“To encapsulate the notion of Mardi Gras as nothing more than a big drunk is to take the simple and stupid way out, and I, for one, am getting tired of staying stuck on simple and stupid.
Mardi Gras is not a parade. Mardi Gras is not girls flashing on French Quarter balconies. Mardi Gras is not an alcoholic binge.
Mardi Gras is bars and restaurants changing out all the CD's in their jukeboxes to Professor Longhair and the Neville Brothers, and it is annual front-porch crawfish boils hours before the parades so your stomach and attitude reach a state of grace, and it is returning to the same street corner, year after year, and standing next to the same people, year after year--people whose names you may or may not even know but you've watched their kids grow up in this public tableau and when they're not there, you wonder: Where are those guys this year?
It is dressing your dog in a stupid costume and cheering when the marching bands go crazy and clapping and saluting the military bands when they crisply snap to.
Now that part, more than ever.
It's mad piano professors converging on our city from all over the world and banging the 88's until dawn and laughing at the hairy-shouldered men in dresses too tight and stalking the Indians under Claiborne overpass and thrilling the years you find them and lamenting the years you don't and promising yourself you will next year.
It's wearing frightful color combination in public and rolling your eyes at the guy in your office who--like clockwork, year after year--denies that he got the baby in the king cake and now someone else has to pony up the ten bucks for the next one.
Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living. All at once.”
― Chris Rose, 1 Dead in Attic: Post-Katrina Stories
Every year around this time I get this little gloomy cloud over my head. No matter how good of a day/week/night I've had, the pains of homesickness creep slowly into my body. About 4 weeks after Epiphany, I remember my roots, I crave sugary sweet colorful cinnamon bread and the feel of beer soaked strands of plastic forcefully slapping me in my face. I long to hear loud bass drums and tubas, the clicking of dance boots, the smell of horses and the occasional sun soaked urine. These are all the superficial physical traits that are not necessarily good or bad, they just "are" and it's what I know.
Missing Mardi Gras for me is much more than missing the acts of drinking and eating lots of food surrounded by strangers who are also your new best friends. It's more that chilling with my family bundled up in a car to escape the cold wind while waiting for a parade to reach us. For me, Mardi Gras is almost a spiritual experience. Now I know my Mardi Gras history, and no, my spiritual comment has nothing to do with the actual religious side of Mardi Gras.
I was, am, a weird kid. Every year at my grade school we had Mardi Gras float decorating contests. Thinking of a theme and getting my parents to help me pull it off got me the win multiple times. I remember in 3rd grade we had to do a project on the history of something. I, of course, chose Mardi Gras. I spent hours in the main library downtown doing research and making copies of picture of floats and ball invitations. My poster looked amazing and I learned so much.
My love of Mardi Gras is only rivaled by my love of Halloween. Both holidays are celebrated before a big church feast, and both holidays include masking. Now, a psychiatrist would probably have something to say about my favorite holidays revolving around dressing in costume and my career of choice involving dressing up as a character, and that's ok. I figure there is some deep seeded issue that results in my love of the mask but it doesn't really matter. I'm a functional member of society.
Masks
I love Masks
And costumes
And beautiful sparkly gowns
And rhinestone laden scepters and crowns
The classic Mardi Gras ball
An event that I have never attended and may never attend in my life.
I grew up on PBS and I can recall the documentary where they show a Rex ball like I watched it yesterday.
The court walking in, the pomp, the majesty, sigh, I wanted to be one of those maids. The mysticism of Mardi Gras has always intrigued me. I love when the king is secret. I love the old ornate invitations. I love the secrecy that used to be a part of he old krewes. These are things that are not really part of contemporary celebrations of Mardi Gras, but for me, it is still an element, even if I've only read about it.
I long to be in the krewe of Muses. I long to marry someone in another parade and have the possibility of being the queen. I long for the possibility of getting invited to an exclusive ball, not buying a $75+ concert ticket to rock out with a super krewe (though I wanna do that too, i'm all about the Orpheuscapade and some Harry Connick Jr.)
Maybe I'm just having one of those weeks where I can't see myself starting a life anywhere but Louisiana, maybe that's why no one here in TX is ever interested in the slim possibility of starting a life with me. Maybe I belong in the motherland, surrounded by her majesty the Mississippi and the vastness of Lake Pontchartrain. Maybe after tuesday I will go back to my happily busy world of church events and teaching.
But this feeling will never die, and I hope to rest my bones inside of St. Roch Cemetery with the rest of my ancestors, because, to echo the phrase of Frank Davis, may he rest in peace, I long to be "Naturally N'awlins"
And to close with another Chris Rose quote that is near and dear to my heart...
“Dear America,
I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We're South Louisiana...You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard.
We dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly,we're suspicious of others who don't.”
