Mardi Gras 2022

Some days it’s hard to face the world. It’s a mess out there. Then Mardi Gras comes around, and the parades are rolling and bands are playing and people are gathering, unlike last year. And I remember what makes New Orleans special: not so much “The City that Care Forgot” but the courage and resilience it takes to find joy, no matter what.

So I woke my family up early, put on my wig and glitter, and got out on the streets. Dressed as the TARDIS and various (loosely interpreted) incarnations of the Doctor, we found the Golden Comanches, a tribe of Black Masking Indians singing and dancing to traditional songs in their pretty new hand-beaded suits outside Tipitina’s.

After second-lining with them for awhile, we caught the Rex parade (and more beads than we could carry), making friends with strangers and bumping into folks we know and love. We gobbled a lunch of fried okra and cheese fries from local food trucks, caught more beads, then headed home to make gumbo, watch movies, and finish off the last King Cake of the season. Laissez les bons temps rouler, until next year!