Nobody Said It Was Going To Be Big Easy

“It’s still the same ol’ N’Awlins,” a shopkeeper told me this past weekend as I browsed. “Just less people.

“But they’ll be back.”

It is that resiliency that will help New Orleans return, though it will likely never be the city that it once was prior to Hurricane Katrina. People in the area tell me that natives define their lives, their possessions, important milestones in their lives, according to the storm. “Pre-Katrina” or “post-Katrina” is inserted into their sentence structures almost unthinkingly, like Kevin Nealon as Mr. Subliminal in a Saturday Night Live sketch. “I used to have this job—pre-Katrina—downtown that I really loved.”

But you can still see that the pageantry and soul, if not the spirit, of the city is still intact. You still have to fight for a table at Café du Monde for beignets and café au lait; the French Market is still as colorful and varied. You’ll still have quite a wait ahead of you if you want a po-boy at Mother's, and you can still find sno-balls, pralines and gumbo all over the city. Jackson Square is still resplendent with history, and beautiful St. Louis Cathedral -- the oldest cathedral in America -- rises out of the French Quarter like a palace in the middle of the desert. The echoes of jazz’s birth still reach out and whisper down your arm as you walk past Preservation Hall, and the lazy meandering of the Mississippi still stirs memories of Mark Twain.

There is still a sight on every corner that takes your breath away, a piece of architecture you will find nowhere else in America, a snapshot of time that causes your head to spin. But there are reminders of Katrina everywhere … from the street performer wearing a T-shirt that says, “I drove my Chevy to the levee … but the levee was gone” … to the sign in the window reading “Now I know what it means to miss New Orleans” … to thinly veiled resentment toward the government and FEMA emanating from the merchandise in a myriad of shops.

There is a hustle missing, a bustle not found. Tourists are few, vendors’ eyes are imploring, the schtick of the jazz artist selling his CD on the corner is a little more pleading. Yet for every sigh of despair, there is a vibrant recollection of what was, and what will be again. For every tear down a cheek, there is a note sounded from the past. For every question “Why?,” there is a firm “We’ll be back” in response. For every heavy heart, there is a lifted spirit in the sun reflected off the Mississippi and a promise of hope that better days lie just over the horizon. For every resigned declaration that it will be never the same, there is the reminder that different isn’t always worse.

And for every Saturday in the streets of New Orleans, there is optimism that one more new set of eyes, one more won-over visitor, one more awe-struck tourist, could be one more step on the path to healing.