Monday, January 15, 2007
The City's Got Spirit
Over the break I attended my friend Betsy's wedding. It was in New Orleans, where both she and her husband have lived the majority of their lives. It was beautiful, very warm, and very intimate. Really, it was very New Orleans.
Betsy's husband, Chris, is a musician. So the music, of course, was fantastic. They hired The Hot Club of New Orleans, a popular local Jazz group. My favorite part of the evening was when they performed "Bourbon Street Parade." Up to that point, the dance floor had been more or less avoided by all. However, when the first note rang out, nearly every native New Orleanian left their seats, folded their napkins in half, and began marching around the room, violently waving their arms and napkins in the air. It moved me to tears.
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3 comments:
Oh! How I want to be in that number.
I cried all over again.
It's tear worthy.
i hate to be redundant, but the quote i used (in the cat poop entry) came to mind..on a serious note. I have that quote ("Disasters may reshape past meanings of life in the context of increased wisdom and maturity.") here at my desk. I relate it to the last few years of my life. I relate it to your description of the dance of joy at the wedding, in the midst of a devastated city. The beauty of the statement is that the focus is not just on the process (the "reshaping" effect of the disaster, whatever the nature of it) but is also on the outcome (the wisdom and maturity that may be gained as the disaster receeds in time and memory). The expectations of the outcome of a disaster, whether natural or man-made (or in my case, CJ-made_) typically range from difficult to nihilistic. The quote offers me a
a way to re-think the disaster of my making....that the darkness of that time can yield something lasting and meaningful....that wisdom and maturity can be mine, IF I let it. The changes in my life as I knew it felt like my soul was being ripped, but was the reshaping that was occurring.
I guess that your description of the reception in New Orleans led me to think about how, even in the midst of devastation, re-building can be a dance of celebration---in memory of what was, and in anticipation of all that is to be...starting over means I get to make choices different from the choices of the past. I would not want to revisit that time. Not one minute of it. But the storm is over. And I am still standing. And I will rebuild.
As will New Orleans. Thanks for letting me ramble on this cold and wet Tues. afternoon. CJ
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