Call me Refugee.  Katrina Refugee.  To the media, I’m one of the evacuees from New Orleans.  “Evacuate” sounds so uncomplicated.  Makes it sound like you can go back if you want to.  But I’ve found out there’s no going back.  That’s why I have to be honest, although politically incorrect, and claim refugee status.
           
Some say refugees cross recognized national borders.  Well, if you’ve ever been to New Orleans, you probably realized that it’s not like the rest of the United States.  Residents there pride themselves on having French, Spanish, and African heritages — not British.  On letting the good times roll — not on adopting the Protestant work ethic. And on eating crayfish — that’s right, “mudbugs.”
           
That fateful Sunday I headed away from New Orleans just 90 minutes after a friend phoned.  “What do you mean you want to stay?  I’m coming to get you, buddy.  You’ll have to drive.  I have a bad back.  Be ready.”  And I was.  I switched on the automatic pilot and grabbed the same things I had two years before when a hurricane sent most of us away for “fall break.”  A couple of suits in case this turned out to be the ultimate disaster and I had to find a new job somewhere else.  I was laughing then.  But not for long.  Actually, I wore one of those suits when I interviewed at Our Lady of the Lake. 
           
I call myself a refugee, but don’t get me wrong.  I’m not looking for sympathy, compassion, or even the time of day from anyone else.  I just need to figure out for myself what exactly happened, what changed, and what my responses really tell me about myself.
           
I have to admit I consider myself incredibly lucky.  Only five inches of water in my small house.  No mold crawling up the walls like you’ve probably seen in photos.  Oh yeah, the roof did blow off the back room.  A twister went through my back yard.  Put my neighbor’s shed in my lawn, but left all his stuff stacked right where it had been for years!  Lucky, I say, because I can see the humor in this.  Even more lucky because I was insured — and was paid right away.
           
Not like most of my neighbors.  Elderly and poor, they had dropped their flood insurance as soon as they finished paying off the mortgage.  Today their homes are gutted and ghostly.  But even these folks had a little bit of luck.  Harry Connick, Jr. came down Calhoun Street in his boat and rescued them from their roof.  The guy can do more than sing and act.  Even took them to his house, which was not damaged in the storm.
           
On weekends much like the pleasant ones San Antonio has enjoyed this month, I drove back to the ghost city to gut my house.  Now I’m working on gutting my mind.  I dragged sofas, beds, and appliances out to the street.  Packed what was left.  Truck loads of stuff.  Most of it meaningless to me now.  Across 90 miles of south Louisiana in friends’ houses and barns, I left those boxes and plastic trash bags stuffed with belongings.  Right.  I used trash bags.  And the irony didn’t escape me.  Most of what I had accumulated was as useless as trash, and I’m in no hurry to unpack it even now.

Folks will tell you about the smell of mold when they went back after Katrina.  Not just inside buildings, but everywhere.  Just as memorable, the absolute silence.  Of course, no buses passing by on my street.  But no cars either.  In fact, as I built that huge trash pile at the street, no neighbors anywhere to admire my solitary progress.  And for a few weeks, not even any birds.  Talk about quiet.  I was actually glad that the curfew had me heading out before sundown left the city in total darkness.
           
Most days, the National Guard, heavily armed, would pass by and ask for my ID.  Just to make sure I wasn’t a looter.  You’ve seen me around campus by now.  Do I look like a looter?  But Katrina changed us all.  So who knows?
           
One day there was an SPCA volunteer.  Wanted to know if I’d seen any stray pets.  To ward off the curse of mold, she was wearing an incredible amount of perfume.  The expensive kind.  That stuff really works.  Right away I had visions of something more pleasant than what I was doing.  I think I stank like the insides of my refrigerator.  Chicken breasts and peeled shrimps decomposing in the heat for weeks.
           
After a month or so, the Red Cross wagon started passing with free lunches.  Made by volunteers from Wisconsin.  Bologna on white bread.  They had never heard of New Orleans style stuffed po’ boy sandwiches.  Honestly, I abandoned my provincial gastronomic elitism and literally wolfed down that bologna.
           
As I said, this fall in San Antonio I’m at last getting deep into the back rooms of my mind.  The gutting is going well.  I’m not sentimental about what was destroyed by the water and has decomposed into a moldy mass.  But I do spend lots of time pondering how best to box my memories, identities, accomplishments, and failures.  I want to save them all for the future, and I’m going to need to be a lot better at labeling contents so that I can grab what I need when the right time comes.

I’m going to start renovating right away.  I’ve decided to do the work myself.  Not contract it out like I did for the house.  I want to lay a hardwood floor that makes the whole house resonate when I put the top up on my grand piano and play.  I want to sheet rock walls that I can decorate with new paintings.  I’m ready for rich colors on those walls, a different hue for each room, distinct yet harmonizing with the rest.  I learned a lot from observing my professional color consultant.  And I’ll be ready to select colors on my own when I get to that stage of my interior remodeling.