Today, a stormy Sunday here in New Orleans, we are celebrating the last day of JazzFest, preparing to party even as massive thunderstorms are predicted to roll through town. The winds have been howling at my windows all night, the citrus trees outside dropping newly-set fruit to the ground, covering my patio in a layer of tiny never-to-be-harvested lemons and limes, oranges and satsumas.
The mud will be knee-deep at the Fairgrounds site of the Fest, as fans dance in the weather and water to watch the Neville Brothers do their traditional closing act come sundown. But that there will be well over a 100,000 braving the threat of any storm, for one more chance to howl, is a certainty.
We have come to realise that is simply our destiny.
