Somethin' Strange About This Place

He says to me like he’s known me for years, “Baby, baby, baby, you ain’t lookin’ too well tonight. Hah!” I’m standing outside of a run down little jazz bar called Vaughan’s and completely puzzled as to why this guy would even care how I was feeling. He says to me, “Now I seen you come around here before an’ you always got a big smile on yo’ face, but I ain’t see it tonight, so I know that something got to be wrong. So why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” “Seriously? You really want to know?” I laugh. I mean, isn’t he just supposed to take my money and let me in? Feeling encouraged by his sincerity, I tell my new friend exactly what is upsetting me. He looks me straight in the eye and just laughs. “Aw baby! You know it ain’t that bad. Nothin’s ever that bad. And remember, tomorrow’s another day! Unless, of course, another Katrina come blowin’ her way through! Hah!” With that he ushers me in.

Since moving to New Orleans, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that line – “Don’t worry, tomorrow’s another day” - but for some reason, this time, it actually meant something to me. Some of my closest friends can’t read me that well, so how could he? This was the moment that I realized that people here, in this place, are very different from anywhere else I’ve ever been. There is only one New Orleans, and so I wonder: Is it architecture that makes a place unique? Or is it the people that make the place?

I know this much is true: no one is a stranger in New Orleans. Sometimes it might seem like a big city, but most times it has a small town familiarity. I see the same people everywhere. I imagine the conversations they have or what they are thinking. Like the old woman sitting on the front steps of her St. Charles Avenue house, reading a book while her garden hose runs down the driveway spraying water everywhere: if I don’t see her just one day, I wonder. Where could she possibly be? What terrible or wonderful reason could she have for changing the routine of her life? Or the homeless man I see everyday on my way to work who carries a sketchbook with all of the drawings I imagine it contains; Or the woman I see walking her dog – is she asking herself why she’s up so early? And the guys on the back of the garbage truck every Wednesday and Friday , who wave to me, and I wave back with a huge smile as I ride past on my bike. To me, the best is when I look at someone and they look back at me, and from the expression on their face, I know exactly what it is that they're thinking about. I shake my head in agreement and we have a laugh together. I never find out what their real stories are; I don’t know their names. But I don’t need conversations to feel like I know them because I already do in my own way.

New Orleans is filled with strange occurrences, interactions, exchanges of glances. It’s an unusual city with no such thing as a routine day. It leaves vivid images in your mind. One remembers it street by street, house by house, doors, windows, colors. I remember it by the people I see. It’s those people that make this place. New Orleans is my huge extended family. I just haven’t met everyone yet.