It is in our blood
I started my new running program this morning. On Tues and Thurs, I’ll run and T will take the dogs to the dog park for their running. On my run I ran into a lot of neighborhood folks but one was a surprise. A guy I had met pre-Katrina had decided to leave New Orleans after the storm amidst a lot of soul searching. He had thrown open the doors to the possibility of teaching somewhere else and raising his family in a place that wasn’t bruised and battered and a knock came back, an offer he said he couldn’t refuse. But here today, in the midst of yet another catastrophe – the BP oil spill – he had returned, lock stock and barrel to New Orleans. “You’re back!” I shouted as I rounded the bayou. “Couldn’t stay away,” he replied. He and his wife had secured good positions here in our fair city.
A friend of mine was an executive recruiter and for years she said people would come to her after having relocated, begging for any job so they could come back to New Orleans. She said she always gave people three years maximum before they would return. I was away 16 years – imagine my desperation in wanting to return.
There is a city in Spain called Mojácar where supposedly a witch lives near the entrance and upon entering for the first time she decides whether or not she will cast a spell on you, forever entangling your life with that village. My second husband’s family had a summer home there, with expansive white patios that terraced down a hill, and I spent a good deal of time in Mojácar in the summer of 1990 (btw: I don’t think I was bewitched).
But I do think that places have a way of getting under your skin and making it impossible to be at home anywhere else. New Orleans is that kind of place. Its denizens stay against all odds and for all the reasons in the world, it’s in our blood.