In addition to a teddy bear I’ve had since I was born, smart-ass teenage notes that my friends passed to me in high school and a framed Bob Dylan poster that I got when I first moved here in 2002 for college, I’ve got another prized possession that I refuse to get rid of: a worn-out copy of Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire that I acquired in the spring of 2005. I have a habit of underlining phrases that stand out to me, and this book is filled with underlines, Post-Its and notes that I’ve scribbled in the margins.
Alisha Murphy, a fellow English major (and my best friend, co-worker and possibly long-lost twin) encouraged me to take a class, which was taught at the time by the now-retired Dale Edmonds. It was called “Literary New Orleans,” and it offered the exact intellectual –– and in a way, spiritual –– encouragement that I needed.
Although I was raised in Washington state, ever since I’d come down here for school, I’d been developing some sneaking suspicions that had become impossible to ignore: I might actually need to stay in this city for the rest of my life. People who fall in love during their late teens or very early 20s are often told that they’re “too young” to know if it’s really a good fit; I’m not sure if the same goes for cities or not, but I certainly haven’t found a good reason to break up with this town.
As delusional as it may sound, I’ve always developed friendships and even fallen in love with characters in books, but characters in books in New Orleans were, and are, even more appealing to me. Characters, period, in New Orleans appeal to me. The characters in Streetcar are fictional, but they’re not false. Like their real-life counterparts, they have heart that sort of embodies New Orleans. They invoked my compassion. I pictured them perfectly. They reminded me of people I know here: They’re the people who are, at times, absurdly dramatic –– sometimes to the point where I want to shake them and tell them to knock it off, and two seconds later, they’re telling me some hilariously dark-humored joke (that some people might find offensive) while chain-smoking and sipping (or, OK, chugging) bottom-shelf whiskey. One of my friends once said in a moment of disgust, “God, I just wish there were more hours in the day so I could smoke more cigarettes.” She reminded me of Blanche.
I didn’t want to go anywhere else when the semester of reading New Orleans literature ended, so I stayed here, with the humidity, the weirdos, the possibility of seeing more real-life Blanches, the daytime drinking and the 95-degree jogs through Audubon Park. Even my coffee shop job that summer was exciting –– my co-workers introduced me to ’80s night at One Eyed Jacks and the fine art of incorporating a Bloody Mary with extra-extra olives into my work schedule.
With the help of Karissa Kary, then the associate director of the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, who had been a frequent guest of our class, I got an internship with the nonprofit for the summer, and every time I rode that streetcar to its headquarters, I felt less and less like a college girl from a Seattle suburb and more and more like I was turning into one of the characters I’d been reading about as I plotted my future with the city. I scribbled Tennessee Williams quotes in Sharpie that spoke to me, and I stuck them onto the walls in the house I shared with my roommates, some of whom were also becoming New Orleanians that summer.
One of the most simple but accurate quotes on my wall was Stella explaining patiently to her sister, “Aren’t you being a little intense about it? It’s not that bad at all! New Orleans isn’t like other cities.” No, baby, it’s not. I’ve found myself more or less paraphrasing this sentiment to my sister –– and numerous others. I personally don’t have much in common with Stella, but the fact that we’ve both had to explain this to people before is enough of a bond for me to consider her a comrade. And that is precisely why I, and so many others, feel exceptionally at home here. It’s not really something quantifiable. Maybe I don’t really have that much in common with a random person down the street, but we live on the same street, in the same town, and that’s enough for me.
And as we all stick up a collective middle finger at Hurricane Katrina on her fifth anniversary this week, I am also going to be celebrating the city, people, and characters –– fictional or not –– who have inspired me to continue living here.
Sarah Ravits is an editor at Renaissance Publishing.
