JPG

After hurricane Katrina many parts of New Orleans, such as the Gentilly area, where I grew up are still in disarray. But, the French Quarter still thrives in pieces. Some places have closed down, and other places exist in a damaged state. Still, the French Quarter with its Catholic influence and Spanish wrought iron balconies accompanied by the charm and culture of a city like no other attracts tourists, and people like me cannot part with the memory and the history so we come back. We spend money in the restaurants and bars and the art galleries and the souvenir shops because we have a conscience about preserving what was real and whole. Yes, it will someday come back, but it will never be the whole that it once was. It will be pieces that flow along the crescent curve in the Mississippi River. It will be the pieces just as the pieces of my collage, forming a new picture of an old place. We were torn to pieces, many of us still displaced, and we will return one piece at a time. That is my hope and my prayer.