the music to this montage is streaming in my head

Sitting in Stanley, finally having another meal I'd always meant to. I'm not a fan of breakfast, but banana's foster french toast seemed too good to never know. Looking through the windows out into Jackson square, seeing the tourists wander by while the waitress asks each new table where they are from. It's one of those "tourist in your own town" moments.

Driving down Prytania with the top down, the sunlight breaks through the branches of impossible oak tree's as I pass beneath them and I think to myself; "no matter where in the world I go, when I think back on New Orleans, this is what I'll think of".

Walking through the quarter and onward to Frenchman, past the large group of tours blocking the sidewalk, I hear make-believe or exaggerated history and my friend and I smile knowing the difference; the tour guide seems to know we know because she loses her pace as we pass.

Live music at a bar on Frenchman street. It's not the sort that I would choose to listen to typically, but it seems right, in the moment. I have drinks with an old friend, the man behind the bar used to work with us.

I have an amazing sandwich at a little restaurant around the corner from my doctors office. It's covered in hollandaise sauce and is undoubtedly bad for me, but it's delicious. It strikes me as a funny sort of thing to have next to a doctors office; like having a cigar shop next to an asthma specialist. It's good, but more than I can handle and I forget the rest of it after having carefully wrapped it to take with.

Laying in bed with the french doors open to the night sky. Flashes of lightening and the sound of rain falling gently (but I know there is a storm coming soon). I can't help but love this place and even if I did try not to, there would be some little reminder waiting to convince me that everything here is beautiful in it's own way.

All of these moments happened within two days. Each of them passed and were gone so quickly, but they make me think of a quote:

“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it”
Confucius

I'm determined to see it, but I've admittedly got some help. In a city like New Orleans I'd think that it would be a greater challenge to fail to see beauty than to see it; there's something beautiful everywhere.