Home again at last

Our new sofa was delivered a few weeks ago. I know people get new sofas all the time, but this was different. It really was. We hadn't had a sofa or anything of any real comfort to sit on for over a year. We've sat -- and slept -- on floors, on pieces of foam from Wal-Mart, on wall-to-wall carpeting and on hardwood floors. The latter is not recommended for a restful night, by the way.

Eventually we graduated to a futon. That was certainly a step up. But now we are the rightful owners of a black leather sofa and matching chair. We're thrilled.

When you lose your home -- and most of its contents -- as we did in Hurricane Katrina, small comforts take on great symbolism. Sitting together, reading books, watching a DVD, just talking about the day or entertaining friends, those things just don't work when the experience resembles a camp-out or a yoga class.

Our daughter, off to Boston for her freshman year at college, stated that she was taking everything she owns since she knew she would be in the dorm for at least six months, longer than she has been anywhere else in the last 18 months. We hoped things were looking up when she called and said college is so relaxing because she has a better standard of living there than she's had in the last year. "A comfortable bed, great water pressure and people who fix food for me, it's fantastic." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I did a bit of both.

Of course, we could have bought a new sofa set some months ago with some of our insurance proceeds. But then, furniture has to fit into a home, and without a home, well, how would we know what furniture to buy? We had the house, it just wasn't a home yet.

So what is home?

After Katrina, my husband, two teenagers and I found ourselves faced with that very question. Displaced to Baton Rouge for four months, we were luckier than most. We still had jobs, a roof over our heads and a school for the kids to attend.

And yet, we were still evacuees, refugees, displaced people.

We made it back to New Orleans just in time for Christmas 2005, in large measure thanks to extended family who opened their doors to us. Then we were "displaced in place." Back "home," without one.

Time moved on and so did we, this time to Carrboro. Moving to the Tar Heel state was part of our five-year plan. Our youngest would graduate from high school, class of 2009, and we would amble over to North Carolina to begin life anew as empty nesters. Katrina made the five-year plan into a five-month plan. So here we are. Are we home yet?

Life is different here with different culture, climate, cuisine and colors.

It's easier, for sure, than life in the disaster zone, but it is different and different takes getting used to for the middle-aged like us.

In New Orleans, the world always seemed a little askew. Oozing delightful eccentricity and a laissez-faire attitude, the city masked the grinding, generational poverty with bread and circuses. Free Mardi Gras beads and high unemployment, world class cuisine coupled with genuine hunger, European civility and street violence worthy of Somalia. Oh yes, things were askew in New Orleans long before Katrina.

Homeless, in a sense, for the last year and a half, it's time now to put down roots, not in the swampy soils of southeast Louisiana that shift and change with the tides, but in the Tar Heel state of North Carolina, where things stick.

Instead of the Crescent City Green Market, we're learning about the Carrboro Farmers' Market. Instead of gumbo and jambalaya, it's shrimp and grits at Crooks Corner and blues bands and hula hoops at Weaver Street Market. It's an adventure that's been thrust upon us, this opportunity to reinvent our lives.

Like a widow trying to throw off her black funeral veil, I'm cooking up a storm for the after party -- a new life in North Carolina.

Bring that sofa right in here. We're home.