STILL WARM ON JONQUIL.

Still Warm on Jonquil Street

A Porch Side Reflection on Purpose, Loss, and the Kind of Wealth That Don’t Follow You Home.

By Kateb Shunnar

New Orleans will teach you things without ever pulling you aside. It don’t sit you down nice and neat. It lets life bump into you, shoulder first, and waits to see if you paying attention. This city hums with lessons. In the sidewalks. In the kitchens. In the way joy and grief walk arm in arm like they been knowing each other forever.

Life here look like celebration on the surface. Music loud. Colors bold. Laughter spilling out of open doors. But underneath all that shine is a quiet reminder ticking like an old watch somebody forgot to wind. None of this stays. Not the noise. Not the applause. Not even the hurt.

My grandmother Celestine knew that. She sat in that old house at 2688 Jonquil like she owned time itself. The place had a language. Floors groaning every time you stepped too heavy. Windows sighing when the breeze got nosy. Walls holding secrets they never repeated. She’d rock slow, staring past the porch like she was watching something the rest of us couldn’t see, and say this life is a parade. Pretty while it passing. Gone before you sweep up the mess.

At fifteen, I thought she was just talking because life hadn’t treated her fancy. I figured money would change her tune. I thought wisdom was what showed up when dreams didn’t.

I had it backwards.

She said folks spend their days measuring themselves like tape won’t ever run out. Who got more. Who louder. Who winning. Who kids doing better. Who house bigger. Who car shinier. She said it grow quick like weeds after rain, then dry up just as fast. I nodded like I understood. I didn’t. I wanted proof. I wanted shine. I wanted something I could point at and say see, I made it.

New Orleans said alright. Watch close.

This city taught me through funerals where brass bands play joy and sorrow at the same time. Through hurricanes that turn strangers into kin overnight. Through losses that sit heavy long after the food trays empty and the house go quiet.

I chased money thinking it would hush the noise inside me. All it did was turn the volume up. Whatever already living in you start talking louder. I’ve seen folks get rich and stay hollow. Seen people win arguments and lose their gentleness. Ego make a terrible pillow. You can’t rest your head there without waking up sore.

Real wealth don’t sparkle. It settle. It feel like being able to sit with yourself without reaching for something to numb you. It feel like having people who know your mess and still show up. It feel like calm creeping in once you stop pretending.

That house on Jonquil was wealthy in ways banks don’t understand. It had warmth. Patience. Stories baked into the walls. My grandmother didn’t just feed bodies. She fed spirits. She listened like time owed her money. She corrected you without shrinking you. She laughed like somebody who already survived worse than whatever you stressing about.

She also told stories that lived halfway between truth and myth. That’s how New Orleans pass wisdom. Nobody ever say where it start. You just know it been here.

She once told me about the Man Who Collected Tomorrow. Said he lived near the river, always planning, always stacking, always saying one day I’ll slow down, one day I’ll love better, one day I’ll live. Folks said he kept tomorrow in jars lined up on shelves, saving them for later. One night a storm came through and washed his house clean away. When they found the jars downstream, every single one was empty. She looked at me and said baby, tomorrow don’t keep.

Another time she talked about the Lady of the Back Steps. Said she only show up to folks who had everything except peace. She’d sit quiet, never speak, just hum low like a kettle about to boil. Folks who ignored her stayed restless. Folks who sat and listened started remembering who they were before the world told them who to be. I asked if she ever saw her. She smiled and said more than once.

Loss taught me folklore ain’t just stories. It’s instruction.

I lost my Paw Paw, a man whose silence carried weight. Lost my firstborn at nine days, a pain that don’t announce itself but still knock. Lost a cousin the same day we buried my grandmother, like grief wanted to make sure I understood it wasn’t finished. Lost my peace. Lost my bearings. Lost my mother. Lost myself trying to be strong when what I really needed was stillness.

But somewhere in all that losing, something else happened. I stopped pretending. I stopped sprinting. I started listening.

Death don’t care about your résumé. It don’t care how right you were. It ask one question. What mattered.

That’s why that old story about Alexander the Great linger with me. Not the conquering part. The ending. Doctors carrying his body. Gold scattered like dirt. Hands open and empty. Even kings leave with nothing but breath. Time the only thing we never get back.

We spend it reckless. Chasing approval. Proving points nobody remember. Grinding ourselves thin while the people who love us learn how to stop waiting. Then one day the mirror look different and the clock sound louder.

I ain’t saying money useless. I like comfort. I like security. But money a servant, not a throne. Soon as you kneel to it, it start asking for pieces of you that don’t grow back.

New Orleans taught me joy live in small corners. Front porch talks that stretch past sunset. Neighbors knocking with food you didn’t earn but needed. A brass band warming up down the block like hope clearing its throat. Rain hitting hot pavement. These moments stitch you back together.

Purpose don’t arrive with fireworks. Sometimes it whisper. Sometimes it nag. Sometimes it sit heavy in your chest till you finally admit you hear it. Mine is writing. Being a scribe. Leaving little lights where I can. Trusting small flames still count.

Legacy ain’t monuments or money. It’s how you walk. How you listen. How you care without keeping score. Legacy is what people feel when your name come up and you not in the room.

I still stumble. Still contradict myself. Still have days where doubt sit next to me like it pay rent. But I’m learning not to abandon myself chasing shine. I’m learning affection last longer than applause. Compassion outlive conquest. Being right ain’t worth being alone.

I want to tell the universe that bore me I showed up. That I carried my purpose even when it got heavy. That I was a tealight in the dark. I don’t need status or spectacle to feel rich. I feel full in ways a dollar can’t explain.

If you tired, sit down. If you lost, breathe. You more than what you own. More than what you prove. Find your people. Feed your spirit. Let the rest fall where it may.

Life short. Life sacred. Life not meant to be spent rummaging for worth in other folks trash. Step off the wheel. Laugh loud. Care deep. Give freely. And when the music fade, let your soul still know the rhythm.

I'm Not Perfect I have My Flaws

But I will never give in or up to being better

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