“Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?” so inquires the old jazz standard—a question ever more poignant today.

The answer is as clear as the spring skies above the mighty Mississippi River: You don’t have to miss it anymore.

Spring is a time of rebirth and renewed hope, and so it’s the best time to go back to New Orleans. Why not come and celebrate the life of a city we almost lost—a magical place of myth and memory which can never be taken from those of us who love her?  If you’ve ever been there in spring and felt this tender season touch the Crescent City, cradled by a gentle breeze as it skips off a bend in the Mississippi River, you’ll realize that, no matter what ill wind may blow, we’ll always have New Orleans.

If you’ve wondered if this is the right time to go, with so much of the city still left devastated, let me assure you—there’s no better time to fall in love with New Orleans.

For the past ten years or more I have had a small, ancient slave-quarter apartment in the New Orleans French Quarter, and I consider it my home even though I have to spend most of my time in Texas for work-related reasons. I love New Orleans in much the same way a woman might love a man—madly, truly, deeply—and I, like everyone else there, am left broken-hearted by the fickle, cruel Katrina. Since the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast and the levees broke in New Orleans, I’ve gone home every month. However, it was not until February that I felt at all hopeful about the city. Ever since Mardi Gras, though, I’ve come to believe that the South will indeed rise again and the Big Easy may someday, once more, live to be called by that name.

“The City that Care Forgot” (which Tennessee Williams almost prophetically called New Orleans) found a way to forget it’s post-Katrina cares for one glorious “uncloudy day” on Fat Tuesday last month, and since then at least some of the heaviness of grief that has hung over the city has been lifted. No, things are not markedly better, but our spirits are. And while some in the outside world stood shaking fingers at the city, criticizing us for finding joy and grace in our well-loved traditions in the face of all the misery, New Orleans seemed to burst with a buoyant, bright spirit of joie de vivre.

Mardi Gras parades, “second line” funerals and ferry boats glided by, side by side in the sun, and ever since then there’s been a palpable sense of hope in the streets of New Orleans.

But what can tourists expect when they come? The biggest surprise may be how little seems to have changed in the part of the town that most tourists see when they visit. A first-timer to the city might never know that six short months ago New Orleans as we’ve known it almost ceased to exist. See the French Quarter today, and you’ll have to look carefully to see evidence of our post-Katrina pain.

Tourists can also expect to be not only welcomed but greatly appreciated by locals who understand that visitors are their lifeline to a better future. And all the things for which New Orleans is known and loved—the wonderful food, amazing music, fabulous art, architecture, fine wines and good weather—are more abundant then ever in a city ready to rebuild and go on.

April is a good time to visit, for the Mardi Gras madness has come and gone, and the heady scent of magnolia blooms fill the gated garden of Jackson Square. More importantly, the summer’s oppressive heat and humidity haven’t yet arrived. In late March and early April, Sweet Olive and Crepe Myrtle trees begin sprouting fragrant buds offering a tender welcome. As strains of jazz waft down narrow streets, visitors remember just why they’re compelled to return again and again to this magical port of call. And for what some might spend on a dinner at an upscale restaurant in New York or San Francisco, you can get an airline ticket bound for the closest thing to Paris this side of anywhere—New Orleans.

Even now, the Crescent City, especially its historic French Quarter, is a place both magical and timeless with a flavor that is decidedly European, historically having been under both French and Spanish rule at different times.

Mention spring in New Orleans, and many think of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival which takes place the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May each year (April 28-30 and May 5-7, 2006). Literary types laud the popular Tennessee Williams Festival in March (March 30-April 2, 2006). Families often return for the delightful French Quarter Fest in April (April 21-23,2006). Those with an appetite for the best attend the New Orleans Food and Wine Experience that takes place in May (May 24-28, 2006), while some just make their own fun and come to dine al fresco at famous landmarks such as Café du Monde with its plump powdered-sugar beignets. There are a million reasons to return to New Orleans, but food is definitely at the top of the list.

Last weekend, I patronized some of the finest eateries in the city to see if everything was “up and running” and ready for guests in New Orleans, and I was more than pleased with what I found.

