"Do you know what it means to Miss New Orleans?"*

Here I am again. Decatur Street.
Always my first stop in the Quarter.
Licking my white-sugar-coated-cafe-au-lait lips.
Inhaling the Mississippi at night.
It begins.

Eight years have passed since my last trip to New Orleans. My Uncle Sidney's not up in the loft at his store. That same trumpeter doesn't stand on the corner of the Square anymore.*

I can't help but wonder who's left and who's stayed (despite all the documentaries about it!). All I want is to throw money around because I can't help build houses. And, stay...

I'm eating my beignet. But, I still miss New Orleans.


*(with a nod to Jazz great Louis Armstrong.)

*(Uncle Sidney has been displaced to a condo in Gainesville; I still miss that trumpet.)