Over the past few months, I’ve vacillated between my affinities for New Jersey and New Orleans. I’ve felt some sort of pressure to choose a side — I must either assume the character of a laid-back Big Easy “boo” or that of the nasty northerner who can’t slow down. Why did I feel such pressure, a pressure that has made me feel unmoored at times and emotionally displaced? It was starting to become really quite burdensome until my husband and I escaped this past weekend to our familiar Charlottesville, Va., where I was able to gain some perspective.
I went to school in Charlottesville, a town that has always been my sacred neutral ground. It was my original retreat from Jersey. Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it’s always been the perfect place to commune with nature and maintain a low profile.
I moved from Charlottesville to New Orleans more than a year ago now. And throughout the past year, whenever I’d get a bit uneasy about my new home in the Big Easy but knew I couldn’t abscond to Jersey or Seattle (where my other family resides), I’d think of my time in Virginia and pine for the mountains and for the long, meditative drives I used to take atop Skyline Drive. I’d think of Skyline’s treacherous, winding road; the fall foliage; the crisp air; past camping trips off the beaten path; and, strangely, passages from Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” such as, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself…”
But something strange happened during our trip to Charlottesville this past weekend. I was only there for a few days, but the whole time I longed for New Orleans. Instead of those transcendental, rustic thoughts that once comforted me, I thought of that song known so well around these parts: “The moonlight on the bayou … a Creole tune … that fills the air/ I dream about magnolias in bloom … and I’m wishin’ I was there.”
I missed our rickety shotgun house and the close groans of ships’ horns as they labor up the Mississippi. I missed the Friday “Shrimp Creole Special” served at the little café that’s a hop and a skip from my office. I missed speaking broken French with my charming neighbor, Aline; missed saying hello to the dozens I pass during my evening walks at Audubon Park; South Carrollton’s tunnel of tress; the Sunday sirens of “Who Dat” soldiers felt and heard around the city.
For the entire weekend I thought about returning to New Orleans. I also thought of the thousands of displaced New Orleanians scattered across the country, residents who are deeply rooted here but cannot return home. I can’t even fathom the immensity of their loss or their sense of displacement. My former angst of “where to call home” pales in comparison to those who have known New Orleans as their only home. I’m wishin’ there were a way for them to come back.
And this brings me to the POTUS.
I hope President Obama’s visit to New Orleans this week helps accelerate efforts to fully restore New Orleans and spur an influx of even more well-intentioned yuppies and displaced residents. I hope, too, that he’s bitten by the bug and decides to stay a little longer than one day.
I suppose it’s possible. He just might decide to stay a little longer, or come back in a few months. Maybe this time around New Orleans will get deep into his psyche, like it’s seeped into mine.
