It’s been a little more than a year since Hurricane Katrina. Not enough time to erase the images of the storm from our minds, but possibly enough to allow us to remember more pleasant images of New Orleans: Mardi Gras masks and blues musicians.

I, for one, didn’t know how to imagine the city when I went there last week. Would there still be a sense of the chaos Katrina brought in August 2005? Or would it be more like the New Orleans I saw when I was younger, full of life and color?

I went with some other students from my church and a few students from other places – even one, dare I breathe the name here, from the University of Iowa.

I went down with the cautious ambition of being a reporter with a capital “R”: taking notes, interviewing, whipping out my recorder and jotting down the facts. I confess, I barely dipped my toes into all of those things I had in mind. I did get to interview one woman who was working with the relief organization we connected with in New Orleans.

But I went mostly to work with my hands in the houses. We gutted houses that had been severely damaged, meaning we emptied them of their rancid belongings, tore down walls, ceilings and insulation and swept them clean. My other purpose for the trip was to feel better connected with God and other Christians. With those primary reasons in mind, I didn’t feel entirely comfortable being a full-time reporter while I was there.

The fun of getting to know 14 people – most of them for the first time – and the sheer physical exhaustion that comes after an 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift of smashing walls, lifting mold-ridden belongings from cockroach-infested rooms and heaving them out to the huge trash pile out in the lawn – all of which slowed down the capital “R” reporter work I’d wanted to do.

So what does one write about for the news section after going on a trip like that? There are many things I would like to write about.

I recommend doing relief work to any college student because it is very energizing; you never feel bored or useless. But back to the news. How about this for news? New Orleans is still, a year-and-a-half later, in ruins in many ways. There is still much to be done. But at the same time, New Orleans is still very much alive, or perhaps I should say that it is very clearly coming back to life.

There is still devastation there. I won’t try to devalue all of the voices of frustration and impatience with the rate of progress. Driving through the 9th Ward, I saw grass where houses once stood.

I saw countless “X’s” on buildings with numbers underneath, numbers that were meant to indicate the number of bodies found there. Thankfully, most if not all the numbers I saw were zeros. I saw next to the “X’s” words like “cat” or “dog,” revealing that not all made it out alive.

In my short time there, I encountered something I would call a blank stare left on the face of the ravaged city. We’ve all heard the voices of panic, anger, fear and frustration on the TV and in the newspapers as a result of Katrina. But I think going down there a little more than a year later allowed me to see something else, something quieter. The cool air moving through empty ramshackle houses where people used to cook, sleep, hug, cry, fight, kiss and clean; the mangled car left next to one of the houses we gutted; the shells littering spots of grass where no sea or river stood near enough to claim them – eerily gentle marks left by a mighty rage – in these things, I felt a silence, a blank stare, an oddness.

Many have left New Orleans, some never to return. The 9th Ward was such a disaster because the property damaged there had been previously occupied by renters, who evidently didn’t feel there was enough of a reason to come back.

But not all have gone.

What of the lively band bouncing to their own flashy rhythm as audience members looked on downtown? And what of the purple- and yellow-clad people crowding the streets during the Sugar Bowl, laughing loudly with friends and wearing lively expressions that had nothing to do with hurricanes or floods?

And what of the one person I did get a chance to interview, the woman working with the relief organization? She told me she “clinged to the Lord” during that time, and she told me how much the homeowners of the area were grateful – and surprised – to see people coming from all over the country to tear down and rebuild their houses for free.

She told me that many have had a chance to revamp and rebuild because of the hurricane; a chance to start anew.

There was a wall in the Volunteer Village, the place volunteers stayed in the city, where messages had been written to New Orleans. Many of them cited the Bible and rang with encouragement.

Some were personal memories from rebuilding work experiences. Most were directly addressed New Orleans as though it were a person.

Was it a little odd for the writers of those notes to address New Orleans as they did, as if she were a person rising from a cruel beating, dusting off her clothes and opening her eyes again to face the morning and breathe in the fresh sea air?

I don’t think so; it felt right. First, that city is in many ways a true gem of culture in this country, a place where multiple colors collide and many voices shout and sing.

I think the madness of Katrina swept many people into a frantic huddle and the idea of community glowed anew. Such a unique city, I believe, can be properly addressed as though it were a person needing encouragement. I scrawled my own note on that wall before leaving, encouraging New Orleans to cling to God’s mercy and goodness.

It was difficult to write this column, as a swirl of images and experiences from that trip have yet to settle in my mind.

But I hope I could paint a bit of a picture for you, a picture of one of this nation’s great cities as she struggles – and shouts and plays the saxophone – to get back on her feet again.