Gross Goodbye Letters to New Orleans

http://www.sophielucidojohnson.com/blogblog/2015/7/28/what-you-have-been-doing-with-your-last-few-days-in-new-orleans

What You Have Been Doing With Your Last Few Days In New Orleans                                                          

The goodbye party at the lake is going exceptionally well. The lake was chosen because it’s outside and big and there’s always space, and if you’re brave you can go swimming. ("If you’re brave" because the city regularly advises against people swimming there; Lake Pontchartrain is dirty, and every once in a while someone dies in it for reasons that can’t be explained.) There is watermelon, a summery tape playing on a “Do The Right Thing”-inspired boombox, and an inflatable dolphin. It’s hot, but the shade and the breeze off the lake makes the heat tolerable. The people who have come — and there are lots — are people you love. You’re standing by the grill (green peppers and rings of onion are softening slowly over white coal) when someone you once kissed in a tree asks: “What have you been doing with your last few days in New Orleans?"

You have mostly been ignoring that they are your last few days in New Orleans. You have been saying, “I’ll be back in two years, don’t worry.” You have been believing yourself, although one never knows. It’s nice to make plans: this is why people get engaged, or buy houses, or discuss getting dogs.

You say, “I don’t know, actually!” You flip the yellow squash at the edge of the grill that’s gotten black underneath. “Someone will eat this, right?”

Then, the thunder clouds in the distance that have been quietly whispering threats all afternoon make a decision: they roll in rather than out. The people swimming in the lake feel it first: comical little waves get quickly serious, crashing like they are under the influence of an invisible tide. Everyone at the party pretends it is cool — even beautiful —  although mostly they know how New Orleans weather can be cool and beautiful and simultaneously scary. You remember when you stood outside in a hurricane once and felt little bits of oak tree lacerate your thighs in the wind.

What have you been doing with your last days in New Orleans? Shouldn’t you have been climbing the shady trees with Spanish moss and watching cormorants and ibises? Shouldn’t you have been licking powdered sugar off of plates in places where men who do a mean Louis Armstrong are a dime a dozen? You have been packing boxes and watching cartoon reruns.

Everyone packs up the party frantically. Your underwear gets thrown in with oily-hot grill tongs and an open plastic bottle of bubbles. People run down to the car and muscle everything in: “This was fun! We’re gonna go!” The guests who rode bikes throw them in someone’s truck. Everyone quickly, privately makes plans. In the end, you are by the lake with three stragglers; the wind rolls the grass like a player piano. The rain starts. You throw a flamingo-pink water balloon at a red-lipped girl in a white bikini, because you’re not ready to leave yet, and lately you’ve been hanging on to things you would otherwise let go.

A fraction of the crowd makes it to the rain location: your boyfriend’s sister’s house in Gentilly. (You are moving to Chicago with your boyfriend! You’ve always wanted to move with a boyfriend. Now, finally, you are at an age at which you can move with a boyfriend and people don’t think you’re making a huge mistake. Or, if they do, they’re not telling you anymore, because everyone has learned to let people make the mistakes they need to make in order to grow up.) People sit on the front and back porches trying to drink through all the beer.

What have you been doing with your last days in New Orleans? Why didn’t you call more of these people you love? Here they all are now, and you don’t even know what to say to them. Someone has had a baby since you last saw her; someone else has gotten engaged. And while love is patient, it is a participation-based sport. You can’t say you’re playing if you’re not on the field.

After everyone has left, you try to scrub chunks of sausage out of the cast iron pan someone used to cook it. You haven’t eaten sausage, ever — you’re one of those finicky, die-hard vegetarians who keeps clinging to the cause against logic — but it smells terrific, and you like the way it turns the water in the sink the color of rust. Given enough time and space, you have always loved washing dishes. It is a small act of change that requires repetition and lets you be near water. The sausage is stubborn. You scrub for twenty minutes.

It is while you are scrubbing that you start to cry. You’ve been wanting to cry. You have been telling people that you are lately a creme brûlée: all you need is a good whack from a spoon to come caving in; there’s plenty of mush just beneath the surface. It’s been some time since you’ve really cried like this, and it hurts your eyes in a way that you sort of like; like sweat finally coming after an hour of moving boxes in winter.

