I Hear the Mississippi
I always thought my obsession with New Orleans was simply because my family is from here. I took refuge in the idea that if they had come from Denver, Colorado, or Macon, Georgia, I’d be just as enamored with those places. But a friend challenged that thinking.
"Your infatuation with New Orleans isn’t just because your family is from here," he said. "It’s because your family is obsessed with New Orleans. So the real question is—if they were from somewhere else, would they be obsessed too? And by extension, would you?"
I let that question simmer through the rest of Mardi Gras. I carried it with me through the winding streets, past the flambeaux carriers lighting the way, through the rhythms of brass bands that seemed to beat in time with my pulse. And my conclusion was simple: No. Because there is no place on Earth like New Orleans.
We were here before the French came, before the Spanish, before the stars and bars of the Anglo world arrived. We have been here for millennia, and we will be here for millennia to come. This city is not just a place we live—it is us. We are its material, its foundation, its pulse. There is no distinction, no separation. The people are the city, and the city is its people.
Bulbancha. That was its name before the settlers came—"the land of many tongues." A place where Choctaw and Houma, French and Spanish, African and Haitian, Sicilian and Irish all met, not just to coexist, but to create something entirely new. The Creole nature of this city is its lifeblood—a place where Catholic cathedrals stand tall, but where African and indigenous spirits still move through the air, whispering in the wind and swirling in the gumbo pots. Where Voodoo and Christianity walk hand in hand, where street names slip between languages like a second line winding through the Quarter.
I was born outside of this homeland of mine, but I have never been called back to Atlanta. I have never felt tied to that city, never heard it whisper my name the way New Orleans does. But Bulbancha calls to me. It hums in my bones. I hear it in the way the city breathes, in the stories passed down through my bloodline, in the scent of the river air rolling off the Mississippi, heavy with history and promise.
New Orleans doesn’t just live in us—it is us. The city and its people are one. To be from here, to be of here, is to understand that no matter where we go, no matter how far we stray, we carry its soul with us. Because we are the living continuation of the magic that built this place, and its spirit will never let us go.
