New Orleans has a certain feel to it; one that can’t be found anywhere else. I would be lying if I said the air was nice and crisp, complemented by the sun gently smiling down on you, because that’s not real, and if nothing else, New Orleans is real. The air here isn’t nice and crisp, but rather humid, and for the most part, miserable. The sun is brutal and summer is nearly unbearable without air-conditioning and at least a few pounds of snow balls. Heat stroke is not uncommon because of the summer days filled with either sunbeams or hurricanes in rotation, but it’s still hard to resist going out for a bike ride, even when you know you’ll be sweating within seconds. Growing up here, I have learned that the “hard” way, but I still think it’s worth the trouble to see the oaks bloom followed by the Japanese magnolias, and even sometimes the azaleas in the dead of winter.
New Orleans is so indescribable because, in truth, it is such a distinctive and bizarre place that couldn’t be altered, not even by a corrupt government or increasing hipster population. New Orleans has shaped me more than I could ever describe on paper because I feel that I am a part of New Orleans and it is a part of me. I see that as something that could never be taken away from me, like an inherent or natural right that I will forever possess. Although city residents actually live in Louisiana, you would never know when surrounded by the New Orleans vibe. Regardless of racial, sexual, cultural or meteorological obstructions, New Orleans has agelessly stayed as cool as a cucumber.
New Orleans is ageless, although many floorboards creak in disagreement. I see my city as being ceaselessly active. New Orleans is alive in every sense of the word; awake at all hours with lights flashing, drinks sloshing and inhabitants carousing. New Orleans is as diverse as the adjectives chosen to depict it: easy, mysterious, rich without being wealthy. It cannot be embodied into one description or contained into one interpretation, in the same way that the inhabitants cannot be all jumbled into one. In the end, we are all true New Orleanians, and we even made up the word to tell the world exactly who we are.
Lillie, age 16