Houses and Home

We went into Wal-mart last night looking for diapers, and found their entire supply had been sent to "communities affected by Hurricane Katrina." The nerve! I had a strange feeling of vertigo in Wal-mart. It reminded me of the stories they used to tell about Soviet defectors seeing an American supermarket for the first time. All this stuff! Acres of it, and it seemed like it was all stuff I had a month ago and don't anymore. All this cheap, crappy stuff, that I don'’t even care enough about to miss it.

There are a few things, of course, that I care about which I couldn't replace at Wal-mart. Mostly though, I feel like I've spent the past ten years since I graduated from college working to accumulate nothing. It seemed like a lot, but now it's nothing. So what did I accomplish? I felt really good about investing in property. We bought and renovated one home, then rented it out and started working on renovating another. The rental income paid our mortgages and I believed that real estate would be something nobody could take away from me. The market might fluctuate, but over the long run it's stable, and I'd always have someplace to live.

Well, here I am. Living with friends, mortgaged to my eyeballs for two houses in uncertain condition in the middle of the biggest environmetntal disaster in our nation's history. I have one change of clothes and a car I have made exactly ONE payment on since I bought it. But I still feel pretty good. I have someplace safe to stay, and many offers of other places to go if we wear out our welcome here. John and I both have work, at least for now. We have enough money in the bank that we can buy gas for our cars. I'd like to get the family photos back, and my jewelry, but the furniture, etc. really doesn'’t matter.

I do however feel sad about the home we've lost. The reason I've stayed in New Orleans as long as I have is that I have such a strong community of friends, neighbors, and church family. Then in the last year or so we've built a network of medical professionals who saved our daughter's life and surely my sanity any number of times. We might go back and find our houses are more or less intact, but having our community scattered to the four winds is what really makes me feel homeless. It's only a matter of time before I learn of someone I know who didn't make it out of the city. Many of those who did aren't planning to go back. We will miss them.

The city of Houston is full of remarkable people, and I've already found some freelance work, a church, and resources to get Stella back into a therapy schedule. The tough decision now is when to go back. Our apartment in Jefferson Parish is probably intact and we could move in once power and water are back on within a few weeks. John will need to spend time on campus salvaging computers from his department. However, I feel very reluctant to go back to a suburb of nowhere, where we may not have access to any resources or businesses for a long time.

I've tabled plans to go see our parents in California or Buffalo because I want our family to stay together as much as possible. I don't want to send John back to the apartment alone, but I don't see taking the baby there soon either. It's a dilemma. Houston is at least within a day's drive.