There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better — Bob Dylan

For six years, it was my distinct pleasure to live in New Orleans, that northernmost city of the Caribbean. So much about the city appeals to my senses, but towering above all else is the music. April is the start of festival season, and as your music secretary, I can tell you that you’ve missed French Quarter Festival earlier this month, so better luck next year. To close out April is the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, so you’ve missed that too. But you’re still in time for the second weekend coming up. Jazz Fest marks the unofficial start of the hot and sweaty season in New Orleans, and when it’s not sunny, hot and sweaty, it’s rainy, hot and sweaty, usually during the festival, which makes it hot, rainy, muddy and sweaty. And nobody cares. Because it’s New Orleans. Boogie on, reggae woman.

I visited New Orleans a couple of times before making the move, and I remember that first day. My daughter and I parked the car on Elysian Fields – a wide avenue with a generous neutral ground (known everywhere else as a median). Y’all gotta pay attention. There’s going to be a quiz at the end.

From the car, it was across the neutral ground and along the lake side of Washington Square, and we found ourselves on Frenchmen Street. But before we go any further with the story, as your tour guide, let me teach you about “lake” side and “river” side and what those mean in New Orleans. It’s the first geography lesson every newcomer learns. When moving about on land in New Orleans, there is no north and south. And forget about east and west while you’re at it. New Orleans is not for the directionally challenged. What it is is surrounded by water — the river in front, Lake Pontchartrain behind, Uptown on the other side of Canal Street is upriver, and if you walk the other way to the Bywater, you’re heading downriver. Got it?

Let’s practice.

Imagine you’ve stepped outside your swanky hotel on Royal Street in the Vieux Carre (meaning Old Square in English), with the map of the French Quarter given you by the concierge held in your hands. You see quite plainly that you need to go two blocks east and three blocks north, where you’ve got reservations at a Creole restaurant, and your stomach is grumbling in anticipation. It couldn’t be simpler. You know what you have to do; no need for no stinking map, and into your pocket it goes. Off you go, two blocks to the east (but remember, it’s not east, it’s downriver), and soon you hear some street music up ahead another block, so you go check out a bit of authentic New Orleans. The music is fine — a bit of bluegrass, and they’re stomping. So are you.

You’re groovin’ to the sounds and out of the corner of your eye, you spot a group of people exiting a bar a few doors down with drinks in their hands, and you’re thinking, when in New Orleans, right, where it is practically a sin not to be walking around without an alcoholic beverage in your hand. Think Big Gulp-sized Hand Grenade or Hurricane, and now we’re talking. You wander out of the bar and see a group of people congregated a block in the other direction and you head over to see what’s happening – because there is always something happening wherever you turn. It turns out you’ve found Doreen Ketchens playing clarinet with her band, and while she may not be the best clarinetist in the world, she sure sounds like it on this fine evening.

You loiter for a bit, then wander off because something else has caught your attention, all the while continuing to sip from your $10 frozen whatever, and you realize right about now life has taken a decided turn for the good. But all good things must come to an end — your watch says it’s time to put pause to the good time roll and head over for some of that crawfish étouffée at your restaurant of choice tonight. You look around and it occurs to you that you have no idea where you are. The street sign doesn’t say Royal anymore — somehow you’ve landed at the corner of Toulouse and Bourbon. You pull out your trusty tourist map and see you are only two blocks that-a-way, and your next question is, which way do I go? So you ask the closest person who isn’t swaying all that much, “Which way is north?”

Wrong question.

You should have asked which way is the lake, despite the fact you didn’t even know there was a lake to be asked about. But there is — Lake Pontchartrain. And if your restaurant isn’t on the way to the river, then it’s toward the lake, and if it’s on that side of the street, it’s lake side, and if it’s on this side of the street, then it’s on the river side. And while you’re certain it’s north, it is really west, and that’s why it’s lake side and river side. Just trust me on this; it’s easier that way.

But back to our story. There we were, Bridget and I, heading toward Frenchmen Street, and I overheard another newcomer ask, “Where should I go for the true New Orleans experience?” “That depends,” was the answer, “are y’all interested in food or music?”

Exactly.

What is it about New Orleans that when you come for a visit, you decide you’re going to stay? True, not everyone feels that way, and for that, I suppose, the denizens of the city can only be thankful. New Orleans is sinking as it is. Much more weight and it’d be drowning. But for so many, it’s the same refrain: “I came here for a two-week vacation, and here it is, ten years later, and I never left.”

What was it that hooked me? The food or the music, the charm or the culture? It was all of that, and more.

The die was cast one morning as I was walking in the Quarter on my first visit to the city. I had a destination in mind, and was just strolling along, thinking I could turn a left here … or wait, I could go another block and turn there. I chose one option, of that I am sure, but which one, who knows? What I do know is that a block down my chosen path, there on the lake side of the street, a man was blowing his saxophone, so smooth, so right, it was magic. Magic because the music was so good, so unexpected, so magical because there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be but here, magical to think I could walk down the street and feast on live music. It struck me, what if I had turned down a different street and missed this? What if I had turned right instead of left, what would I have found? I’m not sure, but what I do know is it would have been different, and equally as magical, and above all else, it would be New Orleans, where anything can happen, and it usually does. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

It hit me. New Orleans is a city of choices – so much to choose from. So much music, good food, creativity, diversity, so many people and cultures, adding their stories to the New Orleans gumbo.

In the meantime, only two questions on the quiz: 1) Which way to the river? and 2) Who d’at?

For some N’awlins music on the Monday of Jazz Fest week, the inimitable Dr. John …