The Isle of Denial
Spent the night Uptown last night and woke to a different setting – a more typical New Orleans view of mansion sized houses and huge oak trees and the sounds of the streetcar rumbling along St. Charles Avenue. On the bayou, we call this place the Isle of Denial because when the storm hit the area remained remarkably unscathed and people returned to their houses only having to shake off the dust of having been gone for weeks at a time.
There is still a great divide between us and them – a feigned entitlement that comes from living around institutions such as Tulane University, Loyola University, St. Charles Avenue and Audubon Park and Zoo – so different from the Fairgrounds, Bayou and City Park where we are more scrappy in our appearances and certainly in our lifestyle.
I walked Loca around the block first thing and the street was so beautiful and the landscape and architecture so large it made me feel good to be surrounded by all of these lovely things and yet, my home is on the bayou, with its mild expansiveness and beasty creatures like nutria and pelicans and musicians and artists.