Fat Tuesday began as the morning after the night before. We had not been all that indulgent, but I woke up feeling my body could use a break from food and drink and nightlife and promised myself a fast. Then it hit me, I am ready for Lent. But we still had one more day to go. My friends were planning to leave that day, which made sense because the Mardi Gras itself is like Christmas. After weeks of lead-up and celebration, most people wind down and celebrate with a big feast at home. I was told that even the French Quarter shuts down as the afternoon winds down. I saw my friends off from the hotel and airport and then headed out in my rental car to join a relative of my friends to take in the Zulu parade, New Orleans’ historically African-American crewe.
Because so much of our group was gone, we joined this parade at the end of the route. This was my first daytime parade and I was experiencing my first hot day. Floats, well-coiffed women, tuxedo-ed men, and people of multiple races in blackface marched and floated by accompanied by marching bands, but I was buried in the crowd rather than standing on a sidewalk, so my pictures wound up being a disappointment.
I have to admit, this was a tough parade to unpack, between the blackface and the representations of Africa that most would perceive as racist or, at least, essentialist. I’m a good folklorist, and I’ve read my Bakhtin, so I know about inversion and the carnivalesque. But as a spectator, it was hard to put aside my cultural conditioning, particularly when I was a bit tired and dehydrated. I longed for a guide to explain it to me, perhaps King Spike Lee would make it make sense. But he was busy, so the best I could do was enjoy the music and the floats of women and men dressed up for the ritual and the welcoming folks from the neighborhood and remind myself of the historic context. Next time, I vowed, I will find a higher place to stand and come equipped with more knowledge. And maybe start out better hydrated.
At Zulu, the tradition is to throw coconuts, but there are limits on that now because they can actually can cause harm. I got my hands on a few sets of beads, but on the rare occasion I reached a coconut, I handed it off to a child because it was even harder for them to catch in the crowd.
As the parade ended, I decided it was time to make my way out of Mardi Gras rather than head further in. I, along with others I spoke to that day, had reached the end of my feasting. It was time for fasting. I found my rental car in the post office lot where I had left it and headed an hour and a half away to spend the night in Houma, where I immediately collapsed asleep on my hotel bed with Harry Connick playing on the television in the background. If I did not need to put food in my stomach in preparation for fasting on Ash Wednesday, I would not have bothered climbing out to fetch dinner.
It had been a great Mardi Gras in New Orleans, full of parades and friends and food and drink. I am grateful for the experience.