travis was in danger of being hit. But I could not pull myself out of the space I was in. He told me about it later. What if he had been struck? Suddenly the parades lost glamour and I pulled away, standing apart where the crowds didn’t exist.
This was ceasing to be fun. The world was pushing against the last warm vestiges of my high, and I felt no remorse in leaving behind the insanity. Let them revel, I no longer wanted those risks.
Monday found us colder. Perhaps in more ways than one. If I had known what was bearing down, perhaps I would have held on more tightly. But then, we never know what tomorrow brings.
The day started with a cemetery tour of St. Louis no. 1. There was some voodoo history in it as well, however it is largely for the cemetery that tickets are sold. Just so did we come to our tour guide and tour companions. Just so was I quickly disillusioned that this would be passing excellent.
The three women who accompanied us were together, one of them an author on New Orleans and Marie Leveau. A foremost authority, she called herself. But instead of shedding light, of respectfully adding to the tour we had all paid for, she spoke through the guide’s openings and first couple of stops, telling her friend in a relentless voice about the real history of New Orleans while our guide feebly attempted to explain in a passable excerpt about a building or a place.
This was never built as a history lesson, it was for sensationalism and good story. Here they diverged on intent.
Whenever we stopped, they complained of the walk, and asked how much longer to the cemetery, showing that they had picked the first pamphlet to gain access. They had not read that it was a walking tour, nor that there were additional pieces to it. They read the splash text over an image of a gravestone and paid on that alone.
It was irritating to me, who wanted to know what could be learned in brief bullet points, to have to tune out her constant narration behind us. To have to hear that she made poor choices in footwear or that she (most likely against doctors orders) booked a tour she should have reconsidered given her physical state. I have little pity for the people who expect special treatment for the injuries they refuse to care for.
By the time we reached the cemetery, and sepcifically the coveted tomb of Marie Leveaux, they checked out, going so far as to hunt down a different tour guide and take leave of our group in a huff. Well, so be it then. With them departed we finished our tour, taking photographs. I touched some of the tombs, some of the containment walls that doubled as vaults, and even Marie’s tomb? Was it here that I invited bad luck? They say evil enters the world through touch...
The tour concluded, we met back up with Dan and Elsa, and commenced with drinking until the night blurs for me in a cloudy haze of joy. Faces swim up in my memory from the crowds, complimenting me. Voices float to my mind’s ears of envy. We went to The Dungeon, but I was already starting to lose the ability to distinguish full thoughts.
I recall an extremely dark bar and a cold can of beer that turned out to be LeFitte’s, but nothing else of it remains. I remember a country bar where I danced briefly, although the later video shows me just swaying around. There was a loud upstairs part but it was too overwhelming. I recall a glass shattering and a lot of black light, but not much after.
We stumbled out into the night and I followed the rainbow wings Dan wore like they were a lifesaving beacon. Someone made the choice to go to the Tiki bar. How I got upstairs I don’t know, I have a complete blank spot there. Sitting at the bar I vaguely appreciated the Polynesian tones, but also felt it was wasted on me. I knew I wasn’t going to remember more than maybe a vague impression.
WHen it came time to leave I had no idea how to exit, and once we were trudging back to the hotel I was on autopilot, my feet moving only because T was holding my hand and I knew walking was my only course. Still, I was happy even if I was checked out. I knew I was 100% safe and soon I’d be wrapped up in his arms and asleep, and my anxiety was blissfully quiet.
Like a sponge I had soaked up only the best of this wild city, and left the rest on the sidewalk, discarded like the tons of beads littered beneath our feet.
Our final day dawned and we decided to take it easy, owing to an early check out the following day. We took in a parade called Zulu, and enjoyed the sights of the city again. It was more wild, and I think I was finally beginning to reach full saturation at this point. The crowds were more vicious about space and we were trying to squeeze through ever smaller avenues between bodies.
The only place open was a chain place from the Manning family, and it was there we ate beignets until we could eat no more. We had thought to go back and rest a bit at the room, but that turned out to be our final act. Defeated, saturated, and exhausted, we packed up, laid our bodies to rest, and called it a night.
As we slept, the world was shifting. By dawn it would be turned upside down. I didn’t know then how very smart it had been to call such an early night.
We intended to leave by 7am. The valet service at our hotel could not locate my truck. They didn’t tell us this at first, instead inspecting every key in their booth for mine and making no overtures towards explaining why they were not off to go get it in short order.
As time went on, it became clear that they did not know where my truck was, offering explanations of an overflow lot. I was reaching a seven by the time they explained that someone had driven my truck somewhere without my permission or even telling me. What if I had needed it quickly? I was under the impression it was easily accessible in my building. And even then it was only a guess.
It was a full panic attack and I had enough in me to get back up into the room. I made the call and went into a meltdown. It would take both Matt and T to get my head back enough to see this through. Even just having reached the attack and having it pass would have done the trick, but it was hastened with support to be on it’s way.
They found it, they brought it to me, and despite my front seat being soaked in water from the cooler, it was in the same condition as when I handed her over. Things were sorted and filed although as of this writing remain to be fully resolved on their end.
