Photo: Nolly

The first day I woke up as a New Orleans resident, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. Cotton-brained from days on the road, I heard the music before I opened my eyes. A choir was somewhere in the distance. Muffled, as if it were calling to me from the other side of a pine box.

"What have I done?" I thought as what sounded like the undertaker's theme swirled around my head. I lifted one lid, then the other, and blinked at the pastel wall until I figured out where I was.

I was safely in the guest room of my dear friend Cecilia's house. The music was coming from next door. Everything was different for me on that first day in a new city. But Ms. Nettie, the 80-something neighbor, was starting her day as usual with the television volume cranked on her morning mass.

"How'a ya?" she asked when I met her on the sidewalk later in the day. She didn't wait for me to answer or introduce myself. "I'm just waitin' for my son to take me to the grocery," she continued as if we'd known each other forever.

"I wanted to learn how to swim, so I jumped off the face of a cliff," is what I would have said had she eyed me with suspicion and wanted to know what I was doing there. That was my father's explanation of this head-scratcher of a just-because move I'd made, and as usual he was spot-on with description.

But Miss Nettie didn't ask me for information she could use to judge whether or not I was worthy of trust — I was just accepted as part of the fold. She protected herself from the sun with dark dark wrap-aroundglasses and a gold-colored parasol, but like so many in this charming place I would call home, she was instantly open and at ease with people.

I went to the bookstore. That's a coping mechanism for dealing with change I inherited from my father. Now that I was in the water flailing around, I figured I'd go find some sort of manual.

Let's see... How to swim when you've jumped off the face of a cliff... hmm... would that be in Self-Help or Fantasy Fiction? I wandered over to the travel section instead. A row of beautiful coffee table books called to me. They were over-sized hard-bound photo essays of noteworthy places.

"What have I done?!" I asked myself for the second time that day, only this time was waaaaaay more dramatic than when I thought I might be dead. I'd reached first for the one on San Diego, the home I'd just left. Tears welled in my eyes as I flipped through the slick, colorful pages of beach scenes and dramatic vistas:

Low Tide at La Jolla, CA — San Diego County

Thanks to Daniel Peckham for sharing this stunning photo on Flickr. Not, as far as I know, published in the book mentioned, but most certainly representative.

I put the book down. I needed to look forward! So I reached for the one on New Orleans— I found a very different pictorial that made me laugh and smile. The New Orleans picture-story showed swamps, plantations and historic buildings with wrought iron balconies. But unlike the stunning vistas in the San Diego pictures, the scenery was just a backdrop. The main subject of nearly every photo was people.

Thanks to DSB Nola for the use of this great shot to represent part of the New Orleans picture story.

People making music... people dancing to it... people parading in a "second-line"... or women like Ms. Nettie with her parasol waiting for a ride to the grocery.... for the most part, people were in the foreground of all the interesting-in-its-own-right scenery.

I still love that about New Orleans.

And I still get misty at the sight of a San Diego scene.

Years after making another "cliff dive" in moving to Las Vegas, I have a new set of pictures in my head showing what's special about learning to swim here.

I'm thinking of all this today, because a friend has announced a big move. She's starting a new life in an unfamiliar city, because — hallelujah — she got a job! Though she's jumped into unknown waters a few times herself, standing at the edge of that proverbial cliff is still adrenaline-charged. It's exciting and scary because the fact is, there is no manual, even if you already know how to swim.

Miss Nettie didn't ask me to explain myself, and neither has my friend. But coping with change — of any kind — is a challenge that I bet anyone reading can relate to. For what it's worth, here's what I've learned from my own major life-changers:

• Focus on opportunity and separate fear from faith. Hold breath. Jump.
• Question what you've done, if you must, but right yourself as soon as possible.
• Use the strokes you know to head for shore, but trust in others to help you navigate.
• Know that from the shoreline, the water is picture-perfect, even if it feels cold or choppy at first.
• Imagine that beautiful picture framed on your wall, because that's where it one day will be.

I've been sort-of treading water for awhile now, so it can't hurt to reflect on this and be reminded. Perhaps we can learn from each other — How do you swim when you find yourself in unfamiliar waters?