The process of writing personal experience feels like trying to pull a bowling ball through mud. I feel the weight of it more because I avoid planning my route, and instead opt to haphazardly trudge forward in the hopes that my efforts will yield some kind of success; some release; some ephiphany.
But this isn't about the writing process. It's about New Orleans. And I'm struggling to write about New Orleans. About me, here, in the accidental city.
Perhaps it's because I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of thoughts that have floated through my head each day. Thoughts about culture, racism, poverty, crime, inequality, prejudice, privilege, ignorance, education, funding, floods, gentrification, and health care. Thoughts about music, partying, beauty, food, love, friendship, exploration, and excitement. Most of all, thoughts that bring me to a stiflingly self-reflective space and offer few opportunities to process or organize them into something that looks like insight. Since these thoughts feel so unrefined, attempting to write about them brings forward my own self-doubt and humility, and makes me question why I would ever expect to have anything of consequence to say about the city that has already been recounted by countless others in song, story, picture, poetry, or prose.
Perhaps it's because of all of these things that I can't seem to write anything I want anybody to read - not even me - about New Orleans.
