I’m home.  I’m thrilled to be home and thrilled to have a home to be in.  After all manner of pushing luggage and trees around I borrowed N.’s bike (mine’s still in the shop) and took a spin around town.  I first noticed the smells.  It smells like Christmas here, from the downed trees and the wet leaves.  It also smells like trash, rotten food trash, especially in the part of the Marigny I visited.  Like everything in this city, the smells are complicated, mixed, contradictory.

The city is also dark.  Power is on in many parts of the city, but other blocks are black, like this stretch of lower Magazine.  The only lights were from headlights and cops.  It is eerie, this sense that the city is has survived attack but is still at risk, what with the spinning lights of the police and the National Guard humvees stationed at street corners–I’d say they’re strategically placed, but I couldn’t figure out the pattern.  New Orleans is open, yes, but the police will coordinate what that openness looks like.  I saw so much more–so many empty streets in the Quarter, acquaintances from the bars out walking Uptown, other bicyclists in their own worlds doing their own explorations.  And the quiet.  It is so, so quiet out there right now.  I can’t wait to listen to this city by day tomorrow.  I’m so happy to be back on my bike, touring my home.