Leaving New Orleans: An Unsettling Tale

To live in New Orleans is to leave New Orleans at regular intervals, traveling light: three days of clothes, a cell phone and insurance papers, maybe a lap-top, a six-pack, a pet. The car, kept perpetually gassed up from June through September, encounters gridlock and inches on, west through Baton Rouge or north to Jackson, creeps through the night to whatever friend or room awaits. When the storm makes landfall, the car returns on roads less dense, its load even lighter as, once again, the storm has veered, has left New Orleans high and dry. Except for this time: August 29, 2005. This time we left light (too light) and ended up carrying the weight of the world. This time we left for weeks, some of us for seasons. When we came back, we left again and then returned. We scrambled, we panicked, we moved in with friends, we wore out our welcomes, we moved into trailers, we camped out in gutted homes, we rewired, we rebuilt, we tried to forget. I left forever. I bulldozed my house; I rebuilt my life. This is my story.