I Climbed Down Different
On generosity, belonging, and the work of shared joy
I didn’t expect to cry while riding my first Mardi Gras float. But somewhere between tossing beads, meeting the gaze of strangers, and recognizing old friends in the crowd, joy moved like a current through me. What follows is a reflection on generosity, belonging, and what is revealed when you stop waiting for joy and become a vessel for giving it away.
I didn’t expect to cry.
I was standing on a Mardi Gras float for the very first time, beads looped over my wrist, a fabulous hot pink wig perched on my head, my heart thudding with anticipation and expectation. Around me, people laughed and chatted, their hands busy teasing apart tangled packets of shiny beads in preparation. Below us, the crowd gathered, faces lifted, open, waiting.
For more than twenty years, I had stood down there on the ground with them. In fact. just the day before, we watched the Gemini Parade from the ground.
I knew that place well. Street level. Shoulder to shoulder with friends. The long waiting, the sudden rush when the floats appear. I knew how the air itself shifts when the parade begins, how the music carries something ancient and electric. I was familiar with unreasonable joy of catching a plastic bead and lifting it like a small triumph. It is a feeling difficult to translate for anyone who has never stood there, looking up.
This weekend, I remembered something. Joy changes when you stop waiting for it and begin giving it away. It sharpens your attention and widens your heart.
The answer to how I got to ride this year is simple and generous. My friends Lynn and Brady knew this was something I had always wanted to do, and they made sure to save a spot for me this year on their float, the Krewe of Laissez les bon temps rouler, let the good times roll.
Sometimes dreams do not arrive through grand gestures.
They arrive through a text message.
“Hey, my sweet Mary! It’s Carnival time! The Krewe of Highland rides Sunday, February 15, and we would love to have you ride this year!”
And just like that, a bucket-list wish was fulfilled.
But before we ever stepped onto the float, there was the ritual of getting ready.
I wore a hot pink wig I had bought years earlier in New Orleans at Fifi’s, a legendary wig shop on Royal street devoted to spectacle and play. Darla and Wallace came over early, and together we transformed. We donned our wigs, wove shimmering tinsel through our hair, brushed on purple eye shadow that caught the light. We laughed as we helped one another settle into versions of ourselves that were brighter, bolder, and gloriously uncontained.
By the time we arrived, the celebration had already begun. Brady and the guys had parked our float in the parade’s prime gathering spot. Music blared from Marilyn’s, the restaurant. With about twenty of us packed onto the bus, hosted by Lynn, Brady, and their son Ryan, and surrounded by close friends and new ones, the party started early. The air itself seemed to tremble with excitement.
Darla and I carried oversized bags filled with ramen packets and Moon Pies onto the float and found our place to stand. My friend Eddie, who had been in the Highland Parade in previous years, had encouraged me to bring food to supplement the beads and toys, and to save it for the neighborhoods where abundance is thinner.
He also warned me, as another Enneagram 4, that this might feel like more than a fun ride. That it might feel transcendent.
He was right. But I will get to that.
The moment I stepped onto the Mardi Gras–converted school bus, it all became suddenly real.
You could barely find a place to stand due to the abundance supplied by our hosts. Oversized purple mesh bags bulged with beads. Clear bags of colorful balls and plush toys hung from the rafters. Everything shimmered, swayed, and rustled. The bus itself felt alive, like a moving altar to generosity and excess.
There was food everywhere. King cake passed from hand to hand. Boudin sandwiches. Kolaches. Coolers brimmed with beer and water, alongside jugs of frozen Cajun daiquiris in flavors like King Cake and Cajun Tea, the latter a spicy, Long Island tea–like concoction. It was more than enough to sustain us through the long day and the three-plus hours we would spend lined up with other floats, waiting for the parade to begin.
Mardi Gras takes its time.
Friends wandered up to the float. We laughed, danced, and hula-hooped in the street before ever moving an inch. It felt less like waiting and more like being held inside joy.
And then WE ROLLED!
Mardi Gras parades throughout Louisiana are not just spectacles. They are communal rituals. They belong to everyone. This is a call-and-response celebration, an exchange.
You throw. They catch.
They smile. You smile back.
You offer abundance, and it multiplies.
As a first-timer, I had not realized that once the parade begins, you never stop moving. You are either throwing or bending to lift packets of beads, breaking the paper seals, untangling them, and tossing again and again. You run out, reach down, and start all over. For two and a half hours, the ride was constant motion.
There were brief pauses. Moments when I turned to the friends beside me and exchanged a grin or a breathless laugh, silently acknowledging the happiness we were sharing. Then back to it. Bend. Lift. Untangle. Toss. Repeat.
And then there was the sweetness of recognition.
I saw so many familiar faces along the route. I do not live in Louisiana anymore. I moved to Colorado five years ago. So to look out over that sea of people and suddenly recognize someone I loved caught me completely off guard.
There was Jessica, my favorite hairdresser. I spotted her just in time and tossed a bead straight toward her, laughing as she reached up and caught it. I waved wildly to friends from my filmmaking days and the theater community, people from earlier chapters of my life who still live close to my heart. For a moment, the parade fell away and the distance between then and now collapsed. It was playful and loud and silly, and also deeply tender. A sweet remembering of the years I spent here, the communities that shaped me, and the friendships that endure even when our lives carry us far apart.
Then my gaze widened again.
Black, Brown, Asian, Caucasian. Faces of every shade lifted toward us. Children and elders. Families pressed shoulder to shoulder. Teenagers dancing without self-consciousness. Grandparents wrapped in blankets, waving from folding chairs. Parents lifting babies high. I was too busy being present to take photos.
There were many children with special needs too. Kids in wheelchairs. Kids with noise-canceling headphones. Kids whose joy showed up in their own beautiful ways. A little girl perched on her mama’s hip was in tears. She had not caught anything yet. I caught her mother’s eye, lifted a bead in question, and tossed it gently their way. The mother smiled and mouthed, thank you. And then I watched the little girl’s face change as she realized, suddenly and unmistakably, that she belonged. Over and over again, variations of this theme.
Hands reached up everywhere. Small hands. Weathered hands. Hands with painted nails and calloused palms. Open in the same gesture of hope and anticipation. Each toss an interaction. Each face a story. The exchange of joy flowing back and forth between us.
From the float, you do not see a crowd.
You see humanity.
So many different bodies. So many different abilities. So many cultures and stories. Not erased into sameness. Not separated by fear. Standing side by side in shared delight.
It was overwhelming in the best way.
Just minutes in, I felt tears well up. I could feel my Enneagram 4 heart opening wide, recognizing beauty, meaning, and belonging all at once. I had to turn away for a moment to let it pass through me. I was not sad. I was not overstimulated. I was undone by the beauty of joy moving freely across difference, unguarded and unashamed.
By the end of the route, our little gang on the bus danced and celebrated together. The music still blared. Bodies were tired but buoyant. We leaned into one another, laughing, savoring what we had shared, nearly losing our balance as the bus lurched forward mid-celebratory dance.
My hands were blackened from the beads, dusted with the same dark soot that coats everything inside those paper packets. My face was smudged too, mixed now with tears of appreciation. The grit and the grace were indistinguishable.
Joy, I learned, leaves traces. It sharpens attention. It widens the heart.
When the parade finally ended and the float came to a stop, my hands were empty. My arms and back were tired. My face was streaked, but my heart was full.
I had not expected to cry. I had not expected to be marked by joy. But there I was, soot-streaked, tear-filled, restored.
We headed back to Lynn and Brady’s house in celebration.
When I stepped off the bus, I climbed down differently than I had climbed up.
Some moments do not just entertain us.
They restore us.
This one did.
xo Mary
Happy Fat Tuesday, y’all! My heart is full.
Have you ever experienced a moment that unexpectedly widened your heart? I would love to hear about it in the comments.
Love this for you!