You begin the great undertaking of remembering. There was that Tuesday night Okkervil River concert before you knew the names of the neighborhoods; and regular Wednesday dinners with three girls whom had never seen “Sex In The City” and liked Mediterranean food. There have been three houses, and two cats.

There was the downstairs neighbor uptown who let you watch her dog while she was in Chicago, and the hurricane came while she was gone, and the dog died of a heart attack. Then later you washed her tiled kitchen counters to try to make up for what nature took from her, and a baby rat wormed onto your toe, eyes not even open yet. You kept the rat in a pencil case with holes in the top and tried to feed it milk and keep it warm, because you thought that if you could keep it alive, that would somehow indicate that everything was going to be alright. When it died, you kept it until maggots came to eat its belly.

You watched yourself fall in love. You fell in love a lot. Your brain makes a list, which plays through like a slide show at a cheesy graduation party: the man who brought you an orchid neither of you could take care of; the man who visited from Portland and blended watermelon and mint in the food processor on hot afternoons in July; the one you made toast and honey for when he couldn’t sleep (and he often couldn’t, but you wanted to sleep by him anyway); the one whose house you slept at when it snowed because yours was too cold and he had a squirrelly kitten; the man who taught you about Greek tragedies, and who you let keep a drawer of things in your room; the man you wrote long e-mails to and lost sleep over and whose heels you touched with your toes under public tables. And then there were people you wanted to love, but were too afraid to, because in New Orleans you learned that you get to decide how much love hurts; you make a choice early on, and you have to know that if you let yourself sink into it, eventually it’s going to rip you apart.

That made you think of your roommates, whom you loved unconditionally. There were dinners every Thursday night punctuated by quiet handholding that looked like prayer, and complex salads with a rotating cast of greens and seeds. These always dragged out for hours in luxurious stretches, with the conversation turning over and over like movements in an orchestra. You bring up for yourself the night you felt like you were going to die and drank a bottle of flavored vodka and broke a lawn chair; your roommates picked you up and climbed into your bed and watched TV with you, and that was the moment you understood love as something impossible to break into pieces, if a person is lucky enough to truly find it.

What have you been doing with your last few days in New Orleans? Now you are crying, simply, in someone else's kitchen. This was what you wanted: the space to sit and remember just the things you remembered, without needing to make sense of them. Your boyfriend’s sister comes in, and then your boyfriend, and you stop crying, and you know it is time to leave. At some point, you have to leave.

On the porch, over a final cigarette (everyone else is gone now, and you will be gone soon, too), your boyfriend pulls out an issue of this old literary magazine called “Nkombo,” which his sister has been holding on to. It was published in June 1974; it’s the last issue. He tells you that “nkombo” is the word that is the origin of the English word “gumbo.” The journal has poems and essays by people you’ve met while you’re here, whose wisdom still stretches across the city, even as the city has changed. He reads the first lines of an editor letter by Kalamu Ya Salaam: “There is no eternal anything except, of course, change.”

http://nolavie.com/a-bittersweet-goodbye-to-new-orleans-79486/

“Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins.”

― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

I’ve lived in New Orleans for six years, and I’m not ready to leave -- but I am. It’s the type of painful break-up in which both parties drag their feet, searching for a way, the right way, to say goodbye. This isn’t a city you can quickly forget, rip off the breakup band-aid in a five-minute shouting match. It’s an epic exchange, a leisurely stroll along the Mississippi, an exhausting conversation that leaves you in need of a big, icy Ramos Gin Fizz.

The relationship is more than Hurricanes and Hand Grenades. It’s late nights at the Dungeon, with metal blaring while you hide in a cage until street sweepers come through, letting you know that’s it’s long past time to go home. It’s nights at F&M’s when you steal some poor preppy’s cheese fries and dance on the pool table until the sun comes up. It’s a different festival every weekend -- for a score of mythical vegetables and holidays. It’s about Styrofoam bowls of red beans and rice and the sunshine and sno-balls you wash them down with. It’s friendly Mardi Gras strangers. It’s afternoons at the Fly -- a an empty field adorned with crawfish shells, empty drive-thru daiquiri cups, beach towels and frisbees.

