Carnival

The streets were littered with discarded beads - gold, green, purple, some with flashing lights, some with huge, fancy attachments.. It was the aftermath of a parade and somehow there was a sad nostalgia in the air, as if the floats had come and gone and left emptiness behind. Parade goers in all manner of Mardi Gras costumes strolled back to their homes and their parties, driveways were aglow with small bonfires and small groups gathered around them. It was bitterly cold and alcohol induced warmth was everywhere. Music shouted from houses and traffic began to gratefully unsnarl. By the bayou, the ducks kept to the water, wary of the festivities and resentful of the noise and the decorated but infringing gangs of humans. Weary police, patience tested to the breaking point, swung flashlights and ducked beads as they shouted orders to the crowds and the recalcitrant drivers trying to navigate through barricades and closed streets. The parade had come and gone and left it's debris behind.

Mardi Gras is the season of celebration prior to Lent - a prolonged and extravagant excuse for every kind of wretched excess before the holy season of Easter. Carnival colors - purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power - appear everywhere in our part of Louisiana, on faces, on dogs, on cars, on houses, on costumes and floats, on balconies and trees and babies. Nothing is safe from being decorated or painted or draped. Mardi Gras mania overtakes the community and overwhelms the senses with its music and madness and there are endless parties, parades, and costume balls. Carnival is a fierce competition for overindulgence.

The sanity of Lent is welcomed with open arms.