Travel Blog
Dancing in the Streets of New Orleans as a Woman with Anxiety
Just because I’m anxious doesn’t mean I don’t have fun
My heart began to race. Do it, I told myself. Let your wild out. The pumpings of blood through the muscles of my heart repeated their maddening THUDs and made me feel the urgency of a fist on a door in the middle of the night that throws me out of bed to answer its call.
My breath was shallow, my palms two melting clams under crashing surf.
And then, I danced.
I swayed toward the blind man as if he could see and his bluesy song gave my hips rhythm. He laughed with his belly and I danced low to meet him. I felt the Earth as grimy cement beneath my knees. His arm went around my shoulders as he continued to sing and I became a part of his song.
French Quarter love
Walking along the streets of The French Quarter is the best kind of travel treat. It can be busy and loud — the kind of stimulation I have to prepare for — but the stimulation is worth it. This part of the city shows the best and worst in a dance that is heartwarming and entirely human.
The combination is one-of-a-kind.
NOLA is a mecca of creativity. The art is vibrant, expressive, and colorful with deep, emotional roots. The food is cozy and full of butter, fat, life, history, and joy. The music is honest and passionate and passes from the sorrow of death to the bliss of breath in an instant.
To walk along the streets of the French Quarter, where every bit of this colorful, enthusiastic, impulsive combination is on display with no apologies given or taken, is a lesson in the journey of life as I would like to live it.
The grin of the blues
When my travel companions and I came upon this singer and his cohort, I stood in the gutter listening to his tuneful tales with a mischievous grin. This is the grin of the blues. It comes only with knowledge of tragedy and the strain of groovy words that give the one who would wear it the smirk of a crazy person.
But it’s not crazy. Not really. It is a kind of insanity to be sure, an optimism held with a whitening grip through a blur of tears. The insanity allows the grinner to see that there is song-worthy good in a life that is hard and that some songs are the product of a life full of so many struggles that one must sing about them to carry on.
The surprise
Before the thud began, I thought to donate a small sum to this man’s life and his music so that others could hear it another day and be moved, but instead my heart took to thudding and thudded: “MORE, I AM MORE” and I danced.
Under the soft, fleshy shoulder of my new friend, I moved with him.
We grooved and we swayed and we laughed until his song was done.
A thudding heart is a thriving heart. I was not brave throughout; I became unsure and tried to back myself out a few times. I wonder today how I found the courage to dance.
This story is almost 4 years old and I still do not know how I did it. I didn’t even know what I was doing as I did it. What I am coming to know of thudding is this:
When I say “yes” to my thudding heart, it is less a “yes” than it is a letting go of “no”.
Releasing my wild
When I travel, my heart often thuds to release a hidden, awakening inner wild that becomes clearer to me as I grow in confidence and awareness. I have come to know it as a welcome surprise today, but when it first happened, I was afraid.
To truly let go of my critical thinking in favor of my inner wild feels dangerous and foolish and all sorts of words that mean I’m doing life wrong. And yet, I treasure the moment when I danced toward the blind man as if he could see, to drop a dollar or two in his pickle bucket but then stayed.
It turns out my dollar wasn’t the reason I swayed or became or smirked like the sassy, hopeful realist that I am.
I needed to let go, to let my wild out, to surprise myself so that I could feel more alive, more brave, more foolish, more connected, and then more grateful than I ever felt before.
How beautiful a gift is my memory, especially when it is full with my wild responses to a thudding heart.
My dance started as a single note that rolled through the streets of New Orleans. The smooth, soul-baring sound turned the sides of my mouth into a smirk that lit my blue eyes to blazing. That same smile comes to my lips now and I feel it. My heart is speaking with every word.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Sometimes — most times, really — when I surprise myself, I live to tell the tale. What I didn’t know until today is that when I tell my story, I surprise myself again.
I’m Brett Jenae Tomlin, The Anxious Enthusiast.
If you love, love, love my writing and want to shout out, “You get it, anxious girl!” You can contribute to my cookbook collection here or join Medium to put your own stamp on the web and the world. I get a little love if you use my link ^^
