A few mornings ago, the cat woke me up at 5:30 a.m.

I was momentarily annoyed. It was dark enough outside to need the kitchen light, as I threw a can of cat food at his bowl. I stared down at him, while he woofed wet paté––this small creature, sounding like a full-grown man with sleep apnea.

I pushed off the idea of crawling back into bed and left the house with a thermos of coffee and my camera. I drove my usual, normal-life route to the Bywater. Any morning before this pandemic, I would have likely gone to Capulet, to work on some story assignment, bolstered by their high-octane coffee and breakfast tacos and fast Wi-Fi.

We don’t live in that world any longer. We’d need a time machine to locate the normalcy of an average morning, in an average coffee shop.

That sentence guts me.

I turned on Howard Stern like I always do, and drove the busted-ass blocks of Chartres, down past the levee. The Mississippi River was doing her thing on the other side of it. I was doing mine. A tiny moment of travel. Some street art at dawn. Clouds and yellow sunbeams. The puffs of gnats, busy with their 24-hour lifespans, hovering over the grass. Chainlink fences and rusted cars. Aperture and shutter speed.

I circled back to the French Quarter, to the world’s most photographed neighborhood, where hibiscus and Caribbean colors draw tourists like morning gnats. I passed two of my neighbors. I believe there are only about 50 of us in this neighborhood. We, the permanent dwellers, wander like zombies. Everyone has left. It’s quieter than church now in the French Quarter. It has been for months.

Mardi Gras seems something that happened to another species. We’d need a time machine to ever go back, and some sort of memory eraser.

I’m thankful for the birds and the flowers, for the palm trees and the lukewarm, soft mornings. I’m thankful that the cat woke me up, because despite everything that’s going on, the hibiscus are still blooming and some sweet soul painted, “Keep That Chin Up. This too shall pass,” 10-feet high for us all to remember.