The Count Down has Begun!!

My senses are involved in everything I do. In fact, I can be hypersensitive. Touch. Smell. Taste. Sight. Sound. They all move me more than the average person.
Every part of me is all in a tizzy, anticipating the sights and sounds of New Orleans.

There were a few smells I wish I could erase from memory. Mani’s apartment with the raw sewage floating open-air behind his complex just as lazy-river as you please, or the smell of the gecko in all its posthumous funk under the sink. I could also do without remembering the smell of the water from the fountain in Williams Hall, the same water with the sediment you could watch float down to the bottom of your cup when you went to make tea. With a smile, I remember the sight of Ma Bell washing her collards in the dorm washing machine (that none of us were allowed to use) and then the smell of them cooking (and none of us were allowed to eat). Ma Bell was fresh out of Shrek before the concept had even been thought of, and the love I never did feel, but we were safe under her strict watch.

My tongue is the part most alive and aware of my Homegoing, the kind that doesn’t involve caskets and preachers. The passionate blending of spices, rich rouxs (if you don't know what it is, you ain't had none), seafood cooked to perfection, and the fellowship of breaking bread with friends. Imbibing always accompanies, even then when I was underage younger, the spirits were poured and ours lifted like fall after the sun rises. I can almost taste the subtle sweetness of a beignet, powdered sugary goodness melting on my fingers creating a mess of the 2nd best kind. I wonder if Cafe Du monde has joined the rest of the free world and come up on the wonders of a soy chai latte (no water)? And crawfish. Boiled. Etouffee. It don’t even much matter (said in my best N’awlins accent). The last time I had crawfish was at Spondivits (yeah, I’m namin names today) in Atlanta. It was shameful at best, disrespectful at its worst. Almost a decade later and I’m still mad about it. I’m going in search of the Acme Oyster Bar for a fried oyster po’boy & I hope to wash it down with all the Hurricane’s I can stand up to. On second thought, that bitch named Katrina might have forced New Orleans to choose another drink to rep itself.

The sights I’ll behold will be old friends. I can almost feel the hugs and the kisses on the cheek, cher. I want to walk the Avenue of the Oaks holding the hands of my friends from yesteryear, walking them into my future. I want to throw 40 0z bottles (not that I ever drank that shit) at the TurDuckEn at the Duck Pond, standing next to G Phi G, laughing at their endless ignorance. I wanna take the legal version of the ride in the stolen Volkswagen convertible, singing to the radio with the wind in our hair. Not a naive care in the world. New Orleans was by far the best time of my life, with friends who have left their small and large footprints across the terrain of my heart and mind. There’ll never be another experience like it. And if this, this Homegoing, is even a [French] quarter of the time I had as a girl of 18...all will be right in my world.

Watch me move.