Had a little interaction today – a few of them actually! – but two in particular I can’t stop thinking about.

My first stop in the Quarter was to historic Leah’s Pralines. After the two families waiting before me did their business and left, I was alone in the shop (finally!) and took my time making a decision. The gentleman at the counter offered me kitchen samples of all of the pralines they’d made that day, and even though I’d JUST made my final selections, I impulse bought a piece of fudge that was side-eyeing me from a glass cake dome next to the register. “Yessss, honey. Foe tha woalk,” he quickly reassured me, and sent me on my way, treated with delicious candies and a little taste of that one-of-a-kind Black Cajun accent that was even sweeter.

One of my LAST stops in the Quarter was at the corner of Bourbon and Bienville. A sport-coated brass player sat there on a folding chair busking. Pretty typical for Bourbon most nights, but “in these unprecedented times,” he was the only one I saw outside of Jackson Square, so I stopped mostly to get my bearings again for a second, but also because the sight and sound of him made my spirit glad. He came to the end of his song not too long after I got settled, and when he put his horn back to his lips, I felt the wind knocked out of me. Of all the songs in the world, he started playing the one Whitney Houston song I’d added to a list of tracks for my Daddy. WHITNEY HOUSTON. ON FLUGELHORN.

Y’ALL.

This city.

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where i wandered: