Where the Veil Thins

Last month I was in New Orleans, wandering through the Garden District, where grand homes stood like silent storytellers of the past. Their wraparound porches and lush, immaculately tamed gardens were made even more enchanting by the Halloween decorations—sheets of ghostly fabric swaying in the breeze, pumpkins glowing on doorsteps, skeletons grinning from wrought-iron railings.

I walked all day with four friends I had met at my hostel. Strangers just days before, we moved through the city like we had always known each other, sharing stories as we explored. The world felt quieter when we stepped into the Lafayette Cemeteries. The hum of the city faded, replaced by the hush of wind rustling through magnolia trees and the soft crunch of our footsteps on the worn stone paths.

We whispered as we wandered, sharing memories of those we had lost. Kora, who had grown up in Mexico, taught us a childhood prayer in Spanish—one she used to sing during Día de los Muertos. She showed us how to gather the fallen magnolia petals to create a path for any lost souls, a gentle gesture of remembrance. Our hands smelled of dusty violet for the rest of the day, as if we had carried something sacred with us.

I wanted to capture something here that would help me remember the way I felt—that deep, quiet ache of beauty and impermanence. What struck me most was how the earth, in its endless cycle, continues to bloom wildly over the stillness of graves. Vines twisted over stone, bright flowers grew untamed, nature refusing to let silence settle too thickly. There was something unspoken in the objects left behind—some weathered by time, others new. A language between the living and the dead. A place suspended between unease and acceptance.

Across cultures, the way we mourn and celebrate life has always mesmerized me—the tension between loss and lingering presence. The idea that nothing is ever truly gone. That in absence, we become more attuned to the world around us, searching for telltale signs that we are not alone, that we are still loved and guided by forces beyond what we can touch.

Whatever you believe about life or death, it’s all alright. Some things, however, remain undeniable—eating sweets can be a cure for bitter moments, dressing up and dancing the night away to live jazz on Bourbon Street is an antidote to fear, and walking home with newfound friends, braving shadowed streets beneath flickering lantern light, is a quiet, beautiful kind of love. If not a metaphor for life itself.