I had high expectations for New Orleans. It seems like everyone who’s been there is excited about it. It’s the only real city named on a map of Disneyland. It’s the only city celebrated in a Disney animated song. (There’s three movies set in France, but is there a song about Paris? No.) Lonely Planet guidebook author Adam Karlin says, “New Orleans is all about experiencing the divine through mortal senses. There’s joy, from great food to the best concert of your life, and serenity, in the shade between live oaks, or watching fireflies on Bayou St. John.” It sounds magical, transcendent, unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Plus the travel bug that I caught in 2019 was sparked by a conversation with a stranger who recommended New Orleans above everywhere else, so it’s been at the top of my bucket list since then, and I’ve hyped it up quite a bit in my mind.
So when I was trying to decide where to end this trip, New Orleans felt like the obvious choice. It had to be somewhere I’d never been before, and someplace that was guaranteed to be epic since this Christmas is my milestone 40th birthday. In New Orleans I envisioned air so laden with wonder and beauty that it’s practically gold-colored and filled with little firefly-like light specks, like the Princess and the Frog movie had a real-life geographic baby with Thomas Kinkade. The food will be life-changing, and every street will smell like donuts. It will be all the things I’ve been promised: magic, divine, transcendent, serene. I’m putting a lot of pressure on New Orleans.
You can probably see where this is going. I can’t tell if it’s because I ended up loving my living situation in Florida, or if I’m trying to force a perfect 40th birthday event, but I arrived a bundle of nerves and anxiety. The night before the drive to New Orleans, my brain was telling me all kinds of anxiety stories (worst-case scenarios that never end up playing out). But once you’re in that headspace it’s easy for your day to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It started with the parking at the New Orleans Airbnb, which wasn’t terrible, but wasn’t the you’ll-be-the-only-car-on-the-street level of easy that I expected. That was followed by one of the Airbnb bathrooms not being cleaned (so. much. hair.) and the fridge being unplugged. (It was the one time I’d brought perishables, too, since it’s only a day’s drive from Florida.) Then there was the dishwasher. (There isn’t one.) Then the bedroom door. (There isn’t one, so I’ll be hanging out with the cats at 4 am.) The thing that really freaked me out was the spotty internet connection the first work day. It only happens if it’s windy or raining, apparently. Number of work days this week? Four. Number of days with rain in the forecast? Four.
And with the rain comes the cold. I’d heard it was cold in New Orleans in the context of “good luck trying to spend the holidays there,” but I figured it wasn’t going to be Walla-Walla-in-January cold. What do you know? It’s cold! And the mini-split heater in the Airbnb was not keeping up with the chill seeping through the single-pane windows. So I thought I’d head for Walmart to buy a space heater or two and then stop for some groceries on my way home. Google Maps took me north toward the freeway, and in only a couple blocks it was clear that this is definitely not Disney’s New Orleans. I joked to my dad later that I don’t usually see that many burned-out cars on the way to Whole Foods.
But that drive got me to stop thinking about myself and start wondering what had happened to create such a wealth gap. The sort answer is Hurricane Katrina. The effects are still playing out over 17 years later. After the hurricane, neighborhoods above sea level became must-haves. Wealthy people wanted to move to higher ground, and those areas became gentrified and expensive. People had to move out of the houses they’d lived in for decades because they couldn’t afford to stay. CNN interviewed one woman whose property tax was 20 times what it had been originally. Some neighborhoods have had a demographics reversal, like where it used to be 70% Black, it’s now 70% white. (One neighborhood went from 58% Black to 69% percent white.)
There have been some proposals for low-income housing in the high-ground neighborhoods, but they’ve been met with opposition from residents. So the people with the least money are being forced into the areas that need money to rebuild. And as more things happen (Hurricane Ida for example, or last week’s tornado), the area moves even further away from recovery. It’s a well that just gets deeper.
Hurricane Katrina damaged the back of the Holy Aid and Comfort Spiritual Church, but Reverend Harold Lewis and the congregation continued to use the building for services and to reach out to their neighbors in need. Lewis started doing the building repairs himself. In addition to being important to the community, the church is historically significant. Originally it was the 1880 home of the La Société de la Perseverance, a group of free Creoles of color who provided insurance benefits (medical and burial) to members who could not get insurance because of their race. It was also a building where Blacks could safely gather, which is how it became one of the birthplaces of jazz. It started with Buddy Bolden, King Oliver (Louis Armstrong’s mentor), and Sidney Bechet, followed by neighborhood kids who grew up listening and went on to become jazz legends of their own.

But then Hurricane Ida happened. The church hadn’t received enough funding to complete the repairs from Katrina, and just as crews were starting to reinforce the old wood, the building was damaged again. “If the storm had come a month later,” Lewis said. The congregation started meeting remotely, and a year after Ida, the building collapsed. But Lewis believes the building can still be brought back to serve as a center for community outreach and cultural events. He can see it as something that will bring people back to the neighborhood.
Three years after Katrina, Banksy made a secret trip to New Orleans. This is Umbrella Girl, which shows an umbrella that seems to be dripping ink onto a girl rather than protecting her from the rain. It’s thought to symbolize the failed levees that resulted in so much death (1,833 people) and destruction during Hurricane Katrina. It’s painted on an abandoned building, and the painting is maintained by neighbors and volunteers. They’ve covered it with a sheet of plastic, and they watch over it, cleaning it up after each graffiti attempt. Some observant neighbors even stopped an attempted robbery when they noticed someone trying to cut the painting from the wall in 2014.

So there’s my introduction to New Orleans. Have I been to the French Quarter yet? No. Has there been sun yet? Also no. So I feel optimistic that the magic is out there, and that I’ll find it. I’m starting tomorrow with a hunt for vegan beignets.
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