Let's Go Somewhere-7/29/2014 New Orleans

Ally says:

Back in 2002 I decided I was going to go to school for writing. I was going to get an MFA and I even managed to get accepted into the one school I picked simply for their ad in the back of the issue of Poets & Writers that I was reading in Barnes and Nobles the week beforehand: University of New Orleans. I’d never been there but I figured, it’s New Orleans – can you think of a more muse-ful place?

So I put together my sample, filled out my forms and mailed them off to the admissions department. And I got in. Unfortunately I got my letter of acceptance about 1 month after my mother called me in tears telling me my father had stage 4 cancer. Instead of moving to New Orleans, I moved to New York City in 2003 to be closer to home.

I delayed my acceptance for a year thinking I would go back. I never did. Instead I got a different masters degree – an MLS – a Masters of Library Science. Yes, I’m sure you too are surprised to hear that you have to get a master’s degree to be a librarian. Stranger things.

I got married in 2004. On our first wedding anniversary, months into my MLS coursework, my husband and I boarded a plane for our first trip to New Orleans.

We drank at the Napolean House:

watched the Mississippi roll by, 

crept through the old cemeteries

rode the streetcar:

 and listened to some amazing music, including this guy: St. Louis Slim

and the Panarama Jazz Band:

My husband had such a good time he didn't want to leave:

It was an amazing trip. And walking around that city I felt, for a moment, I had stepped into that other life - the one where I was a student at the University of New Orleans, getting an MFA. Living and writing in NOLA.

Three months after that first trip, Katrina ripped through New Orleans, forever changing, but not destroying, that city. Since then I have been back 4 times. I hope to make this fall number 5.

There are certain places that welcome you back no matter what. That stretch out their arms, wrap you in a hug, show you to your seat at the Spotted Cat on Frenchman Street, slide a pim's cup into your sweaty hand while the thin man on stage replaces the reed in his clarinet before playing you a song.