New Orleans is everything your mother warned you about. It’s decadent, destructive, and dangerous. There are potholes big enough to swallow you whole, and crime reports that make you clutch your pearls for days. You can still see Katrina in the abandoned houses and overgrown fields, and you can still hear her every time a New Orleanian remembers where they were when the levees broke. New Orleans is well into recovery, but Katrina will never vanish, never entirely. Katrina is the ex-girlfriend from hell that no one deserves, still texting, no matter how many times you delete her number.

I love you, New Orleans, and I’m not ready to leave. I know it’s time, but that doesn’t mean I’m mature enough not to put up a fight. I predict tears, consolation shots, and half-hearted promises to visit regularly and “keep in touch,” like every painfully cliché young adult break-up. After six years here, I’m convinced that glitter and champagne run through my veins, and New Orleans put them there. It changed my DNA. It made me who I am, for better or worse. It’s more my hometown than anywhere before; it’s the hometown I chose. Suddenly, my old haunts feel haunted -- leeching with memories I’m scared to leave behind, eventually forget.

I fear I’m utterly unfit for life anywhere else. I’m too accustomed to the convenience of go-cups, dirty dive bars that stay open until sunrise, and the regularity of walking into Rouses and seeing familiar faces. I’m too in love with the quirky Easter egg-hued shotguns that line the sunken sidewalks. I can’t re-enter suburbia, somewhere with cul-de-sacs and subdivisions molded in cookie cutter construction. I’d rather be back on St. Charles, waiting for a streetcar that might never come.

I dread returning to New Orleans, home, as a tourist -- an interloper, spilling onto the streets of the French Quarter, sticky with sweat and sugar from mixed drinks that missed my mouth. I don’t want this to turn into occasional clandestine meetings -- stopping in for Jazz Fest or Mardi Gras, forgetting that the French Quarter is not the entirety of the city’s pulse.

http://thelensnola.org/2015/10/09/love-letter-to-a-wild-and-crazy-mistress-as-a-job-seeker-bails-out-of-new-orleans/

My beloved Nola,

So … I bet you’re wondering why we’re here. Please, umm, sit down. Would you like something to eat? Another glass or six of wine? My kitchen is pretty bare, but I think I have some stale king cake in the cupboard.

I don’t quite know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I’m leaving you.

Please. It’s not you — it’s me. Have you seen that Seinfeld episode? Never mind, doesn’t matter. Before you say anything, let me explain myself. You didn’t do anything wrong — in fact, you did more for me than you could ever know.

When we met five years ago, I knew you only as this wild partier; this booze-drinking, 3 a.m.-dancing, bead-tossing, chest-baring, hot freaking mess. I knew you mostly from what I saw on TV and in the movies. I also heard about your baggage, of course. I knew Katrina wailed on you pretty badly, and I knew you were a little different because of it. But my knowledge was, admittedly, superficial and limited.

Speaking of baggage, when I first met you, I was a little messed up, too. I had just left this ugly situation after my freshman year of college and you were my rebound. I was fragile and needed some tender loving care. But let me tell you: this relationship turned into something far more than just a rebound.

God, doesn’t five years ago seem like an eternity now? It feels like another lifetime when I moved into my Phelps House dorm room at Tulane. I was really just a kid back then. Remember my patchy facial hair? Yeah, me neither.

To be honest, it took me a little while to figure you out — you know, what I liked about you and what I didn’t. I get real PTSD when I think about our early days grinding at The Boot (and by grinding I mean standing three feet behind you and pretending to look for my friends in the overwhelmingly sweaty crowd).

But you really pulled me in when I learned about your ancestors. As a young boy in Boston, I toured Plymouth Plantation and walked the Freedom Trail. I was lectured about the Boston Tea Party and read accounts of the Boston Massacre. The British formed New England and New England formed me. I had precious little knowledge of any other culture.

So I came down here and you took me through your heritage: a bit of Spanish, a dash of French and an amalgamation of white, black and brown that all coalesced — congealed, perhaps? — into something this country had never seen before: you.

