City of my heart.

Today I’m heading down to New Orleans for Jazz Fest. It was sort of a last minute decision and I’ll be there for less than 36 hours, but in a lot of ways it feels like I’m going home.

I haven’t been to New Orleans since last September, for my grandmother’s funeral. It was a nightmarish trip (stranded in Memphis 10 hours before the funeral started, my Dad and I wound up driving through the night to be there) and (obviously) an extremely emotionally draining one.

After the funeral, I began a long email exchange with a cousin of mine who revealed much of our family history to me, the details of which my entire side of the family was unaware. I learned just how tied the blood in my veins is to the very core of Louisiana history, slavery and emancipation, the intersection of black and white.

Now I go back with a bit of a heavy heart. I’ve never known a New Orleans without my grandmother living in it, and I’ve never looked at Louisiana in this new light of my connection to it.

But New Orleans is a city that knows sadness. New Orleans knows how to walk hand in hand with sadness and joy, throw back some liquor and some seafood and laugh through the pain. It was never the city of my birth, but it is the place of my ancestors. And it will always hold a dear spot my heart.