the last day home
Sep. 7th, 2005 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashFriday. August 26th. My last day back home in New Orleans before the hurricane.
I lazily worked on sorting the books still left in my mother's place. I made a little headway, but not much. Jennie picked me up along with her kids, after their school. She was a little later than she intended - traffic was heavy.
I've known Jennie for ages, and Jason even longer. Jason I knew in, oh, late high school? Early college? Ah - yes. High school. He and I and David were going to write demos on the c64. We never did. But that places it.
Jennie and Jason married not long after I left for California. They've had a couple kids. Both of the kids are, I'm told, pretty smart, and they're doing a good job of raising them. Jason works at the Stennis Space Center as a sysadminny type; the last time I visited home, he told me with some amusement that he now casually orders storage by the terabyte without batting an eye.
(They made it through the storm, hiding there in Mississippi. He even still has a job, but their house near UNO is probably hosed.)
I only saw Jennie that day, and really only briefly - she'd had a long day, with a minor medical crisis for their daughter Lucy (an insect bite, I recall). We chatted a bit and I promised I'd come see them again soon. Which I know I would have. Mostly I was there to pick up the cheap bike my mother had gotten in the classifieds; Jason had put it back together after she had to take it apart to transport it home, and he'd done some other work it needed to be functional. It was a ten-dollar near-junker; he put some time in it, and showed Clay how it was done. A bit of father-son bonding out there in their garage, I guess.
I bicycled through the heavy air and baking sun for the first time in nearly a decade. A few suggestions as to route from Jenny started me in the right direction; the geography I'd thought forgotten quickly returned. I went through one of the more open parts of City Park, passing the stables there. I turned up its far (western, in this case, but I suddenly realize that my mental map of New Orleans is oddly inverted in some ways) side, going south. I guessed where to turn off and was right. I stopped at a sno-ball stand near my mother's place I'd noted the other day while out on a walk.
I got a large strawberry cheesecake snowball, with whipped cream. I could have had strawberry shortcake, or plain strawberry, or probably a few other variants on the theme of "strawberry", or any of about forty flavors listed on the board, or perhaps one of the more whimsical "children's" flavors listed on an auxilliary board such as "Batman". The snoball is one of those uniquely New Orleans delicacies that's hard to explain - and my considering it a "delicacy" probably marks me as a firmly middle-class New Orlenian, at best. The ice is shaved to a whisper of a dream, and the flavor syrup is poured in on top; it's never mixed, frozen, and forgotten, but made right there in front of you. You have to be a total pig to get brain freeze from them, unlike their cruder cousins, the Icees or Slurpees or Slushies. They come in a demented array of ever-more-arcane flavors that change each season. Including sugar-free ones, an absurdity considering how nectar-sweet most of them are.
I had about half of it there in front of the shop. Partway through the umbrella on the table near me toppled, with scary precision - one second I was eating my snoball, the next moment my eyes felt oddly raw, my glasses were off, and there was this giant umbrella against my chest. The ribs missed my face easily, which I suppose was lucky; my glasses were unharmed. My sno-ball wasn't even spilled, but I was a little shaken. Shortly after I decided to leave and walk the rest of the way to my mother's place, eating the snoball on the way.
A block away a passing kid on a skateboard praised my pink hair. I think he called it "radical" or "excellent" or something equally eighties/nineties. Keeping up with the linguistic trends has never been that much of a concern there.
I walked, I had my snowball. I listened to the cicadias and felt at peace. I was home again for a while; things would be slow and lazy for a bit. There would be a few more sno-balls before the season for them ended. There would be occasional performances of the COG, perhaps even the long-desired Drumbot 2's creation. There might be Mardi Gras, actually enjoyed as an adult for the first time. Lots of little New Orleans things to do that I'd avoided because I was so full of hate. I was thinking of seeing what remained of my old circles and seeing what people remembered of the pissy boy I was back then. I was hoping to get a chance to visit my father's old audio production studio on Rampart St, for some sort of goodbye I never quite got to say all those years ago. My allergies hadn't started to return yet; maybe they wouldn't. It was hot but pleasant, as summer began the slide into autumn. My feelings about moving there were still mixed, but I'm not the same person who loathed the place when he left it back in the summer of 1996. I've changed a lot, learnt a lot, and was looking forwards to some of that good old New Orleans languidness, maybe even some home-town debauchery.
The next morning, I was helping my mother's friend Shirley board up her windows, and then fleeing the hurricane in her car. Now I'm in my cousin's place in Lafayette, amidst their remodelling, typing this.
Saturday, I'll be flying to Boston.
Two weeks ago I felt at home, for the first time in months. Years.
I still don't know how I feel about it being gone.
I come from a dank, erotic dream of a city. Sometimes a black-sky nightmare place, all angles askew and sweaty night air. Sometimes a ghostly wet soft-focus dream. Whoever dreamt the place finally woke up, and the rains rushed in to fill the void.
Oh. I'm crying, suddenly.
Goodbye, home. I never realized how much I loved you until you were gone.
I lazily worked on sorting the books still left in my mother's place. I made a little headway, but not much. Jennie picked me up along with her kids, after their school. She was a little later than she intended - traffic was heavy.
