art for art's sake

art for art's sake was tonight. it's the night of the year when all of the shops and galleries and museums open their doors and have free drinks and food and music. you just wander from place to place drinking and looking at art.
all week i was looking forward to it, thinking back on years past (when i always ALWAYS had an exhibit up somewhere). i remembered how much fun it was to sit in the place where my art was on display and see all of my friends. perhaps wandering down the street a bit every so often to see what was going on in other shops. there was always a friend to see, someone to bump into, hugs exchanges. it was my new orleans, all of my people assembled and having fun, loving art and music and life and one another.
this morning i woke up at 5am and began the final edit on my novel. i had my husband (who has his MA in english and scottish lit) go through the entire thing for me. i worked from around 8am to 4:30pm on the first six chapters. i made alterations as per his suggestions and some of my own. i was exhausted. i went to take a brief nap and ended up not waking up until 8:30. by that time art for art's sake is essentially over. i was so upset with myself. i had so badly wanted him to see this world, to experience what i had always loved so much, and i wanted to go back there myself.
and then i realized something that made me even more sad. what i had wanted to show him, the festival that i had wanted to go to was not there. it hasn't been there since october of 2004. i could have taken gavin out tonight but there wouldn't have been a central place for us to hang out. i had no exhibit. there would have been no gathering of the friends, there was no one central location where would all knew that we would meet. perhaps i would have bumped into a few people but that thing that i had for all those years, that night, those experiences, those will never be duplicated again. meeg won't be here to come out with me. kiki won't be able to come. carrie and dave are gone. everyone has scattered to the winds. there is no more twisted, there is no more pervette. those days of having that glorious time surrounded by my adopted new orleans family are gone. that part of the city is dead for me. i can never have it back. i can never show him what that was like. i can never go there again.
and this is one of the many reasons why i'm leaving. the magic is fading, has faded, will fade. the new orleans that i knew is no longer. it tries to hold onto itself- it still holds the festival but it is a ghost of what it was- for me anyway. i keep living here but i live in a world that is gone. i remember the things that were and try to pull them forward into the present by sheer force of will. this i cannot do. new orleans is now katrinaville.
even the things i mentioned in previous entries, like hansen's sno-blitz, they are ghosts. it is still there, and the sno-balls are still amazing. but the little old woman and little old man who always sat in the corner, who always looked on as you ordered from the shop they started in the 30s, they are dead. killed during the storm.
we will rebuild, we will be a whole city again. we will teem with life and music and art and culture, but for all of you who were here before take heed-- this is not the place you remember. it's resembles it so closely that it might fool you for a moment, but look closely and you will see. what you are looking at is not your former home, it is only the beautiful memories and the shattered remnants. and all of nagin's horses and all of blanco's men can't put nola together again.