Post Katrina, Uptown New Orleans Returns

It's been almost two months since Hurricane Katrina flooded 80% of New Orleans and just over three weeks since Mayor C. Ray Nagin invited the Uptown zip codes to return. And while much of the city remains uninhabited and uninhabitable, the Uptown and Garden District neighborhoods are beginning to show signs of normality. But it's not the "old normal," it's a "new normal," a strange, limping normality that can send you into fits of joy one moment, and desperate crying jags the next.

On October 24, the first of the Uptown schools re-opened. The Louise S. McGehee School, a private girls Pre-K through 12th institution founded in 1912, opened its doors to welcome just over 40% of its former student population. For the first time in its history, McGehee also welcomed boys through grade 8 - the brothers of enrolled students and sons of faculty members.

In the first hours of the day, squeals of delight rang through the campus, girls flinging themselves into each others' arms, into the arms of the teachers. And by mid-day, the poor, brave boy pioneers were already fending off their curious, fawning female classmates. Normality - kids acting like kids.

But, students met the re-opening with grief as well as elation. Tears shed for classmates and teachers still in exile. Long, sad hugs to comfort girls mourning the loss of their homes, their pets, their possessions.

The re-opening of McGehee was a children's microcosm of the re-opening of Uptown. Bliss followed by horror. Joy on the heels of anger. The New Normal.