And we were on the way home. And into a storm that has also yet to resolve...
But in an effort to keep the trip as it was, as unattached to the events directly after, I willl end it here. I still cannot help but feel I invited bad luck in, that in touching or in being so altered I offended some spirit or another.
But I survived Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I not only survived it, but I held his hand and felt adventurous and powerful and engaged in my life. I felt like I was embracing all the things I had taken into my hands when I chose my life all those years ago.
I jumped, and he was with me the whole time. And we’ll always have New Orleans in Mardi Gras.
Then Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody comes on and I feel it completely. This trip is going to be epic.
***
I’m standing on a sidewalk after thirteen hours in a car. My feet feel fine but my legs are a little stiff. My heart is racing as it sinks in that I am now at the mercy of the world. Anything could happen, good or bad.
The sidewalks and street are littered with beads, and Randi is cautioning us not to pick them up from the ground. We’ve ventured out to find dinner in our very first hours here, and as we walk, a solitary parade float appears. It’s garish pink and white, and I remember feeling it was unnaturally shiny, as if flooded with spotlights. It felt dystopian and surreal. Some future world where random, double tier vehicles full of screaming women in short pink wigs and masks threw toys to the disgruntled and drunk denizens of the night where they stumbled off to wherever it is people go after indulging too much.
And then they passed and the nearly empty street was once again any normal city street after any parade. Maybe a straggler here or there, but mostly just the remains of what once was, and we trudged on. Our efforts were fruitless and we ended up ordering a pizza for delivery.
I still cannot believe this happened and is not some fever dream.
The next morning dawned and found us excited to take it all in. We discovered the charm and life of New Orleans in a hundred mask shops and restaurants. The sights, sounds and aroma were intoxicating and everywhere people were smiling and calling out. We ate at interesting places, and walked the famed Rue Bourbon. I may still find a street sign to hang on my wall to commemorate this trip.
Given the things that have happened since, this reliving and rehashing feels bittersweet, but I am determined to record it as I felt it. Please excuse any melancholic overlaying that may happen in spite of that.
We discovered boozy slushees, perhaps my new all time favorite way to ingest alcohol, bought some souvenirs and explored. I remember standing on a corner and glancing up, seeing an older, historic building with the taller, modern skyscrapers behind it. The comparison tickled my fancy, and I recalled how I felt when we crossed the bridge and the city in it’s splendor spread out before us like she was holding her arms open to greet us.
Not unlike my first impressions of another city...
We found a tour to sign up for, an 8 in 1 affair of vampires, pirates, voodoo and ghosts. It was slanted towards sensationalism, but I appreciated the flair our tour guide had for telling a good story. It’s fair to say I absorbed a good amount of what he was saying and in the dark it was easier to see these past events happening.
Was it outside the LaLaurie mansion where I casually cursed myself that night?
We stopped for food on Chartres Street, enjoying the vague French appeal to it all. By the time the check came though, it was late and I was ready to lay my head down.
The walk back to the hotel was more absorption. Letting it fill me up, hearing the sounds and feeling like my years in Boston had built up an immunity to the overwhelming buzz of a city street. I walked through worse to get to work daily, this was very pleasant in comparison.
Sunday turned the weather cooler. During one of our excursions, a poor girl fell on beads and Dan had the good sense to stop and pick up those beads. It was day drinking and weed, and all kinds of adventure. I remember at one point being so full of joy at one moment, a pure state of being, that I thought I might have finally understood why hippies like tye-dye. It was what I pictured my soul looking like. And then I laughed at my own thoughts and experienced life just as it is. Perfect and golden inside one very temporary and fleeting moment.
That night we waited for the Bacchus parade. It quickly devolved from enjoyment and revelries to irritation and potential danger. I recall the parade stopping and looking at the knights that lead the parade. One big, fat knight who was obviously the commander of sorts in Roman tunic and cape as Cesar might have once been. His face was masked, and because they stood there so long, the illusion and original awe faded. He was just a man in a mask. Perhaps he was considering what he needed to do after the parade. Perhaps it was something mundane like thinking how difficult it would be to pick up the milk his wife had demanded.
How pedestrian, I thought, that I’m standing here in Mardi Gras and thinking about who that man really is. The masks were meant to hide your identity, but what if you were no one to begin with? What point of a mask then?
It began to rob me of the peace that had so easily found me before, so when the parade resumed, I found I’d lost my interest. Thankfully the celebrity honored in this parade was on the first float and once again it was dazzlingly bright. He wore a crown, that much I could see, and a similar Roman tunic with the same cape clasped to a single shoulder.
I should have cared that he was famous. I should have cared that as I stared at the million facets reflecting blinding light that Travis was in danger of being hit. But I could not pull myself out of the space I was in. He told me about it later. What if he had been struck? Suddenly the parades lost glamour and I pulled away, standing apart where the crowds didn’t exist.
This was ceasing to be fun. The world was pushing against the last warm vestiges of my high, and I felt no remorse in leaving behind the insanity. Let them revel, I no longer wanted those risks.
Monday found us colder. Perhaps in more ways than one. If I had known what was bearing down, perhaps I would have held on more tightly. But then, we never know what tomorrow brings.
