The humid, Caribbean-like heat of the city greets me and curls my hair as I walk downtown in New Orleans. It’s early afternoon and I am roaming the narrow streets of the French Quarter; I know I found Bourbon Street because of the plethora of catchy-phrase T-shirt-wearing drinkers in this street, beads still hanging from the tiny balconies from Mardi Grass the week before. For a split second I fear this would be a spring break-like experience, but the soulful voice of a lady singing blues lures me to the outside patio at Café Beignet. The iron chairs are hot from the sun, but I don’t care, as I devour the powdery sugar goodness of a warm beignet; I sip my coffee with chickory and softly lick my upper lip to remove the white sugar dust. The black lady singing frowns her forehead and closes her eyes as she hits the high notes.
I keep on Bourbon and veer off to Royal Street, the street is alive with its colorful walls, dissected chicken feet painted red (for good luck, the voodoo lady told me), rosaries from Brazil, girls painting their faces under the sun, and I hear the ukulele. At the corner of Royal and a street I don’t remember, I hear the sweet rustic sound of bluegrass. A hairy, raggedy bunch, dressed in tan colored clothes, sing with voices that go up and down as if someone is stepping on their stomach, a washboard scratching, two spoons clacking rapidly against a girl’s dirty thigh. As their song builds up, the ukulele joins in, and the harmonica follows; my feet can’t stop beating rapidly against the hot pavement. Seeing these musicians living their art, their music, without reservations or considerations for mundane habits, reminds me of how much I wanted to be a crazy hippie during my adolescence, and how that was tamed by the social norms, by the expectations, and by the ebb and flow of routines. Although those are not my current desires, seeing them enacted so beautifully by these musicians makes me feel so fulfilled, as if life was allowing me to experience bits of it, not as I expected, but living it regardless.
As I keep walking, musicians sprout out of every corner; different beats, Louisiana Blues, Swamp Bop, Dixieland, all swollen with feeling. I feel like a hyperactive kid who cannot focus. I feel lucky to be here, without a need for anything else right now, I feel alive and complete. The sky is turning shades of orange and pink as the sun sets in the streets of the French Quarter. I go for some Gumbo and Jambalaya, and its flavors are reminding me of the home cooking back in Dominican Republic…the starches, the flavorfulness, now with a tinge of Cajun. I wash down the aftertaste of the spices with spiked lemonade, infused with fresh strawberries, the kind they show here at the Strawberry Festival.
I leave the food place and ask a guy sitting at the curb where I can get those Cherry Bombs: “Go to The Dungeon for the strongest Cherry Bombs in New Orleans” he says. I go there and get two Cherry Bombs, just in case they are not as strong as predicted. I take the maraschino cherry by the stem, still dripping ethylic juice, chew it without hesitation and Zaaaaaaaa! my tongue goes instantly numb, and the rush of sweet alcohol travels like a flame down my throat; I try to make it better by eating the second cherry right away. I am looking for a good jazz place, one without naked chicks or two-for-one drinks, but the cherries got me all light headed so I step on some purple beads on the floor and fall. People around me are laughing, confusing me with the rest of the drunken crowd; I start laughing with them, in perfect harmony. As I try to get up I hear the music, a trumpet, I wonder if its live, and boy it is! I enter Fritzel’s and hear the band(by the same name) playing, men dressed in crispy white linen clothes, one of them with polka-dots suspenders and a fedora hat with a green feather on it. I hear their authentic jazz, the vibrating trumpet, the flickering banjo, the clarinet, the deep tup tup tup tup of the double bass…I am hallucinating! This New Orleans Jazz evokes a musical era that I never lived, but that I experience profoundly and carry very deep inside me.
Little after midnight, I walk out of Fritzel’s and the streets are still ripe with nightly color and a million different things to experience. I leave the French Quarter feeling reminded of what it is that brings me joy in this life and makes my soul fulfilled...it’s the exposure to people from all over, to their passion, is how they express their inner dimension through their music, is their struggle.. their resilience. The question remains if this intensity, this effervescent happiness is a sustainable emotion. It is unclear to me where I’m headed in my life, but whichever my path is, this intensity is meant to be in it, and hopefully it will veer off its course and take me down again to the soul and flavor of New Orleans.
