A New Orleans I Do Not Remember

New Orleans is different, and yet the same. Driving around the streets here in Uptown reveal what appears to be the vibrant city I left almost 5 months ago: bars, restaurants, coffeeshops thriving with business; rich housewives driving their SUVs and shopping at the boutiques; cars occupying every parking spot along the funky, vibrant Magazine St. Unfortunately, my old stomping grounds on Magazine St. provide a false sense of the utter reality here. The reality is that we are an island in a sea of despair. Drive a mile or two away, and it is deserted. Yes, there are some signs of life in these areas, but very little. Refrigerators wrapped with duct tape line the streets, debris from houses 4 feet high adorn the tree lawns, signs of destruction both subtle and grand are everywhere. At night, driving along a main artery of the New Orleans throughfares (Claiborne Ave.) reveals vast sections without power. These are the neighborhoods of the disefranchised, vestiges of a city that care forgot.

Life is a trickle of what it was. "Will it ever be the same?" I find myself asking myself all the time as I look for signs of the old New Orleans. It has to be. I long for the past, I am astonished by the present, and I am hopeful for the future.