You never ceased to amaze me, I’ll tell you that much. I came to expect that sometimes — honestly, most of the time — you wouldn’t make any goddamn sense. And that’s why I fell in love with you. An example? Ok, let’s say drive-thru daiquiri shops. When I suggested some of the dangers that might be associated with serving liquor to someone behind the wheel, you told me not to sweat it. “We put tape on the straws, for crying out loud!”

Your free spirit is intoxicating. I love that you stand on the bar and don’t care when everyone stares. I love that when the room speaks in whispers, you get up and sing. I love that you show up at black-tie functions in feathers and a mask.

But I also learned that beneath your sequined gown, you have alarming black-and-blue bruises. You can be violent. Deadly. You have deep, deep-rooted issues with race and inequality. You have a police force that some of your own citizens fear to call for help. When I tutored at Banneker Elementary School by the Riverbend, I saw firsthand what a failing school looks like. I worked with your children, some of whom had single parents who couldn’t help with their kid’s homework because they themselves couldn’t read the assignment.

You are certainly not perfect — far from it, if I can be frank with you. And yet it’s impossible to stay mad at you. After my third flat tire of the month or another triple-homicide in Central City, I want to delete your number and never speak again. How could you do these things? Get your act together! But you implore me, “Come on, just meet me at the Po’ Boy Fest on Oak Street.” I grudgingly accept a bite of your duck confit sandwich. My eyes roll back into my head in ecstasy. Why was I mad, again?

With my future up in the air after graduating from Tulane two years ago, I realized I couldn’t leave you. Not yet. Many other grads bolted for more robust job markets in New York and DC but I remained by your side. Three years just wasn’t enough. So I pursued my dream of becoming a journalist with you, Nola. You’re so nuanced, so remarkable—really you’re a media darling!

Over the next two years, while writing for virtually every publication in the area, I watched more and more of my friends pick up and move. The allure of sexy metropolises and their myriad career opportunities eventually snared them. I took a hard look at the situation and realized it wasn’t really a mystery. Unless you’re in one of a handful of industries, it’s hard to make it work with you, Nola. It may sound harsh, but it’s true.

If you’re pursuing a career in oil and gas or education, you have tremendous growth opportunities. If you’re striving for a life in wine and spirits or the service industry, put your bags down and stay a while. But if you’re looking to rise in anything else, you’re going to have trouble. This can’t come as a surprise, Nola, dear. I told you two years ago that I was having a tough time launching a career. Since then I’ve made it, sort of. I’ve written for every outlet in the city, but staff jobs are still fewer than competent Saints defenders. In fact they’re fewer every day.

And that’s why I must leave you.

I know I said earlier that it’s not you, it’s me. But maybe a bit of it is you. Listen, since Katrina you’ve grown in so many areas: film, technology, healthcare to name just a few. As we celebrated Katrina’s tenth anniversary, the mayor — heck, even two presidents! — rightfully lauded you for your comeback accomplishments. You’ve made remarkable strides and I’m so proud of you for that. It’s just that you still can’t really compete with the Bostons, New Yorks and DCs. You’re on your way, but I don’t see a future for us right now.

As much as I looked in dismay as my buddies left for the East Coast, the jobs are simply more plentiful there. It’s not even close. If I had family down here, that would be different. I’m 25 and I need to pursue my career now; I hope you can understand. This may sound harsh, but if I stayed I’d just be treading water.

And yet, even after coming to this realization, I lay awake in bed for months, staring at the ceiling. I had agonized over the decision. How could I leave you after all we’ve been through together? Am I making a huge mistake? That’s the pull you have on people. You defy rational thought. You yank people in, hand them a drink, and tell them to hang out for a while. I hung out for five full years and they were absolutely the best years of my life. Nothing else comes close.

Look at me, Nola. You’re frustrating and magical, ill-conceived and delicious. You’re dangerous and unforgettable. I’m going to miss you so much, and I really hope we can stay in touch.

But right now, it’s time for me to go.

