Yet here I am again!
Still getting dressed - Mardi Gras 2006
I thought I was gone from these pages for awhile, yet here I find myself back again! Perhaps because so much Mardi Gras and New Orleans imagery is swirling in my brain right now, that some of it has to spill out somewhere!
I took a friend to the airport last Friday, so she could fly to New Orleans ahead of me. How happy I was for her! Yet so sad I could not also spend a 6 week visit there. I shall have to be satisfied with my annual week, and do it justice with a much frolicing and costumery as I can possibly fit in. Of course I have to work while I am there too, but I have every intention of enjoying it fully as well.
Even my dreams are full of costumes, as I try to decide what to don for the St Anne's parade. I am thinking lots purple and green in honor of mardi gras itself, with a bird mask and hopefully lots of feathers if it looks like we can avoid any rain.
But at the same time I revel in these images, I have worries about what we will find there when we arrive. As the situation there continues to drag on, more and more people have been forced to leave, and it sounds like morale was down significantly even before the additional horridness of early Janurary. What if it doesn't seem like New Orleans anymore? Is a city made of buildings or of people?
Last year's Fat Tuesday was amazing, a Phoenix-like rebirth, a ritual event that brought people back together and gave everyone hope. But then it seemed like the world forgot New Orleans, and many of the people who had hoped to rebuild their lives there left again before they became lost and forgotten as well.
So what will we find there this time?
We were happy that St. Louis Cemetery #1 was not washed away by the flood waters. But I did peak into the cracked corner of a tomb, and I saw bones inside!