Homecoming Hullabaloo

Tomorrow I set out for my excursion to New Orleans for the first time in 4 years.  I have to admit that I am very excited about venturing once more to The City Beneath the Sea.  You, see, although I was not raised there, I am a New Orleanian through and through.  I dream in purple, green, and gold.  I bathe in the Mississippi.  I crave bread pudding and king cake.  I dance to the zydeco music playing in my head.  You get the picture...  The fact is that I wanted to get away from North Carolina (where I never really belonged) for college, and I landed in the City that Care Forgot.  Home, sweet home, at last.

I lived in New Orleans throughout college, and when I got sick, I returned there hoping that the hot, humid weather of the city I loved would heal me.  My adopted Jewish family took me in with wide arms once again (no longer referring to me as a Shabbos Goy) and I was steeped in love, wisdom, spirit, and the laissez faire attitude that one can find only in New Orleans.  Unfortunately, my little dream ended with a hurricane named Katrina.  Although I had ventured back to North Carolina only to finish my education, my home was in New Orleans.  However, it both burned and flooded in the hurricane to end all hurricanes.  My family was displaced for a year, and I have only been back a handful of times since.

Tomorrow will be the first time back in 4, count them four, years.  And it is not to see the remains of my devastated home, but a rather jubilant affair: the Bar Mitzvah of the younger boy of my adopted Jewish family.  So, my homecoming will be in the form of tears and revelry.  It is weird (and eye opening!) to know that a child whom you are old enough to have had yourself is now becoming an adult!

Although I will only be there for about 3 days, I plan to suck the marrow out of that city.  I will take tons of pictures, baptize myself in the splendor of the occasion, shop until my feet are sore, kiss my family until my lips hurt, eat until I have had my fill (soul and stomach), and basque in the glory of the city I love.  I will take every bit of lagniappe that I can get and make it into a collage that only an artist can truly appreciate.

Home is calling, and I am coming... if only for a little while.  Sometimes you need to go home again, just to feel that you are connected to something greater than yourself.  And New Orleans...she is certainly great.