There are certainly days when I wonder why I live here. The week I got two flat tires on two different streets, costing me $250 I didn’t really have because I also somehow had a $500 power bill. The time my house was robbed in the middle of the day and the police didn’t come for hours and weren’t overly concerned when they finally did show up. While trying to navigate the public/charter school admissions process. Pretty much all of August and September during hurricane season, and again during the dual pollen and buckmoth caterpillar assaults in March and April, which are followed closely by the termite swarms. (I once got a termite lodged behind my contact lens somehow, and I almost immediately wanted to move to Alaska.)
And yet, even with all of this, there is really no better time and place to be alive than New Orleans in the springtime. The smell of sweet olive everywhere. Crawfish boils. Elmer’s Heavenly Hash Eggs. Ponchatoula strawberries and Strawberry Abita and fresh strawberry sno-balls from LouLou’s. And best of all: Jazz Fest.
Everyone thinks of Mardi Gras when they think of New Orleans, but while I do enjoy Carnival season and always have a great time at the parades I go to, when it comes right down to it, I’m ultimately a Jazz Fest girl.
Some of my earliest childhood memories are set at Jazz Fest: drinking strawberry lemonade, dancing with my dad, making crafts in the Kids’ Tent, building sandcastles and doing gymnastics on the track.
As a teenager, I went with my friends to see some of the more popular acts – Dash Rip Rock, Better Than Ezra, Dave Matthews Band – but I also will always treasure the memory of skipping school my junior year to watch James Taylor in the rain with my beloved late Aunt Libby.
In college, it got a bit trickier to schedule it all, but I still made the 12-hour drive down more than once to see Paul Simon or Counting Crows and eat crawfish bread and mango freezes, usually with my dad and a few good friends.
And now, of course, I’ve experienced bringing my own kids, absolutely drenched in sunscreen and with a small Ziploc of Goldfish smuggled in in case they won’t try any of the food. I danced to Imagination Movers with my now-16-year-old strapped to my chest in a baby sling in 2008. I fed tiny bites of sno-ball to my toddler in 2014. I even attended the festival massively pregnant in 2012 (my daughter was born at the end of May) and ended up having to spend most of the day in the mist tent because I had very much overestimated my stamina and heat tolerance at 37 weeks pregnant.
Now I’ve reached another milestone: letting my teenager go to Jazz Fest with her own friends.
Of course I’m nervous about it. “Drink lots of water!” “Reapply sunscreen every few hours!” “Don’t accept drinks from random people!” “Be careful in crowds!”
But I want her to have the same thrill of freedom and independence that I did at her age. I want her to make the same memories, and I want her to come home from college to go with friends, just as I did.
Despite its nickname, living in New Orleans is anything but easy some days.
One good day at Jazz Fest, though? That can restore your soul.
