It's been a hard week for me this week. I've been very homesick -- not so much missing my family or things, but missing the rich traditions that have become parts of everyday life in my hometown.
This week was a particularly special week at home -- the city was mourning the long-time archbishop. It was the city's tribute to a man who changed the way the city thinks about things. He was a powerful force and Catholics and non-Catholics alike mourned his passing.
I often tell my dearest that in New Orleans, you are Catholic by default, as the celebrations of Holy Days, Feast Days, and church seasons have woven themselves into the secular life of the city. As a Catholic, you never have to worry about finding non-meat dishes during Lent in New Orleans -- every restaurant in the city, from fast food to posh gourmet, runs special "Lenten Menus." All Saints Day is a public holiday, and even non-Catholics can be seen at the cemeteries white-washing the graves. St. Patrick's and St. Joseph's feast days are celebrations not only for the Irish and Italian Catholics, but for the entire city.
It may be that New Orleanians are always up for a party, and any reason to celebrate is a good one, but I think it's more than that. It's that cultural traditions are woven into everyday life in New Orleans. Non-Catholics participate in what are, at their core, church festivals, even without conscious knowledge. Mardi Gras is, of course the largest of the church festivals that has made its way into the city's secular life, but there are others. It may be a case a simply knowing the market, and responding to the market conditions, but in New Orleans it feels like so much more than that.
This week, I have been seriously missing that rich tradition. Not that there are not traditions here in my new home, but they are new and unknown to me and not understood. And as far as I can tell, the celebrations are much more individual than community-wide. I have been here for 9 months and I really have not seen community-wide celebrations the way there are in New Orleans. I miss the community-wide traditions, the rituals that have bled into daily life.
I missed being a part of the funeral, even if my part would have been just watching the events as they were covered on tv. I missed having people who understood why I watched it, people who knew of Archbishop Hannan, and people who knew why the city essentially stopped for two afternoons this week for the funeral procession and the funeral mass. I missed people knowing why, without explanation, that of course the Dominican girls would have been at the Seminary for the procession, and why the whole of Jesuit would have turned out on Carrollton Avenue. I missed being with people who knew immediately what it means to have the Marching 100 lead the procession.
Everyday life continued as normal here in my new home, without even a mention of Archbishop Hannan, without coverage of the thousands upon thousands of mourners who filed past, paying respects to the man many considered to be the true leader of New Orleans' Catholics, even 23 years after his forced retirement from the position. I missed having someone close who understood what I meant, without needing explanations, or looking at me like I had just lost all my marbles.
I short, I missed people who know what it means to miss New Orleans.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Falling Forward
This weekend we changed times -- we "sprung" forward. That's hard for my head to get around. After 8 months here in Australia, I am still very much stuck in a North American frame of mind.
The end of September brings autumn, not spring. It is the beginning of football season, not the end. The days should be getting colder, not hotter. Leaves should be falling from the trees in a blaze of autumnal glory, not popping out in new spring green-ness. It's very head-trippy for me.
In many ways I am actively protesting losing my American-ness. I will always call the element/material aluminum. The last letter of the alphabet is, and always will be, zee to me. When I come to a street corner, I think I will always look to the left first for on-coming traffic -- to look to the right is un-natural, even though I know that traffic comes from the other direction. I have all my weather widgets and cooking thermometers set to Fahrenheit rather than Celsius, and still have to convert the weather reports to figure out what the temperature will actually be.
It's not that I think America is better than Australia, or that I am better than the people I have met, just that, well, I will always be a bit different here. As one caller to my office said upon meeting me in person: "Ohh, you're the new voice I hear. I knew you weren't an Australian." The funny thing is, for all my desire to keep my American-ness, people here think I am Canadian. I asked one clerk at the supermarket about it, when she was the third person in a day to ask if I was Canadian. She replied that, in her experience, Canadians get offended if you guess they are Americans, while Americans generally take it as a compliment if you ask if they are Canadian. I laughed the explanation off at the time, but the more I considered it, the more I realized she is right. But then maybe that's just me. I was accused of being a Canadian, even when I lived in the US (by people who had seen copies of my passport and birth certificate!). Back to my point though, I will always be different here. I will always be the one with the accent and the one with the funny, American ways. I have made a decision to embrace those differences. And besides, being a bit different fits my personality. I have never really be a follow-the-crowd kind of person. I have always danced to the beat of my own drummer (usually an off-key and out-of-time drummer), so I haven't really changed anything but the setting.
