Roadmap 2 Peace: Expatriate Games
by Dana Harrison-Tidwell

Ready to move anyway, the author finds the stock 'Fugee questions even more annoying.

“Did you get out of New Orleans okay?”

I have been asked this question 524 times. Yes. I counted.

The response to it is a game, at this point, for the sake of my own amusement (which is, naturally, the most important issue here).

I could act surprised, I guess, and go all Blanche DuBois.
::: blank stare, bringing handkerchief delicately up to lips :::
“…you mean I’m not still in New Orleans?!?!”

I could act sarcastic.
::: lifting one eyebrow, rolling eyes :::
“…no. No I didn’t get out of New Orleans okay. I’m just an astral projection of myself. Had I been a real person, you would have been instructed where to go to fuck yourself.”

I could act wounded.
::: tear leaking from the corner of left eye :::
“I don’t talk about the Katrina days. They are just too painful! Leave me alone!”
::: exit stage right, wailing and screaming :::

I could act fully recovered.
::: yawn :::
“Oh, that. I try to live in the now.”

I could act indignant.
::: neck vein bulging :::
“What’s it to you?!? Why do you ask?!? And where’s my goddamned FEMA money?!?”

Any of those options is as valid as the others, and frankly, the original question is almost always just a cursory courtesy anyway. Most of the people who ask it of me could really not care less whether or not I’m “okay” after my experiences with New Orleans and Katrina.

I’d feel much better if they just came right out and asked the question how it was meant instead of masking, in an air of worry for my well-being, the concern about my potential to deplete their shallow job pool.

What people really want to know is this: “If you are healthy and able, if you love New Orleans soooo much, if you really want to see the city rebuilt, why don’t you just go back to New Orleans? Hm? Why are you still in my city?”

Bearing that in mind, here are a few questions I’d like to answer right here, right now. I would, because I am compulsive that way, like to list them on my resume, curriculum vita, website, MySpace account, the tags inside my underwear, the hood of my car, and have them tattooed across my forehead. But I won’t. Considering the conservative dress code, I can only assume that facial tattoos displaying readable text would be as finger-wagged and frowned upon as a denim jumpsuit and red platform hooker heels.

Am I a Katrina refugee?
No. I do not consider myself a Katrina refugee. I was exactly three days from moving to Las Cruces, New Mexico, when Katrina hit. I had been packing since May ’05. Katrina came calling, and bumped my total moving costs up by roughly $6,000 in extra plane tickets, rearranged U-Haul rentals, extra gas, hotel rooms, and lost work time. At most, I consider myself a Katrina booty-call, since she is the first thing that comes to mind now when I imagine getting screwed but not technically raped.

Am I now living in, or did I ever live in, a hotel room free of charge because of Katrina?
No. I evacuated to Moody, Alabama, and holed up in my pajamas in a tiny garden home in a tiny planned community near a tiny nail shop and tiny barbeque stand. I was never charged for the time I spent in Moody because I was staying with family. When I left Moody driving to Las Cruces, I paid for my hotel rooms – full price – along the way with VISA, MasterCard and American Express. None of my credit cards were issued by FEMA, none of them have reduced my interest rates due to any national disaster, and all the companies still expect full payment.

Have I ever played the Katrina-card for the pity factor in order to make my life easier?
No. Just no.

Did I lose everything?
No. I lost nothing, which is very difficult for me to admit because of the duality I feel with that statement. On one hand, I’m glad I chose to live in the FQ on high ground. I’m glad that, financially, I had that option. I’m glad the water never rose to my doorstep. On the other hand, I have a lot of guilt, however, that most people were not so lucky, and many did lose everything.

Why didn’t I stay in New Orleans, or go back to help?
I’ll break this one up into two parts, and preface this one with a statement: I never intended to flee. I had every intention of staying in the FQ and riding out Katrina. I had emailed, in fact, everyone who might be concerned about me the day before I ended up high-tailing and told them that I would be riding it out in New Orleans. Why did I leave? Because of an email from a long-time friend and meteorologist from Panama City. It read, “Do not fuck around with this storm.” Look. I may be naïve. I may be slow. I may be occasionally downright short-bus. But I’m not so insane that I’m willing to ignore a hard-core storm-chaser’s warning. In my seven year tenure in the FQ, he was my gauge. Before every hurricane near-miss, he had told me it was cool, that I was safer and saner in my home than with the crazies up on I-10. This time, he threatened to drive to New Orleans and bodily drag me out of my apartment. So I listened, and I left.

Why did I not go back to help?
I could spit out a million reasons, but they would sound like excuses, the same way they all sound like excuses coming from other people’s mouths. So all I’ll say is that I waited along with the rest of the world to see where and how it all would shake out. My reasons had not so much to do with being a coward (though I’ll cop to that where Cat 5’s are concerned) as keeping my loved ones from worrying. They needed to know I was safe. So I went the safe route. The end.

Why am I not going back there to live? Don’t I care about rebuilding the economy?
Had I unlimited air miles and a trust fund, then yes, I would pack my things and leave Las Cruces today to go back to New Orleans to live. I would pay exorbitant rent to live in the FQ again. I would invite strangers at random to eat out with me every night and tip like there’s no tomorrow. I would hand out money to everyone around me. I would start a business and hire the first 200 people who asked me for a job. But all of that is a fantasy. I eke out my living writing and editing, and I’ve never had a trust fund. My air miles are long-gone, spent on trying to get back into New Orleans to retrieve my boxes.

So here I landed, parked square in the desert for now. Only a few miles from the Mexican border, I’m a minority for the first time in my life. Chile has replaced cayenne in my spice rack. I’m running dangerously low on Community Coffee. The taste of C. Howard’s Violet Mints is a fading memory. There’s no water in the air, and I’m starting to look a little like Georgia O’Keefe on a bad day.

For better or worse, I moved to New Orleans by choice in the summer of 1998. I stayed for seven years out of a love that sneaked up on me for the city. I left it of my own accord, though admittedly dragging my feet and a sizeable amount of baggage filled with second thoughts, tearful misgivings and Mignon Faget catalogs.

I am homesick, yes, a reluctant expatriate with a vested interest in knowing NOLA will reinvent itself more kinetically gaudy, culturally quirkier, and more fiercely beautiful than ever. I know that will happen, and I’m saving up my air miles again so I can come back to see it shine. I know it will because so many of you never left, and so many have had the balls to come back.

You all amaze me.

And I am grateful.

Dana Harrison-Tidwell is a graduate of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop.

photos courtesy.