Perpetual Care, Presbytere, & Paintings

            This morning was actually not as hard to wake up for as I figured it would be. Following a free day that was full of activity, laughter, and fun followed by a late night up finishing a blog, I was pooped out and could have slept for 24 plus hours. I was a sloth with every movement. My fingers moved in slow motion to each key I needed to tap. Typing the word “and” would take me about five seconds. I am not kidding. Do it yourself and you’ll sense what I am talking about. My blinks were fluid and slow. I could feel my eyelids coat each little portion of my eyeball as they came together. I am not even sure if they actually touched each other because my body was so exhausted to even have them come together. Once I clicked “Publish” on Blogger, I closed my laptop, tossed to the other side of the pull out couch, bundled myself in the thin white sheet and my small Dallas Cowboys throw blanket like a cocoon and passed out.

            I woke up from my alarm at the first note and turned it off. I have only ever heard the ringtone as my alarm for waking up, so I have grown a strong negative connotation to the sound. This could be why I shoot up and turn it off so quickly because I can’t stand to hear it any longer than I have to. If I chose a jolly ring then I would not mind hearing it, therefore leaving me to lie with my eyes closed and possibly slipping into slumber again. Anyway, I woke up and sprayed some dry shampoo in my hair, leaving a thin gray coat. After running my fingers through and tousling it the dusty tint disappeared. I threw on plenty of clothes to get bundled up in because today was going to be a freezing one! There was a freeze warning sent out for the city which was interesting to me. The temperature high for that day was 39 degrees and the low was 25. In Illinois we don’t have a freeze warning unless the weather is under 10 degrees and with sleet and snow. I just thought it was fascinating that these two areas have different concepts for what “freezing temps” means.

            The moment I stepped out into the frigid air I knew that this tour we were about to take was going to test my body in its ability to maintain its core temperature. I have an intolerance to cold of which I was diagnosed with by my doctor. We are not certain as to the exact reason why, but my doctor attributed it to my slight iron anemia. Throughout the tour, I was shivering from head to toe and finding ways to warm up. I warned a friend of my cold intolerance so that just in case something were to happen (which I did not think anything would anyway) that they would be able to help. 40 degrees was just about what I could handle. If it was any less there may have been an issue in which I would have notified an instructor, but as I said I was just fine.

            We started our morning bright and early at 8 a.m. to start a quite informative tour. We started with learning about the significance of Jackson Square. Firstly, the Pontalba buildings standing on either side of the Square were built by Micaela Almonester Pontalba, daughter of Andres Almonester y Rojas, were the first apartments created in the area and some of the first in the entire country. The cast iron railings are bent to have Micaela’s first letter of her first last name (A) and her second (P) intertwined at each section. While interesting, there was much more significant history to the city to learn about to me today.

            Next, we went to visit St. Louis Cemetery #1. This cemetery contained so many beautiful above ground tombs. The thought of that is pretty spooky to me. They also said that for each tomb they can fit 18-20 bodies, meaning they allow the deceased to decompose for one year then place their skeleton in a bag and place it behind the marble gravestone. It gave me goosebumps to think about, but those thoughts whisked away rather quickly as this cemetery was beautiful in its own way. There were people buried here that date back to the days that malaria and yellow fever were in outbreaks and those people passed from it.

            We were able to see Nicholas Cage’s tomb that he had built for himself, even though he has not passed yet. He fell in love with the city and has chosen to leave his mark here.

Nicholas Cage's pyramid tomb. The slab reads "All for One"

            Another thing I noticed was that some of the tombs had small plaques placed in front of them, including Cage’s. The plaque would read “Perpetual Care.” I learned that this meant that these people or their family members have paid an extra fee for the workers to keep up with the maintenance of that tomb. You can see how well the Perpetual Care tombs were kept versus those that have no one to care for them, whether that’s because it could not be afforded or if all of the members of the family line have passed away.

An extremely old tomb that was not under Perpetual Care

            The last part of the tour was visiting Congo Square. This is where slaves would meet on Sundays and maybe even their holidays off to play their music of their heritage. This was a great way for them to remain positive in their lives as this was an outlet for them from their slave lives. There were times that meeting in this park was banned and then reestablished; and I am glad that it did get reestablished as it had led to great advancements in jazz music.

            Later, we were able to go to the Presbytere Museum. This building had the upstairs dedicated to Mardi Gras, but that area was a complete blur to me. I was most amazed by the downstairs of the museum, completely dedicated to Hurricane Katrina. This is a topic that I have heard about, but never truly understood the amount of disaster that it caused. Walking through the museum gave me more and more goosebumps the farther I went through it. I could not get myself to walk with others or to smile and joke around while in the exhibit. I chose to walk by myself at my own pace to take in the entire thing. The first-hand accounts of the people that made it out of the city, of those who could not leave, of those taking shelter at the Superdome, and of the first responders made it feel so surreal. Hearing words from those who were there and experienced such a tragedy and lived through it was quite tragic. There is no way that I could ever come back from something like that. 

           Though I was emotional through the whole tour, I was holding back tears at one point. There was a real garage door from an actual home that was marked with the X. There were no bodies found in the home, but two cats were found alive and one dog was found dead. I have an overwhelming love for animals and I could not imagine the heartbreaking loss that this family was going through. My eyes were filled with tears. If someone saw me and asked, “What’s wrong?” I know that I would have cried the Nile River. I am so grateful to have been able to tour the Presbytere and learn about Katrina in a way that I have never learned about it before.

            Lastly today I picked up a piece of street art from an artist in Jackson Square. Pictures are located below. I will write about the piece as well as the artist in another post.