Yours truly,

http://nolavie.com/how-to-say-goodbye-to-new-orleans-64004/

This isn't the first time I've posed for pictures, thrown a goodbye party, and packed my crappy Honda to leave the city. In fact, it's closer to my third. Like a balloon on a string, New Orleans has a way of pulling me back. Every time I think I'm ready to leave, I realize somewhere along I-10 that I'm not and quickly come scuttling back into New Orleans' warm arms. New Orleans waits for me like an unappreciated lover. It takes me back every time -- let's me cuddle safely back beside it, curling up next to it in bed and begging to be forgiven for my mistake.

This week marks my last departure. This time, there is no turning back. Life demands that I move on and life is not going to give me any opportunities to change my mind.

Saying goodbye to New Orleans seems nearly impossible. The lingering finality of it has me filled with hopeless dread. I don't want to leave New Orleans. How will I start calling po'boys "hoagies" or "subs" or whatever dreadful thing they call them elsewhere? How will I follow speed limits without the very real fear that my entire car will be swallowed by a pothole if I go too fast? How will I avoid winter weight because I'm still carrying around that extra ten pounds from last crawfish season?

New Orleans is that unique lover that you can never forget. The eccentric one that brings the lingering smell of good times and vomit in its wake. The one that doesn't judge you even when you sleep perched on a street corner with a handle of rum because -- Hey! --that's just what you do at Mardi Gras. New Orleans is the one that can't be replaced, can't be forgotten. New Orleans is the one that got away.

There's a unique sort of spirit here. I grew up in the suburbs of Florida, a place so devoid of culture that they think a Chili's is a hotbed of excitement for a Friday night. I moved here at 18 to attend Tulane, just three short years after Katrina. There were still people living in tents under the interstate then. I immediately knew we were a good match. I was a strange kid. For me, life was not a beach. Life was a colorful city. I wanted to drown myself in the insufferable humidity of City Park in July. I wanted to eat pralines for breakfast. I wanted to wear tutus to a bar or a suit to walk down the street just because I could.

"Why would you move to New Orleans?" my boss had said back in Florida. "New Orleans is dead."

Eighteen and lost, New Orleans took me in without hesitation. Maybe we were both suffering a bit then. Fighting our way through tough times, we could help each other recover rather than slip into the pit everyone expected us to fall into. Maybe we met at just the right time in our lives. New Orleans and I came together immediately. We stuck. I became obsessed. Six years later... I'm still obsessed.

We all know how New Orleans got under my skin, the things I loved. It's no secret that New Orleans brands itself on you -- for me, literally. (I got a crawfish tattoo on my foot to commemorate our parting.) You can leave New Orleans, but New Orleans doesn't leave you.

You'll always follow Muriel's on Facebook and dream about getting a drink on its balcony just one more time. You'll always beg someone to send you a king cake and let, in that moment of insanity, your imagination believe you can afford those flights back for Mardi Gras. Your ears will always perk up at its name and you'll always be able to point out which scenes in a movie were shot here. You will always pronounce street names however you damn-well please and balk at any drink less delicious (and more expensive) than a blueberry mojito from St. Joes. They will never be anything other than streetcars.

I started out Uptown, but scattered pieces of myself throughout the city. A best friend in the Lower Garden, a great night in the Marigny that I hope to never forget, stumbling  through the Quarter, a place on Magazine that is still the strangest I've ever been. I've been in Mid-City for the past two years ... a neighborhood community of wonderful people that's the often unseen beating heart of the city.

I don't know how to say goodbye. I choke on the words every time I try. Goodbye Marvin at Camellia Grill, may we fist-bump again some day. Goodbye to the Theo's on Canal that saved my life on more than one drunken night at Finn McCools. Goodbye to that scary little island where I hide unseen in City Park. There's too much here to love; there's too much here to miss. Visiting all of my favorite restaurants one last time would take another year.

