"What are you going to do?" asked my friend, Hannah, director of women's studies at Loyola University, as she leaned, cradling a beer, in the doorway to my kitchen. "I really don't know..." I answered, tearing into a large bag of blue chips and pouring a jar of black bean salsa into a bowl for my newly arrived guests. In response to my rather anxious plea the week before—Hannah, would you and your family come stay with us for Halloween weekend??? It's my first time back—Hannah and her family had driven in from Jackson to spend the weekend with us. Their house, in a neighborhood across the river, was not yet ready for habitation (at least not for children). Moreover, Dylan had come to admire her four-year old daughter, Ute, with an ardent intensity. The two were, at that moment, racing around the second floor of our home screaming with unfettered glee, as Hannah and I discussed the potential hazards of life in the new New Orleans. "A friend of mine who's an epidemiologist here says that the reports of toxins in the environment are greatly exaggerated," Hannah offered, like a sample of soil for us to examine. "I just don't know," I replied, shaking my head skeptically. "I hope that's true because Chris is committed to coming back to work for Loyola." Hannah, who had been sending out job applications in order to keep her options open, looked troubled. "I feel badly about looking elsewhere," she confided, "but I don't have tenure and could be laid off. And I'm not going to stay here if it's going to harm Ute...or myself, for that matter. Another friend told me that people who have moved back to Metairie are already having respiratory problems." "And there's all that dust uptown from people gutting their houses," I added ominously. "We could all have cancer within five years." Chris who happened by at that instant in search of a beer, shook his head impatiently. "We don't live uptown. And we never go to Metairie," he reminded us, as if, for a moment, Hannah and I had transported our families to one of the many flooded areas in that affluent bastion of suburban conservatism.

And, in a sense, he was right. My neighborhood, old Algiers Point, had survived beautifully. Only a handful of homes had sustained serious damage from Katrina's battering winds. The high ground and sensible designs of nineteenth century planners stubbornly withstood the wind and prevented flooding. Two blocks from my home, the local coffee shop, Toute de Suite, had become a hub for the community, packed at all hours with those who rode out the storm and recently returned evacuees, all of whom seemed to receive each mug of coffee and every neighborly reunion with an almost religious gratitude. And despite my anticipation of a childless city, in my neighborhood, mothers walked with strollers and children frolicked in the park. I even watched, with a mixture of surprise and admiration, as two biggly pregnant young women who embraced joyfully in the doorway of Toute de Suite, seemingly oblivious to the many environmental hazards that lurked, at least in rumor, across the river. Yes, my home was the same as it ever was. And yet, I felt, not so.

Amidst the throngs of native Algerians, were a host of strangers: insurance adjustors, journalists, Army Corps of Engineer workers, contractors, and National Guardsmen, whose appearance on the scene armed and in fatigues was always, perhaps aptly, disarming. Yet no one seemed disturbed by the number of outsiders. Moreover, there was the incongruent plethora of parties and festivals around "the Point." The day after we arrived, Chris, Dylan, and I chanced upon one such festival at the Catholic elementary school in our neighborhood. Vats of homemade red beans and rice proudly adorned elaborately decorated card tables, a band blared defiantly energetic rock music, children danced, and parents drank. On Sunday afternoon Hannah and I escorted our children to a neighborhood costume party for children, Ute clad as a spicy Sheherazade, Dylan as a reluctant train conductor. The party was jammed with other artfully costumed kids and happy-faced parents. Tables were stocked with food and juice. A musician led the children in songs. And as they sang and played and their parents chatted about the future and past, I sensed not the easy going laissez-faire attitude—let the good times roll—of old, but an odd determination. We were all, still, clearly shell shocked by the recent damage and displacement. We all knew that the rebuilding effort would be long, arduous, and uncertain, that only a few miles away huge portions of our city were decimated. Yet faithful to New Orleans' tradition of ritual celebration, my fortunate neighbors were determined to fest. Grateful and eager to enjoy the moment, however strange, I raised my juice and partied along.