A bit of the big easy

Three topics tonight for the price of one…

I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by the blog yesterday as I had my biggest traffic day ever as a result of my Oscar blog. 61 hits yesterday, which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that I don’t think I actually know 61 people. In fact, that amount allows me to cross one of my New Year’s resolutions off the list as it was my goal to break 50 readers in a day. Looking back at my resolutions (posted on January 1 for those interested in seeing the list) I am surprised at just how much progress I have made in the past two months. Just wait until I actually buy a yoga mat…

On the topic of resolutions today is Mardi Gras and that means tomorrow is the start of lent otherwise known as the second chance at new year’s resolutions for Catholics. At this time of year those of us who were raised in Catholic schools feel obligated to give something up for lent. Now I always feel like I must point out why we do this and why for the next few weeks I will no longer eat meat on Friday. It is not that cows are suddenly evil or that the Catholic church has a great deal of investments in the fishing industry. No, the entire idea of giving something up is to remind ourselves how blessed we are in life and to clear our minds of some of the superfluous fluff that overtakes it.

People always have interesting choices for lent. Many people give up beer, which always confuses me as I assume that God wants us to enjoy life. For the past few years I have given up negativity for lent. It never works and usually by Thursday my snark level is at unprecedented heights but at least I try. This year I am going to do something a little different. I’m giving up junk food for lent. After putting on a few more pounds over the winter (and realizing that I have been eating like crap) I’ve decided that I must really focus on how I am treating my body. So I am putting away the Twinkies and the Chewy Chips Ahoy and the I Can’t Believe It’s Not a Large Tub of Saturated Fat. Sigh. It’s going to be a long lent.

Since it is Mardi Gras I felt like I should share one small story from my trip to New Orleans last week. This explains all that I love about the city…

It was Monday and my travelling partner and I had spent an eventful weekend in the Quarter. Given that it had been the weekend before the weekend before Mardi Gras the Quarter had been filled with people and parades and energy. We had no real plans when we got there so we were just sucked into the entire atmosphere of joy and excitement and energy. On Monday though there was nothing scheduled and the two of us just planned on walking around, making those last purchases and enjoying our last moments in the city.

One of the things that I enjoyed seeing on this trip was that all of the people who make the city interesting were back. The painters, the fortune tellers, the people who ask you where you got your shoes at, they all had returned to the city after a brief respite after Katrina. They are what gives the city its unique charm. There is no organization or structure behind them, you are not quite sure where they came from or where they go at night, but they create this other worldly atmosphere to the city. They make it unlike any place else.

My travelling partner would always carry money on her so she could put a few dollars in the hat of all of the performers. She would occasionally go into a bar with the intent of getting change just so she could tip the next person she came across, even if it meant crossing the street to do so. That just amazed me. Most people (including myself, sadly) are all too tempted to just increase our pace as we walk past and not appreciate the fact that there is a human being behind the performance. That this is not a theme park employee; this is someone for whom this moment is their life. To say that she impressed me with these small acts does not do the word or her justice.

So on our last day walking around the city we came across a guy with a mane of rather wild, curly hair playing a cello. On the list of instruments one plays to impress tourists a cello is rather highbrow. It is Mardi Gras after all and the drunken frat boys are surprisingly uninterested in classical music. We pass him by and she puts a few dollars in his hat and he thanks her. We walk around for a few hours, make a few purchases and while walking in a different part of the Quarter we walk by him again. She once again drops a few dollars in the hat and as we are about ten steps away he yells out “Thanks again!” as we both turn to see him waving and smiling at us.

Day turns into night and we end our trip with just a fantastic dinner and one last walk back to our hotel. We step onto Jackson Square and from a distance I can hear a cello playing. There is our friend, in his third location of the day at least, set up in front of St. Louis Cathedral as the last bits of light are fading from the city. I pause for a second, look at her, and went “Let’s make this guy’s day.”

The two of us rush over to him and put enough money in the hat to cover a few nights at the youth hostel. I know this because he told us exactly what he needed for the night and how he was hoping beyond hope that someone would give him enough just so he could go back and go to sleep. And instead of just doing this and walking by we talked with him to find out his story. His name was Bracken and he was from Wisconsin and he was doing this as part of what could only be described as a musical dream. He wasn’t sure quite what he was trying to accomplish but he knew that if he could go to parts of the country and just play the music that he loved and survived that it would make him a better person and a better musician. He missed his family, he missed his home, but something told him that if he made his way to New Orleans everything would work out. That this was a place he was just meant to be. When we last saw him he was making his way through the Quarter, cello in hand, with the biggest smile on his face.

I’ve often said that what I love about New Orleans is that it is an actual place and the US has very few of those. On the surface that means that the city itself is not a Xeroxed version of every other city in America with the same strip malls and chain stores. But what I really mean is that the people in the city are a wonderful set of madmen and dreamers who want to see what will happen if for one moment in your life you try to make your wishes come true. The city is built by people who pursue their art and their joy of life come hell or high water, literally.

Why do I always visit New Orleans? Because dreams permeate the city in a way I have never seen anywhere else in the world. And it is the most intoxicating sight one can imagine.

Happy Mardi Gras everyone. Enjoy some Cowboy Mouth.