Reflections from the New Orleans Writing Marathon by Robyn Miller

Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project

At Croissant D’Or:
As the sun streams down in the café courtyard, the promise of the day floods my thoughts. It’s good to eat a warm, flaky croissant when you’re a tiny bit hung over and haven’t had much sleep. I feel light and strong and warm, like my café au lait. It’s good to be here.

There’s a balcony overhead, but I can only see one small section of it from where I’m sitting. It’s filled with green plants in orange pots, and I wish I could see more because I want to know if someone lives there.

In a courtyard near the French Market:
The city is busy with sound. Next to me, the fountain splashes around the pigeons and pennies, the water flowing down in smooth sheets here, bubbling ripples there. Faint strains of deep music are carried over on the breeze from the other side of the market. Voices chatter and whisper and shout and laugh—the rhythms and melodies of many countries melting together here in this shady sanctuary. The peaceful song of the city is punctuated abruptly by noisy engines roaring by. It makes me angry, as if someone were clanging symbols in the middle of prayer, but it is part of the music.

By the river/ boat station/ train tracks:
A sweaty, middle-aged man with a fanny pack jogs by, his shirtless belly bouncing with each footfall. The breeze is cool here near the river, and there is calm in spite of the grinding train and the occasional prickles of protesting ants. Everywhere is home here; the strength of the massive river a protective presence and I feel rooted next to the cypress tree.

A lonely man is only a few feet away, his back turned to us. His grimy gray ponytail rests limply on his thin, hunched shoulders. One arm, larger at the elbow joint than above it, cradles a bottle which glows a surreal, magical green in its tan and gray setting. The other arm is lazily moving a cigarette from the knee to the mouth in a slow repetition. His hat has been carefully placed on his bag, also gray, in front of him and next to his dusty guitar case. He watches the people and buses go by, but he stays and sits and smokes.

Inside Molly’s:
Here is a place with an old soul. True, there is the torso of a mannequin in panties hanging from the ceiling above the bar, and a running lighted message board advertising some drink special or other, but the floor is broken stone and the walls are crumbled brick, and I can feel the spirit of the others—those here now and those long gone, kindred supernatural lounge lizards creating the essence of the place. The whole city feels that way, like I’ve stumbled not really back in time, but into a different level of reality that is close to me, inside me even, but is not where I usually spend my days. I want to say I love it here, but it’s not love. It’s not comfort; I don’t know what this is but it is rushing on me through my Blue Moon and my cool breeze and my dim light. I do not feel alone, but I do feel isolated, and safe but not quite. There is more than here in here, and maybe that only makes sense to me, but it’s much better than okay. It belongs to me, and for this moment, I belong to it.