Growing up and raising kids in New Orleans requires a good sense of balance.
Pizza or tacos? Late nights or early mornings? Coffee or tea? Ice cream or sno-balls? The beach or the pool? Jazz Fest or Mardi Gras?
“This or that” questions are so often used as icebreakers, but honestly, my usual answer to all of them is … both? I want pizza and tacos. I want coffee in the morning and herbal tea before bed. That’s especially true for Jazz Fest or Mardi Gras. Although many people do have a favorite signature New Orleans event, I honestly like (and dislike) so many things about both as a participant – and even more so as a parent.
I’ve been going to both since I was a toddler. I have a photo of me in a sundress, covered in sno-ball syrup, on my mom’s hip circa 1984. And another one of me, probably the same year, Mardi Gras beads ringing my neck. Throughout the years, I went to both with my parents and then, increasingly, with my friends.
I will never forget the Jazz Fest when I was 14 when I got in on a kid’s ticket — meaning I looked 12 — and then bought a beer — meaning I looked 21. (In reality, I definitely looked 12, but things were different in 1995.) That was the same Jazz Fest I attended with two friends who were dating. They started making out on the blanket we had thrown down, so I hopped up on one of the recycling cans they had sitting around the Fairgrounds — they had a solid top with just a hole cut out for cans so that no one would throw trash in there. I was enjoying the music and sipping my questionably acquired aforementioned beer when a cute Tulane boy caught my eye across the crowd. He smiled at me. I smiled back. We looked away. We looked back and smiled again. He made a gesture to indicate that he was going to walk across the crowd to stand by me. I made a gesture to indicate that he should do this. We smiled again, and I waved my encouragement as he walked toward me. And then the lid of the can caved in, sending me plummeting into a hot, wet mass of mostly empty beer cans. The guy didn’t even come over to try to help — I had to kick the side of the can until my friends came to their senses, pried themselves apart, and then stopped laughing long enough to drag me out.
The next year, I think, was the Mardi Gras that a much-older man on a float picked me up off of my friend’s shoulders and tried to kiss me while I dangled down the side of the float. I did at least get a big bag of beads out of the ordeal.
These stories are — all at once — funny to tell at parties, not really unusual for kids growing up in New Orleans, and singularly horrifying as a parent of two daughters. I’ve managed to survive all of Rowan’s high school Carnival seasons, and Jazz Fest is not as laissez-faire as it used to be, but the way I spaced my kids out, I am basically sending one off to college and then bracing myself to do it all over again.
I want both of them to have fun and be careful at the same time, to make memories without making mistakes, to have stories but not regrets. It’s not a “this or that” type choice, or at least not a clear-cut one. It’s keeping them safe while also giving them independence. Just like me, they’ll have their own stories to tell, and I’ll be here to listen (to as much as they want to tell me), laugh, and try not to gasp in shock. After all, life, especially in New Orleans, is about enjoying both – the chaos and the calm, the fun and the familiar – all at once. And ice cream and sno-balls are both good all year-round.