Anyway, it's autumn -- or so says my brain. We should be falling back, wrapping up for chilly afternoon/evening football games, preparing warm, comforting soups, meals of red beans and rice, considering Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, curling up with mugs of hot cocoa and good books. Instead I am looking at stores full of bikinis and surf gear, shorts, tank tops, and beach buckets in weekly sale fliers, watermelons and summer berries on the shelves in the groceries. It's wrong. My head tells me it's autumn -- time for shortening days, cool evenings and football; falling back. My brain sees instead -- longer days, warm evenings, and cricket; springing forward.
It's even worse when I think that I am finally springing forward in the right time of year. Days are naturally longer in the summer, there is no need to "save" daylight that is naturally available until 8:00 or 8:30 p.m. We need to "save" daylight in the winter when the sun sets around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. So my head is finally thinking that we have it right -- we'll "save" the daylight in the season when we really need it. But then I look around me and think "ohh. no. we're not."
Altogether, it's just more evidence that I am the different one here. One more reason I will always be a North American.
The end of September brings autumn, not spring. It is the beginning of football season, not the end. The days should be getting colder, not hotter. Leaves should be falling from the trees in a blaze of autumnal glory, not popping out in new spring green-ness. It's very head-trippy for me.
In many ways I am actively protesting losing my American-ness. I will always call the element/material aluminum. The last letter of the alphabet is, and always will be, zee to me. When I come to a street corner, I think I will always look to the left first for on-coming traffic -- to look to the right is un-natural, even though I know that traffic comes from the other direction. I have all my weather widgets and cooking thermometers set to Fahrenheit rather than Celsius, and still have to convert the weather reports to figure out what the temperature will actually be.
It's not that I think America is better than Australia, or that I am better than the people I have met, just that, well, I will always be a bit different here. As one caller to my office said upon meeting me in person: "Ohh, you're the new voice I hear. I knew you weren't an Australian." The funny thing is, for all my desire to keep my American-ness, people here think I am Canadian. I asked one clerk at the supermarket about it, when she was the third person in a day to ask if I was Canadian. She replied that, in her experience, Canadians get offended if you guess they are Americans, while Americans generally take it as a compliment if you ask if they are Canadian. I laughed the explanation off at the time, but the more I considered it, the more I realized she is right. But then maybe that's just me. I was accused of being a Canadian, even when I lived in the US (by people who had seen copies of my passport and birth certificate!). Back to my point though, I will always be different here. I will always be the one with the accent and the one with the funny, American ways. I have made a decision to embrace those differences. And besides, being a bit different fits my personality. I have never really be a follow-the-crowd kind of person. I have always danced to the beat of my own drummer (usually an off-key and out-of-time drummer), so I haven't really changed anything but the setting.
Anyway, it's autumn -- or so says my brain. We should be falling back, wrapping up for chilly afternoon/evening football games, preparing warm, comforting soups, meals of red beans and rice, considering Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, curling up with mugs of hot cocoa and good books. Instead I am looking at stores full of bikinis and surf gear, shorts, tank tops, and beach buckets in weekly sale fliers, watermelons and summer berries on the shelves in the groceries. It's wrong. My head tells me it's autumn -- time for shortening days, cool evenings and football; falling back. My brain sees instead -- longer days, warm evenings, and cricket; springing forward.
It's even worse when I think that I am finally springing forward in the right time of year. Days are naturally longer in the summer, there is no need to "save" daylight that is naturally available until 8:00 or 8:30 p.m. We need to "save" daylight in the winter when the sun sets around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. So my head is finally thinking that we have it right -- we'll "save" the daylight in the season when we really need it. But then I look around me and think "ohh. no. we're not."
Altogether, it's just more evidence that I am the different one here. One more reason I will always be a North American.
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