Sip Sighing away
"My thinking was that it was in everyone's best interest if I had a bottle of mouthwash.
When the cashier rang up my groceries all those weeks later, I tried, as subtly as possible, to hand her the bottle and ask her if she could see that it was put back on the shelf. She was confused by my action and offered to void the purchase if I didn't want the bottle.
I told her it's not that I didn't want it, but that I wished to pay for it and could she please see that it was put back on the shelf. More confusion ensued and the line behind me got longer and it felt very hot and crowded all of a sudden and I tried to tell her: "Look, when the store was closed . . . you know . . . after the thing . . . I took . . ."
The words wouldn't come. Only the tears."
excerpt from Cry me a New Year by New Orleans Times Picayune Columnist Chris Rose
While in college in New Orleans, QD took it for granted that the city would be there forever. For years QD bugged her husband to go - to Jazz Fest, Christmas, Valentine's Day, just because ... they never went. Now he will never see that place that Queenie's Daughter first became her grown up self. They will discover a new New Orleans together, but she will never be his guide to her past.
Perhaps that is for the best, for QD lived a wicked and sinful past, but she lived, she lived. That is part of the great secret to New Orleans and it is something everyone who visits there senses: the city is alive. It is full of the good, the bad and the ugly of living. It takes living and makes it an art form. It celebrates life, abuses it, cherishes it, ignores it, defies it, embraces it.
Another part of the secret to New Orleans is this: it is immortal. Fires, floods, famines won't kill it. Contractors will try, perhaps, to make some money and many will, but new Orleans will prevail. In the languid and iron willed way that she always has, like an old sweet grandmother, the matriarch of the family, whom everyone loves most and fears more.
The streets of New Orleans were built on the backs of the people who loved her. New Orleans has always smelled of the blood and guts spilt to keep her. She is a rapacious lover who can and will take everything you've got and then kick you out broke and broken hearted. But you are better for having known her, better for having loved her. "New Orleans," as Duke might say, "Is the Straw that stirs the drink!"
When the cashier rang up my groceries all those weeks later, I tried, as subtly as possible, to hand her the bottle and ask her if she could see that it was put back on the shelf. She was confused by my action and offered to void the purchase if I didn't want the bottle.
I told her it's not that I didn't want it, but that I wished to pay for it and could she please see that it was put back on the shelf. More confusion ensued and the line behind me got longer and it felt very hot and crowded all of a sudden and I tried to tell her: "Look, when the store was closed . . . you know . . . after the thing . . . I took . . ."
The words wouldn't come. Only the tears."
excerpt from Cry me a New Year by New Orleans Times Picayune Columnist Chris Rose
While in college in New Orleans, QD took it for granted that the city would be there forever. For years QD bugged her husband to go - to Jazz Fest, Christmas, Valentine's Day, just because ... they never went. Now he will never see that place that Queenie's Daughter first became her grown up self. They will discover a new New Orleans together, but she will never be his guide to her past.
Perhaps that is for the best, for QD lived a wicked and sinful past, but she lived, she lived. That is part of the great secret to New Orleans and it is something everyone who visits there senses: the city is alive. It is full of the good, the bad and the ugly of living. It takes living and makes it an art form. It celebrates life, abuses it, cherishes it, ignores it, defies it, embraces it.
Another part of the secret to New Orleans is this: it is immortal. Fires, floods, famines won't kill it. Contractors will try, perhaps, to make some money and many will, but new Orleans will prevail. In the languid and iron willed way that she always has, like an old sweet grandmother, the matriarch of the family, whom everyone loves most and fears more.
The streets of New Orleans were built on the backs of the people who loved her. New Orleans has always smelled of the blood and guts spilt to keep her. She is a rapacious lover who can and will take everything you've got and then kick you out broke and broken hearted. But you are better for having known her, better for having loved her. "New Orleans," as Duke might say, "Is the Straw that stirs the drink!"
posted by Queenies Daughter at 2:39 PM
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