Post-NOLAbound Blues

I’ve had a little bit of the blues. The post-NOLAbound blues.  A strange feeling to go through since as a proud local, nothing is really wrong. I didn’t jet away from Louis Armstrong to return to another faction of the country. I’m still here; still in the city that I love. But I guess this feeling is somewhat fitting in a place known for combining its blues with its jazz, its funerals with its parades.

There is a general funk many New Orleanians tend to go through post-Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras.  All of the costume making, float decorating, and general gathering and revelry is over. And if only for a few weeks, many are happy about the recovery time while still others feel the melancholy of hanging up their lamé  and missing king cake for breakfast.  It’s hard not to sigh up at the beads dangling from the St. Charles oaks and nostalgically smile upon one moment that made your Mardi Gras, or one costume, executed flawlessly, that helped you dance as far as the night or morning would take you.

My post-Mardi Gras world was “golden” this year; figuratively with some joyous work events and literally with a shopping cart full of gambol. The NOLAbound program also lay on the horizon as a marvelous opportunity but yet something incidental to my regular New Orleans life.  I didn’t know exactly what I would get out of the program. If there was a prize going in to it I would have already won. I lived here.  And in the same way I know the tricks of the town, like avoiding the weekend line with a called in to-go order at Artz, or getting a soup cup sample from the olive bar at Whole Foods, I wasn’t sure I was ready to watch 26 others figure the ins and outs of the real New Orleans, when I normally avoid those situations all together.

What happened last week, however, took me completely by surprise. I was introduced to 26 truly inspiring, accomplished, resplendent people. The caliber of the applicants and their passion for a city that some had never met was as intoxicating as the enchantment of a foggy Quarter morning.  I can’t say that I truly met each one as well as I would have liked too but the relationships I made with over half of the group will endure interminably. I hope for and am confident that one day soon I will be able to call many of them my neighbors. Outside of these connections the program also facilitated conversations with individuals I wouldn’t have normally engaged in at such an accelerated pace. I feel beyond privileged to have met Robbie Vitrano, Michael Hecht, Jane Booth, Will Bradshaw, Rod Miller and all the other panelists and connectors who I admire, hope to collaborate with, and who help make this city great on a day to day basis.  Last night, while making groceries at Rouses, I bumped into Cleveland Spears with a smile and a handshake, a connector we had met at lunch last week, and who running into in a local capacity, only helped to profoundly add to my sense of community and spirit in this already hospitable town. The NOLAbound program made this experience that much richer.

Participating in the program was an altering experience and not due to any changing impressions of New Orleans or the novelty it inscribed on my fellow participants.  It’s not the city that affected me to feel this way, nor does it give me this sense of the blues. I’ve been lucky to always have known about the spice of the boot state, the magic in the clouds, the architecture and telephone wires that frame a bikeable streetscape for blocks down the road. I’ve spent countless mornings leaving my home to waving neighbors whose porches I enjoyed a glass of wine on just the night before. Regular cruises around uptown to the sounds of school marching band practices or neighborhoods of parrots and cicadas are cherished details of this city you’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere.  High 70’s weather in the middle of March and a spring/summer calendar already chock full of festivals, crawfish boils, outdoor concerts, neighborhood gatherings, spontaneous street parades, and many more are a well embraced fact of life. These things make this place home so it must be something else that brought in this funk…

It’s only been two and half days since the program ended; four days since we danced with Kermit Ruffins in the street.  Three days since having dinner with Irvin Mayfield at his home; and two days since saying some surprisingly emotional goodbyes at Super Sunday. But still, as a local, now “deputized” ambassador for the city, and as a member of NOLAbound 2012 I am sad to have seen my new friends depart as quickly as they came. I’ll leave it to my fellow participants to mention the economic development highlights of the week. The tax credits, the industry leaders, the new jobs, and the growing organizations.  Most of that has been familiar for me for a while now. What hasn’t though has been the feeling of action and ability to do something with the people I share this experience with. As a local we sometimes take for granted all of the opportunities to participate around us. We attend and we support but the number of spectators tends to always overwhelm the number of creators. So though I already miss my fellow participants, these post-NOLAbound blues will shake off because I know that the 27 of us are creators and that we are ready to actualize together on the opportunities we’ve been shown. The open doors given to us this past week will not be wasted. The group is already working on ideas and plans for making a roux out of all our personal interests and sharing it with big spoons throughout the city. It won’t be long before we find the right way to build and contribute to the professional side of the glitter and glow that is New Orleans and it will be then that we reunite for another second line, this time based out of accomplishment rather than awe.

“New Orleans has that quicksilver slippery intangible mysterious connection to inspiration”; these words were spoken to us last week.  It was not lost on me that beyond the physicality and charm of the city these words reached in to each of us NOLAbounders as real and present within our own lives and sense of belonging. This inspiration is the key to releasing my interim doldrums and to getting back at it. 26 amazing people may have just temporarily left our city but they have already become central to its community and will forever be New Orleanians, wherever they may be.

posted: March 20, 2012