There is nothing to do but close my eyes and say farewell as I walk away from the best relationship of my young life. It has always been hard to leave, but goodbye New Orleans. You've made me a better person. More open, interesting, adventurous. Without you, New Orleans, I wouldn't be me.

http://siliconbayounews.com/2014/01/02/my-year-in-nolatech-what-i-learned-and-what-you-need-to-know/

This past year was the hardest year of my life, both personally and professionally. 2013 started with my wife and me leaving our secure, well-paying jobs at a company I had helped to build for over 4 years. The reasons behind that decision are complex, buy me scotch and maybe I’ll share them with you. Anyway, that decision lead to moments of sheer terror, fueled by going from lots of income to zero income virtually overnight, which was also oddly exciting at the same time, because who doesn’t like adventuring into the unknown? #characterbuilding

During all of this, a good friend urged me to consider moving back to New Orleans to start a creative agency. My wife and I always wanted to end up back in New Orleans, so we figured why delay the inevitable? We promptly broke our lease, packed up a moving pod, rented a car, and hit the road to New Orleans with our pug, Olive. Upon arriving, I was determined to recreate my success in DC by taking what I’d learned from the very smart people I met there, and applying it to the Tech Community here. I wrote about why I wanted to do this on SBN many months ago, and urged hopeful entrepreneurs to start building the business of their dreams today.

All indicators initially were that things would work out; I closed six figures of business from clients outside of New Orleans, and the community seemed to be behind our effort to gather our voices together to benefit everyone. We did this by launching the NOLATech Facebook Group, renewing interest in the#NOLATech hashtag, and crafting the framework for NOLATech Week. Yay for community building.

Perhaps I was too focused on NOLATech, or more likely I didn’t do enough homework to understand the market here before jumping in, but last August I left the agency I co-founded in search of a way to pay next month’s rent, as I couldn’t afford to be part of a “startup” agency for much longer. For me, this was a failure. I was supposed to be laying the groundwork for a world-class agency, but I was literally unable to pay myself, let alone a team of people and also, for brief moment, I was “that guy” telling everyone to get their hands dirty and make something valuable, yet I had failed to do that myself. Now I find myself commuting to DC every two weeks and will eventually be moving back with my wife and pug, because living away from them for any amount of time is unbearable. So, double fail…

I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on all of this, mostly during my monthly flights to DC and back to NOLA, and the time spent processing things has turned up what I think are important insights for the NOLATech community.

What I Learned and What You Need to Know…

Your best attribute is not that you are from New Orleans

I’ve often had the feeling that some of us, especially born-and-raised locals, secretly (or not-so-secretly) feel that the best thing they are is from New Orleans. New Orleans is a place on a map. The people that live here and fill it with culture and opportunity are far more important than a piece of geography. I think this is a self-esteem issue that must be corrected. Be proud of being a talented musician, capable developer, dedicated city servant, or even a parent first, and put being from New Orleans as second, maybe even third — because no matter what, no one can say you aren’t from here, but anyone can potentially question the other attributes of your character, so focus on building them up. This will help the city you are proud to call home more than wearing a fleur de lis across your chest.

Stop cheerleading constantly and get back to work

This is a lesson that can apply to any tech or entrepreneurial community. All too often people get wrapped up in praising how amazing our accomplishments are, to the point where they forget that they need to be working to keep the momentum going. I’m not saying you shouldn’t celebrate your wins, but do not inflate them to the point where they are completely out of touch with what is real. New Orleans is a great place to live and work, so prove it every day by working hard and building it up; stop focusing on where we rank on various lists that have no actual bearing on our future.

The successful people among us need to step up and lead

People that create a successful business and then use that success to build up others around him or her are the kind of leaders we need. The successful people among us need to write more checks to fund events, open their doors more often to mentor us, and be willing to be labeled as a Community Leader. More than anything, they need to be more visible, because then their actions can inspire more of us, more often.

Independent game development in NOLA could be our ticket

It might be because I love all the indie game developers here, or maybe it’s just that I love playing games, but my spider senses are telling me that game development could be huge in New Orleans one day, if we support it enough. So because of that, and despite my move to DC, my co-producer, Kyle Whittington, and I are dedicated to creating a sequel to DLC13 this year in New Orleans. On that note, if you like making games or just playing them, you should get involved with this community as much as possible by joining their Facebook group and Meetup group.

Be overly-accommodating and helpful to our visitors

I’m not saying this is something that isn’t happening already, but I wanted to make it clear that this is one of the most important things we can do. Many people have come to me over the last year and asked me for a run-down on what’s going on in New Orleans because they want to get involved and relocate here. I give these people as much time as I possibly can to learn about what they do and how their talents could benefit our community. I do my best to immediately connect them with the people that I view as our most honest and genuine entrepreneurs and community leaders. Make sure you are always doing that; you’re never too busy to show off the best we have to offer.