I've known Jennie for ages, and Jason even longer. Jason I knew in, oh, late high school? Early college? Ah - yes. High school. He and I and David were going to write demos on the c64. We never did. But that places it.
Jennie and Jason married not long after I left for California. They've had a couple kids. Both of the kids are, I'm told, pretty smart, and they're doing a good job of raising them. Jason works at the Stennis Space Center as a sysadminny type; the last time I visited home, he told me with some amusement that he now casually orders storage by the terabyte without batting an eye.
(They made it through the storm, hiding there in Mississippi. He even still has a job, but their house near UNO is probably hosed.)
I only saw Jennie that day, and really only briefly - she'd had a long day, with a minor medical crisis for their daughter Lucy (an insect bite, I recall). We chatted a bit and I promised I'd come see them again soon. Which I know I would have. Mostly I was there to pick up the cheap bike my mother had gotten in the classifieds; Jason had put it back together after she had to take it apart to transport it home, and he'd done some other work it needed to be functional. It was a ten-dollar near-junker; he put some time in it, and showed Clay how it was done. A bit of father-son bonding out there in their garage, I guess.
I bicycled through the heavy air and baking sun for the first time in nearly a decade. A few suggestions as to route from Jenny started me in the right direction; the geography I'd thought forgotten quickly returned. I went through one of the more open parts of City Park, passing the stables there. I turned up its far (western, in this case, but I suddenly realize that my mental map of New Orleans is oddly inverted in some ways) side, going south. I guessed where to turn off and was right. I stopped at a sno-ball stand near my mother's place I'd noted the other day while out on a walk.
I got a large strawberry cheesecake snowball, with whipped cream. I could have had strawberry shortcake, or plain strawberry, or probably a few other variants on the theme of "strawberry", or any of about forty flavors listed on the board, or perhaps one of the more whimsical "children's" flavors listed on an auxilliary board such as "Batman". The snoball is one of those uniquely New Orleans delicacies that's hard to explain - and my considering it a "delicacy" probably marks me as a firmly middle-class New Orlenian, at best. The ice is shaved to a whisper of a dream, and the flavor syrup is poured in on top; it's never mixed, frozen, and forgotten, but made right there in front of you. You have to be a total pig to get brain freeze from them, unlike their cruder cousins, the Icees or Slurpees or Slushies. They come in a demented array of ever-more-arcane flavors that change each season. Including sugar-free ones, an absurdity considering how nectar-sweet most of them are.
I had about half of it there in front of the shop. Partway through the umbrella on the table near me toppled, with scary precision - one second I was eating my snoball, the next moment my eyes felt oddly raw, my glasses were off, and there was this giant umbrella against my chest. The ribs missed my face easily, which I suppose was lucky; my glasses were unharmed. My sno-ball wasn't even spilled, but I was a little shaken. Shortly after I decided to leave and walk the rest of the way to my mother's place, eating the snoball on the way.
A block away a passing kid on a skateboard praised my pink hair. I think he called it "radical" or "excellent" or something equally eighties/nineties. Keeping up with the linguistic trends has never been that much of a concern there.
I walked, I had my snowball. I listened to the cicadias and felt at peace. I was home again for a while; things would be slow and lazy for a bit. There would be a few more sno-balls before the season for them ended. There would be occasional performances of the COG, perhaps even the long-desired Drumbot 2's creation. There might be Mardi Gras, actually enjoyed as an adult for the first time. Lots of little New Orleans things to do that I'd avoided because I was so full of hate. I was thinking of seeing what remained of my old circles and seeing what people remembered of the pissy boy I was back then. I was hoping to get a chance to visit my father's old audio production studio on Rampart St, for some sort of goodbye I never quite got to say all those years ago. My allergies hadn't started to return yet; maybe they wouldn't. It was hot but pleasant, as summer began the slide into autumn. My feelings about moving there were still mixed, but I'm not the same person who loathed the place when he left it back in the summer of 1996. I've changed a lot, learnt a lot, and was looking forwards to some of that good old New Orleans languidness, maybe even some home-town debauchery.
The next morning, I was helping my mother's friend Shirley board up her windows, and then fleeing the hurricane in her car. Now I'm in my cousin's place in Lafayette, amidst their remodelling, typing this.
Saturday, I'll be flying to Boston.
Two weeks ago I felt at home, for the first time in months. Years.
I still don't know how I feel about it being gone.
I come from a dank, erotic dream of a city. Sometimes a black-sky nightmare place, all angles askew and sweaty night air. Sometimes a ghostly wet soft-focus dream. Whoever dreamt the place finally woke up, and the rains rushed in to fill the void.
Oh. I'm crying, suddenly.
Goodbye, home. I never realized how much I loved you until you were gone.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 07:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:27 pm (UTC)Dammit, now I am...
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:28 pm (UTC)(Of course, little things like Snowballs will probably be some of the first things to return. There's always next year, or the year after that, or...)
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:41 pm (UTC)You also have friends, and family. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:59 pm (UTC)This really touched me... all the more so since the memories of revisiting Ottawa are so fresh in my mind. I hope we can make Boston a welcoming place for you.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:30 pm (UTC)I think it will be. I'll see you in a couple of days...
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 04:20 pm (UTC)