A Look Back

I decided to go ahead and post this even though it isn't directly part of my New York experience. This is something I wrote when my dear friend Maggie Kellet asked for my feelings on New Orleans as part of a newspaper article she was writing. I do, however, feel that some of the things I said may not have come out if I wasn't leaving New Orleans, so I think it's appropriate.

In high school there are innumerable different types of people. New Orleans is that kid who accepted you for just how you are and loved you for being that person. I love New Orleans because she loved me. When I was 11, I moved with my family to New Orleans, leaving behind the most secure childhood any kid could ask for. I had friends, a school that I liked, my entire family was within an hours drive. Then in the fall of 1999 all of that disappeared. My life was uprooted and relocated to this city that I had only visited twice. Needless to say, I was pissed. I hated every aspect of this place, nothing about it was appealing. What I wasn't willing to accept at that time was that New Orleans was now home.
At my last Sunday church gathering here in New Orleans everyone went around saying what they would miss the most about me. My dad said something a little different. Instead of telling me he was going to miss me, he thanked me for making the most of moving here. He said I embraced this place, I made it home. Sometimes all it takes to be accepted is for us to open our hearts. When I did that, New Orleans showed me who she really was. She can be demanding and nearly suck you dry at times, but the joy, uniqueness, and love she offers in return are undoubtedly worth the cost.
Growing up in New Orleans afforded me opportunities and a level of culture that exist no where else. For instance, seeing men in fish-net stockings and high heels doesn't even phase me. Oddities to other people were the norm for me. I grew up accepting homosexuals, bohemian artists and musicians, fortune tellers, goths, punks, and street kids. Who was I to say that they were any different than the rest of us? Those people were my friends. Each and every one of them were an integral part of the city that gave it its grunge: its beauty, not through glistening perfection, but through broken uniqueness. This city, these people shaped who I am today. I couldn't have asked for a better place to grow up.
As I am typing this, I am in a car, somewhere in Alabama, leaving New Orleans, heading to New York City. It broke my heart to leave New Orleans, but astonishingly, she does not have an art college. New York does, though as a city it is no substitute for my first love. There really is no other place like New Orleans. It is hard to understand from the outside. You need to live here and experience it fully to begin to understand. She is absolutely beautiful because of all the dirt, grime, corruption, humidity, destruction, and imperfection. I once heard living in New Orleans being describe as being stuck in an abusive relationship that you can't get out of because you love the abuser. That is true, but I know when She would beat the shit out of me that she loved me through it all.