“Entrepreneur” and “Community Leader” are not unsavory terms

Because those words are overused, many people have grown to resent them and have given them a negative connotation. Well, reality check… being either of those things is great, and being both of them is fantastic. Just because someone isn’t an all-star entrepreneur or is new to hosting a meetup doesn’t make them a wannabe. It makes them inspirational, so if they want to be labeled as an entrepreneur and/or a community leader, then let them. In fact, you should support them. One of our best examples of a Community Leader is Torrie Adams, a woman that is making a difference by supporting any and all New Orleans women in technology. Show your support by backing her FundDat campaign.

http://nolavie.com/love-nola-farewell-my-lovely-92172/

My dear New Orleans,

So this is good-bye.

1,159 days ago, you called me here. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know you well, but I came anyway. There was something in your call that I trusted. That I knew.

To be true.

And, now, here we are. With 29 days to go. Before I leave you. To answer another call. Again both unfamiliar and trusted.

But, before I go, I want to say thank you.

To you, New Orleans.

Life with you has been an endless loop of second lines on Sunday; Manchu on Monday; glitter on Tuesday; gunshots on Wednesday; stoop nights on Thursday; indictments on Friday; and 3 a.m. crawfish-mac-n-cheese with your neighbors on Saturday. In their boat. Which they keep up on cinder blocks. In Treme.

You’ve made me forget what day it is. What month it is. Hell, sometimes even what season it is. There have been times when our dance has felt like one very long, very lost weekend. But sometimes it is in the lost that you’re found.

And that’s why you called me here, isn’t it, New Orleans? To find myself. To heal myself.

I think the secret is in the masks.

Me, I didn’t know anything about masks when I got here. I was a “what you see is what you get” kinda guy. That happens when you’re born in Texas and become a man in Boston.

But then, one day, as the good Dr. John says, your eyes caught mine and I knew this was my chance. To follow you off-stage and look back. At the performances we all play.

The masks we all wear.

You whispered that’s why people come to you. To try out a new act.

To trade one mask. For another.

And then you showed me what you meant.

You showed me those who are lost on your stage.  And never found.  But you don't judge. You just put your arms around them and offer safe passage. Loving passage. However long it takes and wherever it might lead.

You showed me those who think they own your stage. Who think you, my dear New Orleans, are  just one gentrified block away from realizing your true potential. They try their damnedest to squeeze you into a fancy corset of their own making. You just chuckle.  You’ve been starring in this show for 295 years. You’ve seen a lot of people. A lot of corsets.

And you’re the one who’s still here.

You showed me the thousands upon thousands of people who come to you and find the mask that fits.  The them that fits.  And you just smile.  As you welcome each and every one.  Home.

Finally, my dear New Orleans, you showed me … me.

All alone on your stage.

A boy, a man, a performer who had spent a lifetime trying on every mask I could find. In a frantic rush to get the part.  Any part.

You showed me how, somewhere along the way of learning the lines an adult learns, I’d lost the mystery in my life’s performance. My masks were all planned, all calculated, all controlled.

“There’s no joy in that,” you said.  “No glitter, either.”

That’s when you reached over and opened my heart.

And that, as they say, has made all the difference.

Because when you opened my heart, you also opened my eyes.  To the very simple fact that we’re all on a singular journey. To find our way home. To ourselves.

Our true selves.

It's not always easy and there's no guarantee we'll make it.

Who cares? The fun, the joy, is in the journey itself. Besides, if you don’t get it right this go ‘round, there’s always next time.

Maybe.

So, why not put down all the masks we're told to wear, shred all the scripts we're told to read, blow some glitter across this marvelous stage we call life, and pull each other close. Love each other truly. Celebrate each other daily.

That’s what you’ve showed me.

That’s how you’ve healed me.

That's why I've shared your stories.

And that is why, while my feet will always be caked with hard, black Texas dirt and my mind will always think like a Bostonian, my heart, ah my heart.  My heart will always beat to your rhythm and sway.