It’s day five at New Orleans and the fear I had of running out of things to do has disappeared. This city was Tennessee Williams’ home and muse. Streetcar Named Desire was born here. Vieux Carré, Glass Menagerie - his fragile female characters on the verge of nervous breakdowns are from here. In the quietly manic streets of French Quarters, I too can imagine how one can slowly lose their grip on reality, give into their senses and desires in this all enveloping humidity, adopt a spirit of no tomorrow and only today, and commune with the melancholy ghosts that haunt the city.

Capote, Hemingway, Faulkner all stayed at Hotel Monteleone. You feel inspired - the music can be found at the Spotted Cat on Frenchmen St at 2PM, 6PM, 9PM. You can have a cocktail with lunch and for dinner, and sober up with Café Au Lait in between. Somehow in this up and down madness, inspiration does find you. And you think to yourself this is what being an artist is: a cycle of self-loathing, ambition, and inspiration.

My fingers trembled at the keyboard when Chris Christy, a jazz musician playing at the Spotted Cat, told me to go play something on the piano while the band took a smoke break. The shame and vulnerability I felt while tinkering with the keys trying to remember Fur Elise, the one song I can play from memory; the shattering of an illusion - the piano looked easy and tempting until I got up there to play; the absolute terror… I turned around and almost everyone had left. One drunk dad from Norcal gave me a pity compliment, “Keep it up, ya did great!” and his empty eyes made me feel worse. I put on a brave face walking out of the jazz club and then called my brother who said this experience was good for me.

It’s jarring to be in a European city without Europeans, to suddenly enter a Catholic Church in the middle of the town square and feel inspired to pray. Even scents at a perfumery feels heightened here when mixed with sweat on your sticky and warm skin. Everything is tangible, edible, eclectic, and overwhelming. I mean, just look at the amount of powdered sugar on your beignets. This is a city of excess.

It’s good to know that if I ever feel the urge for inspiration, I can seek out live jazz on the Frenchmen St. There are so many couples here, but it’s not really a city for lovers. It’s a city for artists.

Some thoughts for the visitors: The buildings are lovely but only when the streets are quieter. The beignets are good but not from Café Du Monde, but rather at Café Beignet. Get two perfumes and two colognes at Hové that smell better than all the perfumes in a department store, and only cost $33 instead of $133. Be careful of Sazerac Cocktails - they are strong. Eat at Galatoire’s and Commander’s Palace if you can get a reservation. Wear masks, there’s people coughing from residual COVID. Do return to Spotted Cat to check out great musicians. Bring cash to tip musicians. And wear a sports bra on a hot day - walking makes you sweat. And dab some cologne you just bought behind your ears, neck, and wrists because why not? You will feel feminine and sensual and it goes with the spirit of the French Quarters in all its pastel glory.