The drumbeats carry all the way to our wraparound porch on 33rd, steady and insistent, only a few short blocks from the parade route lined thick along 25th. Mardi Gras has arrived and with it the island braces for a weekend of unabashed celebration. Sirens from fire engines slice through the rhythm of a normally peaceful Saturday morning, signaling the commencement of revelry. Golf carts weave through traffic with reckless joy, and the whole island seems to pulse with permission to celebrate, to drink, and to partake in what would be considered forbidden at almost any other time of year. Celebration hangs in the air like humidity before a storm, heavy and expectant. Those who spend the year measured and composed now rise to the occasion, loosening collars and laughter alike, throwing caution aside as if it were a coat no longer needed. Spring is beckoning, and the island is beginning to stir in response.
I find myself watching the shift with curiosity rather than judgment. What is it within the human condition that longs for a sanctioned moment to break form and taste what is usually forbidden? We move through most days bound by invisible agreements about who we should be and how we should behave, and then a parade rolls through town celebrating a ritual whose origins few of us pause to consider, one that occurs just before a season of fasting and reflection. It feels almost Roman in its rhythm, a final banquet before restraint, a feast laid out before the quiet of Lent. Why do we surge outward before we turn inward? What are we trying to exhaust before we attempt to be still?
Adi and I recently, in a way that felt almost extemporaneous, found ourselves stepping into a fast. It unfolded so subtly that I barely realized it was happening. We had made it through most of last Sunday without eating, and when we finally noticed, we looked at one another and decided to see how long we could continue. Each morning we would quietly assess where we were, and each evening we would check in again, and with a gentle nod agree to go one more day. Four days passed as we set food aside as a form of prayer.
The first day came and went with surprising ease. Because we never set a hard deadline and never formally declared that we were fasting, it felt lighter somehow. There was no finish line to chase and nothing to prove. We simply chose not to eat and carried on with the natural rhythm of the day. By the second day we began to notice how often we reached for food out of habit rather than hunger. The clock would hint that it was time, or a thought would drift in without invitation, and we could see how conditioned the impulse had become.
We were not trying to deny the body or measure our will. We only wanted to draw nearer to God and clear enough space to hear what is usually buried beneath appetite and routine. When you step back from constant consumption, even briefly, the mind grows steadier and the inner world feels less crowded. That inward quiet now rests in gentle contrast to the extemporaneous surge of sound and celebration rising from the street below our porch.
As I have grown older, what once felt harmless and carefree now carries a different texture, not heavier but more layered. I do not look at the celebration with disapproval, only with a softer and more attentive gaze. When we gather like this and loosen every boundary, what exactly are we participating in? What are we opening ourselves to when we call it festivity? Ritual has always meant more than the surface suggests, and traditions rarely begin where we think they do. Are these simply harmless customs handed down through time, or are they echoes of something older that we no longer fully understand? Beneath the beads and music, beneath the sanctioned indulgence, is there a deeper current moving through us. Are we remembering something ancient, or are we summoning something we have forgotten how to name.
Perhaps it is not rebellion we crave, but relief. There is a deep tension that builds when instinct is kept on a short leash for too long. The drums feel like an ancient signal that says you may remember your body now, you may laugh too loudly, you may let desire rise without apology. Beneath the beads and noise there is a longing to feel alive without restraint, to touch the edges of our own shadow and return safely before morning.
The question lingers long after the music fades. Are we tempted by what is prohibited because it is dangerous, or because it reminds us that we are more than the roles we perform. And yet a quieter question follows close behind it, one I hold gently even as I ask it. What do we give up in exchange for all this permission? In the rush of noise and indulgence, do we drift even slightly from God, or do we simply forget to listen.
Maybe these weekends of abandon are not only about excess, but about a longing to feel free and fully alive. Maybe they are an honest attempt to step outside the tightness of routine, to laugh, to belong, to release what has been held too long. I do not pretend to know the full meaning of it. I can only notice what rises within me as the music swells and the streets fill.
Perhaps the invitation is simply to remain aware. To ask ourselves what we are aligning with as we celebrate, and what we might be setting aside in the process. Freedom may not be something granted by a calendar at all. It may be something we carry quietly, something that can remain intact even in the middle of the music, if we choose to stay attentive to the stillness that never leaves us.
And when the beads are gathered and the last float has passed, when the music thins and the porch grows quiet again, what remains in you? Not the memory of the noise, but the imprint it left behind. Did the celebration carry you further from yourself, or did it reveal something honest and human that had been waiting for air? As Lent approaches and the world gently turns inward, perhaps the real reflection is not about what you gave up or what you indulged, but about what stayed steady beneath it all.