On Saturday night, I had reservations for a small dinner party with close friends from the French Quarter at Arnaud’s Restaurant—one of the oldest and most respected places in New Orleans with its rich family history dating back to 1918, when French wine salesman Arnaud Cazenave opened the delightful restaurant that bears his name.

Count Arnaud, as he liked to be called—although he had no real claim to the title—believed that dining should be a grand experience, and said so in his “philosophy of dining” which appeared on the back of his menus:

“…A dinner chosen according to one's needs, tastes, and moods, well prepared and well-served, is a joy to all senses and an impelling incentive to sound sleep, good health, and long life. Therefore, at least once a day, preferably in the quiet cool of the evening, one should throw all care to the winds, relax completely, and dine leisurely and well."

And so we did.

After visiting in one of the two bars at Arnaud’s—one of the most gracious and civilized in all the French Quarter—my friends and I moved into the main dining room where we began with several appetizers, our favorites being some of restaurant’s fabulous signature dishes: Oysters Bienville and Shrimp Arnaud. After good conversation and some more sparkling wine (ask for a drink called the “French 75”—a luscious mix of cognac and champagne—you’ll swoon!), we enjoyed the chef’s delectable turtle soup, followed by special entrees such as the Crabmeat Karen (my favorite!), Veal Tournedos Chantal, and Filet Mignon Charlemond—exceptional dishes each. For desert Bananas Foster was prepared tableside, and after a tour of the restaurants 17 dining rooms and its very own hidden Mardi Gras Museum, we enjoyed a flaming silver bowl of hot Café Brulot—the highlight of the evening and a delight to behold as it is prepared with a flaming orange whose peel unravels into the coffee with cloves and cinnamon blazing in the bowl. Even long-time New Orleanians remarked what a tremendous treat the meal was, but what we all love best about this restaurant is the sense of tradition and family, the long history that Arnaud’s has in the community—a tradition that was bent but unbowed by Katrina and that we believe will live on for centuries to come.

The next day—as if we hadn’t had enough decadent dining—we visited another famous Old-World New Orleans eatery, Antoine's Restaurant, which has also been a New Orleans institution since 1840. There we enjoyed a “Jazz Brunch” of chilled Champagne mimosas, Oysters Rockefeller, crab-meat stuffed mushroom caps, Trout Amandine and chicory-laced café au lait followed by another bowl of hot Café Brulot. In the corner, a jazz trio braided together beautiful strains of old-world New Orleans standards—the kind of Dixieland that can sooth an aching soul.

Afterward, we stopped into the famous Pat O’Brien’s bar which was dark and cool in the mid-day shadows of St. Peter Street next door to Preservation Hall. We were very merry and had for a moment had almost forgotten the New Orleans of the past few months when one of us inquired about “Mr. Eddie,”—Eddie Gabriel—an old black man who has been a fixture at Pat O’Brien’s for very nearly seventy years. “Mr. Eddie” has been famous for entertaining each evening, six nights a week from 8 PM to 3 AM, by tapping thimble-covered fingers on the bottom of a silver tray that held lose change while musicians played their tunes.

“Mr. Eddie” will never again play the tray at Pat O’Briens, we were told.

“Haven’t you heard? Mr. Eddie drowned in the Ninth Ward,” the waiter told us. “They didn’t identify his body until recently, and they’re just now having a Jazz Funeral for him this Thursday.”

Our hearts sank like homes in the flood waters.

We can enjoy the beauty of our city and rejoice at all that lies ahead, but we can never forget what it truly means to miss New Orleans—the New Orleans of people like Mr. Eddie—the city we knew before.

We only hope visitors will come back to see it for what it is—the good parts and the bad, the hopeful and the sad—and help bring our city back. 

“O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise.
O they tell us of an uncloudy day,
O they tell us of an unclouded sky…”

Today, as musicians play a gospel tune and mourners dance with colorful parasols for Mr. Eddie, the past and the present parade down Bourbon Street hand in hand, happy and sad, exuberant and exhausted all at once.

As a fog horn moans in the distance and trumpets cry in the streets, for a moment in the sun the skies are clear and blue. Like the colored ribbons on our tattered parasols, our weary souls take flight.