Do You Know What it Means

Ever since my first visit, well over a decade back, I’ve loved New Orleans. Aside from New York and San Francisco, it’s the only place in the continental United States I daydream of, feel the need to return to, over and over.

Yet, as I drove along I-10 towards the Crescent City earlier this week, my stomach churned with apprehension, unsure of how the city – and my love of it – had fared Katrina.

As we closed in, the highway was lined with downed trees and abandoned strip malls, buildings reduced to shells and piles of rubble. We parked just outside the French Quarter, amidst broken windows and shutters hanging loose on their hinges.

Iberville Street was oddly empty as walked to the Acme Oyster House, to join some local friends for lunch. The restaurant, at least, was full, and, waiting for a table, I spoke with some Louisianans at the bar. And, in that one conversation, all my fears subsided.

I recognized the way they talked of the hurricane, of their surprise that friends and relatives would even suggest they consider uprooting their lives and moving somewhere else. I recognized it because I had said and felt precisely the same things, living in Manhattan in the wake of 9/11.

I don’t know if some cities have a spirit and character that carries them through disaster, or if, like a cornered animal, nearly any would pull together in that same intense yet casual way were its existence threatened.

But I knew, at least, that New Orleans had. That, as we in the rest of the country worried on their behalf, fretted and opined about whether the city would ever be the same, the people who lived there had already set aside such academic debate, consumed instead with the day-by-day process of carrying on with life.

By the time I left Louisiana the next morning, continuing on I-10 towards Austin, my thoughts were already drifting back towards the city behind me. If it ever slept, I’d tell New Orleans to wait up for me; it won’t be long until I’m back.

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Home Again

Though I set out on this week’s road trip with lofty blogging intentions, two problems quickly became clear: First, none of the people we stayed with had wireless internet access. Second, our time was so thoroughly consumed with driving, eating, driving, drinking, driving, buying gas, driving and driving some more that blogging (and, for that matter, sleep) just didn’t seem to fit.

As of this evening, I’m back home safe and in one piece. But I suspect I’ll need a bit more recovery time yet before I can coherently recap any of the trip. Apparently, hitting six states* in five days really wears you out.

* For those following along at home: Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

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On the Road

I head out tomorrow night on a road trip with former roommates Colin and James. Though the dysfunctional dynamic between the three of us is long honed, we’ll also be joined by the dynamic Alicia Van Couvering, which should add a whole new layer to the boiling, barely concealed hatred we’ll all doubtless feel for each other by the end of that much time wedged together in a small car.

We fly in to Atlanta on Friday evening, then head down to Athens, Georgia on Saturday. Sunday is Pensacola, Monday is New Orleans, and Tuesday is Austin. I fly back to New York on Wednesday to wrangle the three-ring circus that is Cyan Pictures these days, though the rest of the crew will continue motoring west, all the way to Los Angeles.

Apparently, we’re also making a film as part of the road trip, based on a short story by one of our Yale classmates, though I’ve still yet to wrap my brain around exactly what that’s going to entail.

But, I’m armed with a laptop and digital camera, and will do my best to chronicle the misadventures as they unfold.

Wish us safe driving, and round up the bail money in advance.

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Cantankerous

As my last post led more than a handful of female readers to write in saying how ‘sweet’ the sentiment was, I spent a drunken train ride back from Connecticut last night brainstorming potential posts about beating children and small animals, as a way to counterbalance and regain some semblance of masculine street cred.

If anyone has a baby seal for me to club, say, send it along.

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The Looking Glass

`Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. `Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

`I don’t much care where–‘ said Alice.

`Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I’ve long been fascinated by the neurobiology of attention – the interactions of parts of our brains like the hypothalamus and the reticular activation system. Each day, all day, we’re bombarded by sensations; yet, somehow, we filter out the vast majority, letting through a select few. Reading a book, we lose ourselves in the pages, blocking out completely the world around us. Or, talking at a cocktail party, we tune down others’ conversations, focusing in on just the words of our conversational companions.

I’m reminded of that particularly when I buy something new. I remember, in college, purchasing a Toyota Celica, and suddenly finding myself passing hundreds of other Celicas on the highways and streets. Not because, of course, people had suddenly rushed out to lease similar cars; but, rather, because my brain decided the ones that had always been out there were, for the first time, interesting enough to pass through to my conscious mind.

All of which is to say that I believe the brain is largely cybernetic. Not in the computerized sense of the word, but closer to it’s Greek root, ‘kybernetes’, which means something akin to ‘steersman’. It begins with an end in mind, then focuses us on and readjusts us towards those things that bring us closer and closer to that goal.

Which leaves us floundering, then, when the target isn’t clearly locked; without somewhere we want to end up, like Alice, it doesn’t much matter which way we go.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, mainly in the context of dating, of big city romance. With so many potential partners – an embarrassment of riches – we urban singles are weighed down by the tyranny of choice. There are so many people who might be right, and so many more who might be just a bit righter still than whomever we’re currently with.

But most of us, at a very basic level, don’t have any idea of what ‘right’ looks or feels like in the first place. We drink our way from date to date, trying to guess, hoping our hearts or guts or friends or mothers, or even the Cheshire Cat, will somehow jump in to tell us when we’ve found it.

So, for weeks, I’ve been brainstorming my way through my own sense of ‘right’, my own list of qualities I think I’m looking for. I’ve been quietly analyzing the long happily married couples I know, squaring that with my own experience, adding ideas, crossing off items, and boiling things down to the bare essentials: things I can look for that, alongside the requisite lightning bolt, would leave me happily ever after. In short, a target, an end in mind that my subconscious might, day by day, guide me towards.

And while my list is still brewing, certainly not yet ready for public consumption, I did, earlier this week, find at least one item that seems sure to make the final cut. Dr. Dan Gottlieb, a quadriplegic psychologist and guest on NPR’s Fresh Air, related the story of a young woman who he’d seen in his practice. “I feel like my soul is a prism,” she told him. “But everybody sees just one color. Nobody sees the prism.”

As someone too long practiced at playing social chameleon, I find her concern hits particularly close to home. Which is why, among anything else, I can see the appeal, or perhaps the necessity, of ending up with someone with whom I could always be my full, garishly multi-colored self.

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