We purchased the Sully Mansion four months after Katrina and
came to inspect the property on my birthday, November 5 2005.  The city had been partially re-opened a scant
two weeks before we came.  We will never
forget what the city looked like on that ironically sunny weekend.  Television coverage never prepares you for
wholesale destruction.  Block upon block
of toppled homes, a layer of mud film on every surface and crevice, cars in their
sides, boats upended on sidewalks and the formerly lush city brown and fetid,
no birds, no sounds.  From that nuclear
looking weekend to today we were struck by the determination and zealousness of
New Orleanians to reclaim their home. 
Back then there were little purple yard signs claiming WE’RE HOME on the
lawns of those who had returned.  They
were our new urban flower.

We have lived through a New Orleans with no street signs or
doctors, no streetcars or water pressure, unplanned reunions in grocery stores
of friends unaware the other had returned, the tears in gift shop from women
who had lost everything- the marching bands so reduced in number that first
Mardi Gras, the aching sadness of Jazz Fest 2006 as each musician paid homage
to what was lost, the slippery feeling we would just never get traction to get
things moving again.  Still small steps,
some political gains with levee boards and assessors, block by block
rebuilding, mothers less frightful to let their children attend college here, a
growth of farmers markets, young people from across the country flocking here
to make a difference, new leadership, less tolerance for corruption and
apathy.  And throughout these five years
have been our guests, first just journalist and those coming to tie up loose
ends and move away, followed by the curious and those who love the city and
wanted to help by spending tourist dollars and for the last two years the new
and returning visitors who fall under the city’s spell.

We have lived in five different American cities and know nowhere
else would have people pulled together so tightly and worked so hard to reclaim
their hometown.  Is it all we dream it
could be?  Absolutely not, old habits of provincialness,
laziness and graft are still with us.  
Is our trajectory right? 
Absolutely, with new leadership and pride the city is on an upward
path.  Are we recovered?  Not yet there much work to do before everyone
can come home to a city they deserve and there is still six weeks left of
hurricane season and the great unknown of the long term impact of the BP spill
to determine.  Bu there is nowhere else
in America we would want to be.

So on this fifth anniversary of Katrina please join us in remembering
all those we have lost, thank all of those who have volunteered to help rebuild
our city and vow that this will be the year you come and experience this great
experiment in living and visit New Orleans.

It is that time of year again when freshman from all over
the country start school.  This weekend
was move in weekend at Tulane University. 
This is the fifth year we have been part of the experience and we begin
to see a pattern emerge from the family who are up at six, at the table at
seven and ready to hit campus with their car stuffed to the rafters  by eight a.m. from those who rouse themselves
mid morning and saunter over to campus with the two duffles and a gym bag.  We will leave it to our reader to imagine
which ones are girls and which the boys. 
There is such a crush of emotion for both the parent and child;
apprehension, pride, excitement, and a tinge of sadness.  We have a table full of potential on these
weekends, all these young people starting their journey towards independence
and self discovery.  We know as parents
as well as from keeping in touch with some of these students over the years
that the path is rarely straight or expected. 
If all of us knew then what we know now, no doubt we would avoid many
mis-steps but our lives would surely be less rich and  treasured memories.  Here’s to the beginning of memory making- we
wish the class of 2014 the best.

Enter Charalotte Stubbs from Frisco Texas who brought her mother Lucy Cox and her daughter for a surprise stay with us.  Lucy , her husband and Charalotte dad lived in what is now the Royal Room when it was a studio apartment in the early 1960s.  What a wonderful afternoon we had reliving memories, trying to place where the stove was (by the dressing room linen closet in turns out!)  Charalotte recalled drawing on the flowered wallpaper while her dad feigned sleep.  Lucy told us about the charming Spanish gentleman who lived down the hall and had a thing for the women who lived around back who he eventually married!  It was just fascinating trying to imagine how the house looked back then and I was so humbled to think of all the stories which have taken place between our walls!  Guy and I have touched every inch of this property as we restore, repair and preserve this beautiful building and it becomes a richer journey when we get to meet the faces and learn a little of the lives who make up the past of the Sully Mansion.

Doesn’t it look great?

But next time we are going to the movies!

Just as we walked up to Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers the sky opened up to a Louisiana rainstorm pelting the area with thick wet drops.  With steam rising from the sidewalks, a few ran for cover but most folks just kept dancing. The band was tearing it up and their washboard player was incredible with energy and a great sense of rhythm, he had long arms and a skinny torso so from the side he looked like a stick figure with a washboard drawn on his front but boy could he play.  A few hours of listening, a dance of two between the raindrops, toe tapping under a wrought-iron gallery, a beer or two we  hopped back on the streetcar to the Sully Mansion where two couples who were guest of the inn and had formed a friendship at breakfast were sitting in the porch together drinking wine sharing stories of their lives.  Just another Saturday in New Orleans

Here I am as an oyster bed

Blue traps left over from Katrina days were stretched out with paraders moving the tarps to simulate the waves of the Gulf, and we had black crepe streamers to serve as the plumes.  I was interviewed by a journalist from the LA Times who expressed her confusion about why we were not an angrier group.  I tried to explain; we channel our anger here into creative celebrations which honor our own way of embracing the world.  As with all self styled parades here we picked up more people as we went along, numbering close to 200 as we wound our way through warehouses and galleries.  There was eleven minutes of silence by Gailler Hall and the streetcars stopped in their track, politely waiting until we were finished, appropriately respectful and somber.  I kept trying to imagine an uptown bus in Manhattan being willing to wait.  But what I love best about my adopted city, is as the two of us walked home, dressed as oyster beds, shells clanking as we moved up the block and stopped in a bar to cool off, perched on a stool with seaweed draping from our stools, a women on a date, one stool over in her shoulderless cocktail dress did not give us a second look, just another day in New Orleans, people costumed because that is one way we give expression to our thoughts.