March in New Orleans is one of the most beautiful times of year. The azaleas explode all over town, my irises just keep bursting into purple, and the oak trees look dusted with teeny green leaf buds--amazing to see those hundred-year-old trees as fresh as a yearling. The weather, too, is simply gorgeous: in the mid 70s with clear skies and breezes, the air dry and the shade actually cooling. All too soon, the temps will creep into the 80s and 90s and stay there until fall--so for now, here's to spring.
Here's a poem I wrote a while back about early-budding azaleas, ones that opened far too soon, it seemed to me, Northerner that I am.
Azaleas
Tiny explosions of fuchsia flowers
bloom, unafraid, in January.
A magical day in the sun, the rain’s caress,
and the azaleas think they’re safe.
Better to curb passion, to protect their petals;
My husband and I are shopping for a new car because our trusty old Volvo has become increasingly less trusty in the past couple of years. It's twenty years old, the former owner drove it only to church and back so it had less than 20,000 miles on it, and we've had it seven years, kept it well- maintained, and it served us well.
But lately, major repairs have been needed every three or four months, each one more expensive than the last. The last egregious offense was when the engine just STOPPED as my husband was exiting the freeway--with our son in his carseat in the back. He coasted it into a parking lot, and everyone was fine, but that was pretty much the last straw.
My in-laws have generously offered to buy us a new car, and so we are beginning to say goodbye to this old one. Yet I can't help but feel a bit nostalgic for the old girl. We've developed a relationship with her (I always think of her as a Bessie, to which my hub rolls his eyes).
So here's an ode to our old Volvo, which I wrote a few years back. It's funny how much personality a piece of machinery can have, or that we ascribe to it. Maybe it makes us feel a bit more connected if we think of our vehicles as something alive.
For an ‘89 Volvo
You’re square, not sleek nor sophisticated,
an awkward mule parked among the classy;
your heavy steel frame, downright antiquated,
accentuates your boxy workhorse chassis.
Even your coat, once glossy white, has weathered
to gray, flecked with rust spots. Yet when I gaze
across the lot, you’re there, patiently tethered:
stability reassures me these days,
and you endure. Climbing behind your wheel,
safe in your saddle, I’m ready to roam.
You snort sweetly at the touch of my heel;
you don’t gallop, but you know the way home:
past asphalt rivers, through concrete canyons,
toward one more sundown, my rusty companion.
My friend’s boyfriend is flipping out about the Mardi Gras day shootings here in New Orleans. I want to scoff, really I do, but seven people were shot—including an 18-month-old baby—while they were watching parades, arms outstretched, catching beads, only a few blocks from where my family, friends, and I were standing a few hours before. The young men responsible were apprehended within moments, but no motive has been forthcoming; all of the victims appeared to be random bystanders.
And of course, the question everyone has is why. And the next question is, what is wrong with this city? I find myself waiting for the logical explanation for gunfire into a celebrating crowd. I wonder what I would have done had I heard gunshots near me, seen people fall next to me, felt a bullet graze my toddler son as I held him up to catch a bead or stuffed animal.
And then I wonder why I skip over the story, why I want to scoff at my friend’s boyfriend. I wonder, why am I not freaking out? Has it become such a normal part of living in New Orleans that I am willing to accept random acts of violence as part of the price we pay to live here? What if it had been me, my friends, my family who had been shot? Do I ignore it because it hasn’t happened to me? Is it only a matter of time?
Violence in this city has touched me personally. A year after we returned from our Hurricane Katrina-motivated exile, a friend of mine, Helen Hill, was shot and killed in her home; her husband and two-year-old son were chased down and fired at as they hid in their bathroom. Her story made national headlines, too, and her killer has never been found, her death never explained. She and I were not terribly close, but she and her husband were some of the first friends we made when we moved to this city, and their passion for this place was contagious, even as they put themselves to work to improve the many problems here. It still is difficult not to think of the horrible end to their stay here as a warning for those of us who come here to make a difference: get out, get out now before it happens to you.
But I am working hard at seeing it differently. I want to believe that the violence, the poverty, the crime, the pain can be overcome. That the overwhelming problems our city is plagued with can be addressed, that we won’t sink under the weight of it all. Am I an optimist or a fool? Will I feel differently when it happens to me? For now, since Helen’s death, I keep my doors locked even when I’m home and always use the peephole before I open my home. I tell myself that that’s just smart city living. I tell myself it’s a small price to pay to live in such an amazing place. I tell myself I want to raise my children here, I want to grow old here, I want to be part of the fabric of this city. But I don’t want to become one of its bloody statistics, a news story, a reason to leave for good.
