No floats this year. No parades this year. Just houses, they tell me, all gussied up for carnival time—a reminder that we are capable of adjusting, of looking out for each other, of being love and light, no matter the obstacles.
I get dressing up. I get festivities and celebration. I even get costuming, although I must admit it didn’t come from anything other than years of dance recitals—a childhood of wearing clothes made of tulle and exotic fabrics, cut in unusual ways, drapes of silk cascading and fluttering, lifting with every movement my body made. The fuchsia and the shimmering emerald greens. Cheap sequins. Rick rack. A headpiece with white floating feathers.
And a stage across which to parade and leap, lights on me/us/whoever. I wore ballet slippers and toe shoes, toe-tap shoes, tap shoes. I even danced in roller skates. It wasn’t until last year that I knew there actually were rinks where people—adults, grown-ass adults working day jobs and raising families—dance-skated, a thing called roller disco, wildly in rinks in Brooklyn and Chicago, Detroit. Other places, I’m sure. Somehow I think it must have bypassed Boston, or maybe just me (I was on the land in northern Maine by 1973, no electricity and a radio station broadcasting from Houlton, mostly country, 40 miles farther north). I danced on that childhood stage for 15 years, and anywhere else I could find ever since—grass and pavement, wooden floors, kitchen or bathroom, under an open starlit sky in the woods.
But dressing up and dancing, both wildly, all day and all night, in the streets? Often drunk? Sometimes exposed? Just because you’re soon going to have to give up something for Lent? I was never forced to give up anything for anybody over anything like a creed, a religion.
I’d literally give the coat off my back to someone who needed it—and have. I own nothing extra other than my music collection, the black-and-white handmade cups and bowls made by sweet Anna V. who worked at Clark House Gallery for a heartbeat; a few of my Henry’s beautiful suitcoats; art supplies like rusty train-track fragments and paints; many, many books; and every piece of jewelry I have ever had. But I drive around with spare winter coats in the car, and have often given them away.
I hope when I die, the delightful young woman whose name I don’t know (I should ask) still works at Dunkin’ Donuts at the drive-through on Main Street so I know where she is. She calls me “honey” and smiles so broadly, asks how I am. Always. I want her to have some of my jewelry. That sounds like a celebration to me.
I had heard of Mardi Gras before I met Henry, but I have never been to a Mardi Gras anything—and probably never will, now that he’s gone.
Over the years, he was often back in town performing for carnival-crazy days, wandering the streets with his camera, his laughter, I am sure, cracking the air. That man could laugh!
And, oh, the stories he would tell! He grew up in the midst of music in the streets. Mardi Gras may not be a national celebration here but it sure is in Brazil, Belgium, France and Italy, Mexico, Sweden, Germany, India, Senegal, and much more. In Louisiana, it’s been a legal holiday since the 1800s.
I grew up in Boston—which always felt like a celebration to me. Music. Dance. Art. Action. Really! I easily snuck into Paul’s Mall, Jazz Workshop, Wally’s, all kinds of clubs, names I have forgotten, long before I was 21. Henry would laugh at my thinking I had experienced a wildness! “It was Boston!” he’d say.
And so, here we are coming up on Mardi Gras 2021, culminating on Tuesday, 2/16.
All indoor and outdoor bars are closed. To-go cups are banned (yup, normally you can take your drink to go and wander the streets of New Orleans, slurping away!—my inner Boston shows here). This year, certain streets (like Bourbon and French) will be closed to pedestrians because—you know—people just aren’t all that smart.
But starting at 11 a.m. (ET) on 2/13, New Orleans’s famed TIPITINA’S is showing movies (music/New Orleans-centric), free, at www.tipitinas.TV. How fabulous and generous! Plus, you can catch favorite select shows and clips from their archives running in between, including some of Henry (henrybutler.com).
- BE WELL
- STAY SAFE
- SEE THE LIGHT
- LAUGH TILL YOUR SIDES ACHE
- THERE IS JOY, SOMEWHERE IN YOUR LIFE, ALWAYS!
(photos by , or courtesy of, AJ, unless otherwise identified)