I couldn’t control my face when we landed. Big smile.

I inhaled the familiar air, heavy with humidity and ghosts. Like breathing moss. Hello, old girl. I’m back. Greetings from the prairie. Turn off the news. Ignore the messages. And rules, what rules?

It’s impossible to draw New Orleans in precise lines. It’s Dali upside down. It’s Jackson Pollack. Who knows what’s right side up? Paint spilled and lines blurred. Picasso in his Blues Period. Impressionists. Degas after seven glasses of absinth. Peter Max doing cartwheels down the hall.

In the Carousel Lounge, a tall, handsome black man stood riveted by the singer.

Nayo Jones was slinky, supple, immensely gifted, and the band was tight. “Like a young Ella,” the beaming man with a drink in his hand said to me.

The tall man had moved to the stage by then, close to the singer. Smitten. We were all hopelessly shipwrecked by this siren.

In the coming days, we slurped oysters, quaffed summer shandy, and drank in the sound of street musicians channeling Louie. There were dark Voodoo bluesmen and everyone seemed to do a version of “Killing Me Softly.” What black-mailable thing could Roberta Flack possibly have on New Orleans? Are they with the Russians, too?

At the Hotel Monteleone, where F. Scott Fitzgerald, Capote, Hemingway, Stephen Ambrose and Tennessee Williams once roamed the halls like night creatures, we talked about writing. I think it was Faulkner who put his hand on my shoulder, leaning in, nodding in silent agreement.

The paint drips and smears. Some new recipe every day.

You could get a contact high from the skunky-sweet smoke of illegal things. Illegal in the sense it’s a $40 fine if they decide it’s worth the bother. Women danced provocatively, as the sax player blasted away.

My accomplice danced in the street, long mane flowing, head thrown back, shimmying beside the open door. My God, she was beautiful.

On Saturday, we stood with tens of thousands for Stevie Wonder, who implored us to love someone. And, if our hearts were big enough, to love everyone. “But don’t fall for the bullshit!” Worthy of a bumper sticker these days, or even a tattoo. A splendid hispanic tot couldn’t help herself and bounced in her stroller to “Superstition,” much to the glee of her parents.

We did as much as we could — couldn’t ever do it all, anyway. Not and live.

On Sunday, we reluctantly packed our bags, checked our smart phones for the dumb news, still indifferent to what had transpired while time stopped in the French Quarter.

Tee shirts for the kids. Earrings for mom for Mother’s Day. Cigars, hot sauce and refrigerator magnets. And memories. We brought them all back home after all.

Except Faulkner. He’s working on some new thing. Room 680. There’s a “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the knob. But you can conjur him up with a mint julep.

No one’s ever too busy in the Big Easy.

© Tony Bender, 2017