Southern Comfort
For once, my Facebook newsfeed accurately portrays the world around me. My eyes are greeted by shiny gold leggings, fuzzy teddy bear onesies, and metallic-colored plastic beads hanging on every thing from people's bodies to front porches to historic oak trees interspersed between the metropolitan madness of St. Charles avenue. And Facebook.
Glittered eye-makeup, magenta lipsticks, and glow-in-the-dark bracelets hold fast to their patrons, watching the madness from the frontlines. But my eyelids,my lips, my hands and my legs are not glittered, or painted, or shivering on the parade route.
With Muses and Endymion out of the way, Sunday's Bacchus parade is just a reminder of the impending extravaganza in the days to come. But I am content with watching it from afar.
A few laps around Audubon Park, watching families dressed in green, yellow and purple clothing, and smiles to match. A night spent peeking outside the windows of the university library, watching tipsy college students giggling hysterically at everything from a stray cat's tanning session, to sexual innuendos dangling from their most recent catches.
And oddly, I am okay with it all. Being away from the madness, hiding from it almost within glass windows, typing away furiously, as though I am working on the Geneva Declaration or something. Is that what it's called? Wasn't there something about Geneva..some fancy document?
Work with me here, I'm trying to convince no one in particular, besides myself, that I am making proper use of my time. A personal victory almost, by avoiding one the most indulgent, cultural spectacles celebrated in the city of New Orleans.
But it's really weird; I don't have to do much convincing at all. I've never suffered from the Fear of Missing Out Syndrome, because it isn't catching a coveted Muses shoe or Nyx purse that makes all these people happy and high off of that very happiness (amongst other more tangible substances too, obviously). It's that feeling of community, of being a part of something so much bigger than oneself.
And I feel that fervor, that excitement in the air. I do, contrary to popular belief, feel it even within these four walls, watching the madness from afar.
Because sometimes, to value the bliss of togetherness, it is necessary to be alone. Not lonely, no. Comfortably alone.
Glittered eye-makeup, magenta lipsticks, and glow-in-the-dark bracelets hold fast to their patrons, watching the madness from the frontlines. But my eyelids,my lips, my hands and my legs are not glittered, or painted, or shivering on the parade route.
With Muses and Endymion out of the way, Sunday's Bacchus parade is just a reminder of the impending extravaganza in the days to come. But I am content with watching it from afar.
A few laps around Audubon Park, watching families dressed in green, yellow and purple clothing, and smiles to match. A night spent peeking outside the windows of the university library, watching tipsy college students giggling hysterically at everything from a stray cat's tanning session, to sexual innuendos dangling from their most recent catches.
And oddly, I am okay with it all. Being away from the madness, hiding from it almost within glass windows, typing away furiously, as though I am working on the Geneva Declaration or something. Is that what it's called? Wasn't there something about Geneva..some fancy document?
Work with me here, I'm trying to convince no one in particular, besides myself, that I am making proper use of my time. A personal victory almost, by avoiding one the most indulgent, cultural spectacles celebrated in the city of New Orleans.
But it's really weird; I don't have to do much convincing at all. I've never suffered from the Fear of Missing Out Syndrome, because it isn't catching a coveted Muses shoe or Nyx purse that makes all these people happy and high off of that very happiness (amongst other more tangible substances too, obviously). It's that feeling of community, of being a part of something so much bigger than oneself.
And I feel that fervor, that excitement in the air. I do, contrary to popular belief, feel it even within these four walls, watching the madness from afar.
Because sometimes, to value the bliss of togetherness, it is necessary to be alone. Not lonely, no. Comfortably alone.
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