There’s a feeling in the night as I write this on our breezy porch. Our majesty palm is fanning her fronds next to me. The lime body of a gecko-like lizard relaxes on one of these sloping branches . The wooden chimes are chiming near our vines, vines which curl their unruly hair out of swinging pots. Some vine tendrils wrap around the wrought iron columns that support the porch. Others shelter a mother bird, who diligently sits on her nest in the swinging pot. I can just barely see the edge of her wings from here, where I sit at a little table in the middle of our porch and type about the night.
New Orleans is so special in Spring, particularly at this almost dusk time, the magic hour between 6:30 and 8:30, when everything gets cooler, a little less humid, and a lot breezier.
Right now, as I type, I can hear the last remaining bass beats reverberating from Jazz Fest, the 7-day celebration of local and big-time music at the Fairgrounds- less than a mile away. A few weeks ago it was French Quarter Fest, a free weekend-long outside array of bands along the Mississippi River. I couldn’t hear it from here, but I could feel it in the rhythm of the streetcar we rode to get there:
tangible excitement, a carefree, everyone’s on vacation attitude
lingering in and outside of the car’s open windows.
Before this it was the Tennessee Williams Fest- a series of discussions about Williams and productions of his plays. A Brando-inspired STELLLLLLLAH! shouting contest amid crowds of hundreds at Jackson Square. We rode the streetcar there too, breezing past signs for the NBA Hornets team and an upcoming performance of the Vagina Monologues.
Coming up is Bayou Boogaloo, with food and music along Bayou St. John, then Greek Fest, Creole Tomato Fest, and on and on…. it’s simply a season of fests and sunny weather before the storm season hits.
And this year it’s also a season of Hornets. Not the kind that sting and stalk you. We’ve got the playoff variety- a western conference number two seed that just beat Dallas in five games flat. People are wearing teal, yellow, and purple just as much- if not more- than they wear black and gold during Saints season. Plus, the team now has fleur de bee merchandise- that’s right- a turquoise fleur de lis with a hornet shaped into it. The bottom of the fleur de lis is the stinger of the bee, or er, the hornet.
This is very smart marketing for a once Saints-only city. The Saints emblem is of course a gold fleur de lis.
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of turquoise fleur de lis flags breezing by— hooked to the tops of cars and swinging from porches not unlike ours.
The porch is central to social life and tradition in New Orleans. Porches, particularly on shotguns, are designed to achieve maximum breeze. Our porch always rests in the shade. It’s oversized, open, raised four feet off the ground, and has two sets of stairs.
Porches are where friends and neighbors sit and talk about nothing in particular at night, starting at this magic time, at near dusk. If the mosquitoes are out, we burn citronella candles, or simply forget about it. On our street, the shotgun house porches are lined up so that if you turn your head to the left, you can look all the way through people’s porches until the next cross street. If you turn your head to the right, you can do the same thing. It’s a little bit like having a tunnel of porches on either side, a thin channel for that sweet breeze to blow through.
One of the most traditional, memorable scenes of Jazz Fest is the porch culture before and after each long day of music and incredible fest food. In the morning, people are on their porches, in rockers, folding chairs and sofas, selling bottled water, playing instruments, listening to music, or cheering the crowds of Jazz Fest goers on and on. At night, porch people living around the Jazz Fest scene drink, eat, chat, and invite strangers to join. There’s always a trumpet blasting in the street somewhere. Some people sell water for half price. Others vend memorable wears of the political variety. I picked up “Obama 504” – hand-crafted in Mardi-Gras colors at this year’s Jazz Fest, for $12.
Tomorrow I’ll wear this shirt to work because it’s Friday, and everyone around the city dresses down. Jeans, tee-shirts, sandals: it’s all part of this spring breeze—the few weeks between March and May when everything is tolerable, celebratory, and going on, growing strong. This year, we planted our first-ever garden during this magical time. We didn’t till the soil or pull up weeds, but somehow—the tomatoes, herbs, hydrangeas, palms, and fig tree— it’s all thriving.
Things tend to slow down to a lazy gravy pace in summer, when the heat is thick, the breeze is mostly gone, and the threat of major storms goes on and on. But the spirit of festivals, porch people, and that spring almost-dusk breeze never quite leaves.
All year long, you can see this spirit on the faces of the people here: a light relax in their smile, a dancing candle bright in their eyes.
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