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 Childress, 64, has seen many Mardi Gras celebrations, but none quite
like this year, with people ready to pop with pent-up joy as
pandemic restrictions melt away.
"It's pretty intense for early on in the Carnival weekend,"
Childress said Saturday night as the Krewe of Endymion crawled down
a packed Canal Street on the edge of the French Quarter.
"A lot of tourists have already worn themselves out and they're
lying in the gutter on Bourbon Street, which is only supposed to
happen around Wednesday."
After last year's false spring, when nascent hopes for emerging from
the pandemic were dashed by the Delta and then Omicron variants of
the coronavirus, many merrymakers on New Orleans' streets said it
felt like a stepping out party from the plague.
"We're in a stronger place today as a nation with more tools to
protect ourselves and our community from COVID-19," the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said
at a media briefing on Friday to announce an easing of pandemic
restrictions.
Louisiana, an early COVID hotspot, has seen cases, hospitalizations
and deaths fall in recent weeks.
In New Orleans, Mardi Gras celebrations have been building for days,
with plastic beads in gold, green and purples lining parade routes,
piling up at curbs like leaves in the fall. Families and neighbors
staked out spots early each morning, putting out camping chairs,
barbecue grills and propane burners topped with massive pots for
crawfish boils.
On Bourbon Street, which one smells before seeing, tens of thousands
thronged each night, creating a gauntlet of spilt beer amid a smoky
marijuana haze, conversation impossible given the competing din from
night club audio systems.
Brandon McDonald, a self-declared "30-something" visitor from Texas,
had just shimmayed and sashayed his way through an impromptu
block-long "Soul Train" dance line on Bourbon Street. Not a drop of
his daiquiri was spilled as he hammed it up for the crowd, his feet
moving to the rhythm of a one-man-band on the sidewalk tapping out a
funky marching beat on snare and bass drums.
"The pandemic - the devil! - has tried to stop us, but the good
Lord, he gonna make us all push through," McDonald said. "I think
we're emerging from a darkness and I really feel like this is a new
beginning. Of course, the drinks really help."
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 'BIGGER THAN THEMSELVES'
The past two years have made it clear how
important traditions like Carnival, graduation
parties and even spring breaks are, said Dr.
Steven Taylor, a psychiatry professor at the
University of British Columbia and author of the
2019 book "The Psychology of Pandemics."
"They are time markers, indicators of
continuity," he said. "They show us that life
keeps going on, that life is stable because we
have these rituals like Mardi Gras."
The revelry in New Orleans is a show of human
resilience and deep desire for connection,
Taylor said. "A lot of people are desperate to
be caught up in something that is bigger than
themselves and is positive for a change."
That's exactly what Ashley White, 31, from Baton
Rouge, was doing as she jumped up and down on
St. Charles Avenue on Sunday, waving and yelling
at the "queen" of the Mid City Krewe parade as
it slowly rolled before tens of thousands of
fans on Sunday.
This Carnival felt similar to the one in 2006,
six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated
the city, White said. "Like then, we're coming
out of something so dark and so damaging, but
we're having this revival."
Colby Reddin, 31, of Fort Collins, Colorado, was
all decked up for his first Mardi Gras, wearing
a vest of the traditional yellow, green and
purple with oversized beads draped around his
neck.
As the Krewe of Okeanos parade went by, he held
up a bullseye poster challenging marchers to hit
it with the beads and other trinkets tossed out
at Carnival parades. Reddin said he was struck
by how much he had missed something he saw in
abundance on the streets of New Orleans:
hugging.
"We haven't been hugging each other in like two
years now," he said. "It's all about that human
connection, making connections between different
cultures, different people coming together and
having a great time."
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in New Orleans;
Editing by Donna Bryson and Richard Chang)
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