Red Beans and Life

My mother was born in Baton Rouge, but her family moved to New Orleans when she was still a toddler, and she lived in a duplex on Audubon Street for most of her childhood. It was the house where my grandparents still lived when we visited them in New Orleans. That was her home. The New Orleans I claim as hers is the colorful and tuneful, hot and humid city of jazz musicians and live oaks and ornate wrought-iron balconies and trailing wisteria. I can picture it all—even if I can’t remember it.

Although my grandparents’ duplex was more than a hop and a skip from the French Quarter, we must have visited the Quarter, but I don’t recall doing so. I also don’t recall going to nearby Audubon Park, though a child might remember the hanging moss on the live oaks that can look like cobwebs. But I don’t remember the