The day started with a cemetery tour of St. Louis no. 1. There was some voodoo history in it as well, however it is largely for the cemetery that tickets are sold. Just so did we come to our tour guide and tour companions. Just so was I quickly disillusioned that this would be passing excellent.
The three women who accompanied us were together, one of them an author on New Orleans and Marie Leveau. A foremost authority, she called herself. But instead of shedding light, of respectfully adding to the tour we had all paid for, she spoke through the guide’s openings and first couple of stops, telling her friend in a relentless voice about the real history of New Orleans while our guide feebly attempted to explain in a passable excerpt about a building or a place.
This was never built as a history lesson, it was for sensationalism and good story. Here they diverged on intent.
Whenever we stopped, they complained of the walk, and asked how much longer to the cemetery, showing that they had picked the first pamphlet to gain access. They had not read that it was a walking tour, nor that there were additional pieces to it. They read the splash text over an image of a gravestone and paid on that alone.
It was irritating to me, who wanted to know what could be learned in brief bullet points, to have to tune out her constant narration behind us. To have to hear that she made poor choices in footwear or that she (most likely against doctors orders) booked a tour she should have reconsidered given her physical state. I have little pity for the people who expect special treatment for the injuries they refuse to care for.
By the time we reached the cemetery, and sepcifically the coveted tomb of Marie Leveaux, they checked out, going so far as to hunt down a different tour guide and take leave of our group in a huff. Well, so be it then. With them departed we finished our tour, taking photographs. I touched some of the tombs, some of the containment walls that doubled as vaults, and even Marie’s tomb? Was it here that I invited bad luck? They say evil enters the world through touch...
The tour concluded, we met back up with Dan and Elsa, and commenced with drinking until the night blurs for me in a cloudy haze of joy. Faces swim up in my memory from the crowds, complimenting me. Voices float to my mind’s ears of envy. We went to The Dungeon, but I was already starting to lose the ability to distinguish full thoughts.
I recall an extremely dark bar and a cold can of beer that turned out to be LeFitte’s, but nothing else of it remains. I remember a country bar where I danced briefly, although the later video shows me just swaying around. There was a loud upstairs part but it was too overwhelming. I recall a glass shattering and a lot of black light, but not much after.
We stumbled out into the night and I followed the rainbow wings Dan wore like they were a lifesaving beacon. Someone made the choice to go to the Tiki bar. How I got upstairs I don’t know, I have a complete blank spot there. Sitting at the bar I vaguely appreciated the Polynesian tones, but also felt it was wasted on me. I knew I wasn’t going to remember more than maybe a vague impression.
WHen it came time to leave I had no idea how to exit, and once we were trudging back to the hotel I was on autopilot, my feet moving only because T was holding my hand and I knew walking was my only course. Still, I was happy even if I was checked out. I knew I was 100% safe and soon I’d be wrapped up in his arms and asleep, and my anxiety was blissfully quiet.
Like a sponge I had soaked up only the best of this wild city, and left the rest on the sidewalk, discarded like the tons of beads littered beneath our feet.
Our final day dawned and we decided to take it easy, owing to an early check out the following day. We took in a parade called Zulu, and enjoyed the sights of the city again. It was more wild, and I think I was finally beginning to reach full saturation at this point. The crowds were more vicious about space and we were trying to squeeze through ever smaller avenues between bodies.
The only place open was a chain place from the Manning family, and it was there we ate beignets until we could eat no more. We had thought to go back and rest a bit at the room, but that turned out to be our final act. Defeated, saturated, and exhausted, we packed up, laid our bodies to rest, and called it a night.
As we slept, the world was shifting. By dawn it would be turned upside down. I didn’t know then how very smart it had been to call such an early night.
We intended to leave by 7am. The valet service at our hotel could not locate my truck. They didn’t tell us this at first, instead inspecting every key in their booth for mine and making no overtures towards explaining why they were not off to go get it in short order.
As time went on, it became clear that they did not know where my truck was, offering explanations of an overflow lot. I was reaching a seven by the time they explained that someone had driven my truck somewhere without my permission or even telling me. What if I had needed it quickly? I was under the impression it was easily accessible in my building. And even then it was only a guess.
It was a full panic attack and I had enough in me to get back up into the room. I made the call and went into a meltdown. It would take both Matt and T to get my head back enough to see this through. Even just having reached the attack and having it pass would have done the trick, but it was hastened with support to be on it’s way.
They found it, they brought it to me, and despite my front seat being soaked in water from the cooler, it was in the same condition as when I handed her over. Things were sorted and filed although as of this writing remain to be fully resolved on their end.
And we were on the way home. And into a storm that has also yet to resolve...
But in an effort to keep the trip as it was, as unattached to the events directly after, I willl end it here. I still cannot help but feel I invited bad luck in, that in touching or in being so altered I offended some spirit or another.
But I survived Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I not only survived it, but I held his hand and felt adventurous and powerful and engaged in my life. I felt like I was embracing all the things I had taken into my hands when I chose my life all those years ago.
I jumped, and he was with me the whole time. And we’ll always have New Orleans in Mardi Gras.
Comments
Post a Comment