This thing from your heart crawled into my bones

There's a name for my condition.

(No, not my genuine medical condition, but the state of my mental health.)

It's called "NOLAgoraphobia."

I learned about this from a Times-Picayune columnist, who spoke with a self-diagnosed NOLAgoraphobiac: "I apparently have internalized the entire city as my home and thus am as nervous about leaving the city as a conventional agoraphobiac is about leaving his house," Huey says. "It creeps me out to leave town. It's such a comfort factor here. Whenever I'm driving home, I always feel good. I can't wait to get back."

To the possible disappointment of my west-coast readership, I feel the same. Even when I leave the city for suburbia, my heart lifts when I cross back into Orleans Parish. The columnist points out that "true Orleanians" feel their immune system start to break down when going long periods of time without our red beans, po-boys, gumbo and shrimp. To that I add this: My spirit starts to break down without the constant hellos of strangers on the street. It needs a steady diet of Spanish colonial architecture, live oaks and the smell of jasmine.

NOLAgoraphobics become disoriented when they leave their city. We try to ask for go-cups in the bars, and policemen step closer and follow when we approach our vehicles. We drive, disheartened, through neighborhoods, looking for a corner shop and not a chain-restaurant. We even become confused when we drive down smooth streets or arrive at an event ten minutes late to find that it has already started.

It worries me at times, this self-diagnosed condition. But then I pop a Louisiana strawberry in my mouth, or become involved in a fifteen minute discussion when tourists ask which restaurant nearby they should visit, or scoot my way through the Vieux Carre, or stop for a conversation with my neighbor, or just sit on my back patio and watch the butterflies hovering over the banana tree, and I no longer remember why I'm worried about having such intense feelings for a city that is clearly courted by many who may possess charms greater than mine.



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