Mardi Gras Magic
On Joy, Fire, and Choosing Your People Anyway
💌 Dearly Beloved,
If I’m honest, I struggled to find the Mardi Gras spirit this year.
I went to the balls.
I got dressed.
I did the brunches.
I tried to catch it.
And it just… wasn’t landing.
Everything felt off.
The season.
The country.
The mood.
It felt strange to revel while the world feels like a hellified storm.
By the time Thursday arrived — Muses day — and we walked into bougie brunch, I could feel it coming.
But I wasn’t all the way there yet.
Still in my head.
Still running errands.
Still irrationally sad that Verti Marte was out of chicken salad po’boys for our ride.
And then I got on my float.
By the end of the ride? I was all in.
Not because of the beads.
Not because of the shoes.
Not because of the spectacle.
Because of the people.
The aunties waving.
The little girls screaming.
The neutral ground regulars holding court.
The exes.
The new boos.
The lawn chairs that haven’t moved in twenty years.
That’s when I remembered why it matters.
Even if you’ve never stood on a neutral ground.
Even if you’ve never caught a shoe.
You know this feeling.
The year when everything feels off.
The season when you’re not sure you have it in you.
And then — your people gather.
Maybe it’s not beads.
Maybe it’s not brass.
Maybe it’s not annual.
Maybe it’s a group chat.
A standing dinner.
A neighborhood cookout.
A faith circle.
A block you keep returning to.
Something that reminds you who you are when the headlines won’t.
And if you don’t have that?
Now is the time to build it.
We learned that the hard way during the pandemic.
That’s Carnival.
Even if you call it something else.
Annette called it Mardi Gras Magic.
Not the beads.
Not the balls.
Not the brunches.
The magic.
There was tension.
Racial residue on the float.
Relational residue in the room.
Running into all your exes with your new boo.
History in the bones.
And still?
It dissipated.
Not because people avoided it.
Because no one fed it.
That’s grown.
On Mardi Gras Saturday, trying to navigate a chaotic route, I stopped by to rest. He admitted he was homesick. He missed Carnival. He apologized for dismissing my parade.
Getting back to my friend’s house was going to take a minute. He wouldn’t let me walk alone. Grabbed his bike. Said he’d take me.
So we moved through the crowds.
Along the way, I said it plainly:
“It’s not Carnival. It doesn’t need to be. Enjoy it for what it is.”
He talked about people needing to see more of the world. I reminded him New Orleans has rituals too. People come home. Families reunite. It’s not just beads — it’s belonging.
Two blocks out, the last float had passed and there she was — the pork chop sandwich lady.
“I’m not leaving without one.”
He laughed. “I’m not in a hurry. Let’s just stand here and eat.”
So we did.
One bite of pork chop. Night air. Familiar faces. Parades letting out.
See? Magic.
J’ouvert in Trinidad carries inversion — devils in oil, bodies in mud, satire exaggerated to mock colonial ideas of purity and power. Darkness amplified not as shame, but as parody of the shame imposed on it.
In New Orleans, Zulu’s historic blackface grew from a different but connected satire — a response to exclusion, a mirror held up to minstrel caricature and white krewes. Complicated. Contested. Context-bound.
Carnival traditions travel. But meaning doesn’t travel untouched.
They are kin. They are not the same. And that’s fine.
Red beans simmer.
Fried chicken lands on the table — homemade if you want, but here you can throw a rock and hit Keys, Popeyes, Gentilly Chicken, or somebody’s cousin with a fryer and a line down the block.
Carnival doesn’t fix everything.
It just puts it in the street.
I went to a Bacchus brunch uptown.
I was one of three people of color in the room.
The spread was beautiful.
The conversations were easy.
And I noticed something.
Even with integration — pushed forward by Dorothy Mae Taylor — there are still parallel Mardi Gras worlds.
Not hostile.
Just separate.
For some people, instability feels new. For others, it’s familiar choreography.
Yes, I saw the chatter.
“Muses was stingy.”
Float packages were smaller.
Tariffs don’t skip Carnival.
The decorated shoes from the Krewe of Muses are handmade. Time-intensive. Labors of love.
Throws are gifts.
Not guarantees.
Entitlement is loud.
Gratitude glows.
And then there were the racist throws.
Folks doubled down.
And folks got shut down. People were removed from floats.
Immediately.
In a combustible year, doubling down on joy with your people — and people who suddenly become your people — is radical.
That’s Mardi Gras Magic, too.
Not pretending ugliness doesn’t show up. But refusing to let it ride.
On Mardi Gras Day, Soca hit Frenchmen.
The same man who’d been shrugging all weekend? Came outside.
Because bass humbles ego.
The real magic?
Reggaeton in the middle of the street with my girls.
Running into every version of your past.
Standing next to your present.
Nobody spiraling.
Calling it early-ish.
(Which in New Orleans means before sunrise but after reason.)
Ash Wednesday.
Finish the Dominican rum.
Creole chicken and rice.
Red beans reheated.
Debrief with the homie-homies.
Take a walk to the other homie.
Drink champagne you absolutely had no business opening — and open it anyway.
Knowing when to call it is grown.
Next year, I turn 50.
One of my Five for 50 plans was simple:
Carnival in Trinidad. Period.
Melissa said, “Girl, are you crazy? We’re riding our ride. Then we’re not sleeping. Then we’re getting on a plane and going to Trinidad. Period.”
That’s what’s happening.
Carnival when the world is on fire is necessary.
For some people, the fire feels new.
For folks in the diaspora, it’s always been burning.
We took the Orishas and assigned them to saints.
We braided freedom into ritual.
We disguised resistance as revelry.
Joy isn’t pretending.
It’s practice.
See you in Port of Spain.
🧾 This Is Cribnotes
Field notes from the front porch.
Where culture meets context.
Where joy gets interrogated but not diminished.
Where grown folks refuse to combust.
Where red beans reheat.
Where glitter settles.
Stay fresh.
Stay free.
Stay in the Cipher.
— K. Jones 💜💛💚
"Not because of the beads ... because of the people." Bravo! This was beautifully put. Thank you for sharing it with us.