I debated whether to post yesterday. I think most people who read this blog, know me and my story. Not that it's that much different from so many "Katrina" stories. I wasn't sure I could add anything new to what we've all been inundated with over the past four years.
The thing is, every time I go there, I run the risk of tying that can to my tail, you know that "Oh-that's-Cathy-the-one-who-lost-her-house-in-the-storm" can.
I always cringed whenever some well-meaning soul introduced me that way a.) because I wasn't the only person (not even the only Cathy) who lost my house in the storm and b.) I never wanted to be defined by a situation that was not of my own making.
The best thing I can say about going through an event as massive and life-changing as Katrina is it really helps you figure out whether you are the person who always thought you were.
I think I am. Looking back at all my actions during and after the ordeal, I think I handled myself OK. I came out on the other side. I've moved on. Not that I came out totally unscathed. There's a lot of things that were important to me before the storm that I don't place nearly as much emphasis on these days. And, really, that's a good thing.
Right after the hurricane, I wrote the following diary entry as catharsis and also sent it out with my Christmas card in 2005. A lot of people said it spoke to them, so here it is again (I promise this is the last time). It remains my definitive statement on what I loved and lost in the storm.
THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED (OCTOBER 2005)
Yesterday I visited the post-Katrina ruins of my house. A new message had been added to the makeshift bulletin board that once was my front porch. Next to life-affirming “I’m OK!” I painted in the early pre-cell phone coverage days and the Day-Glo search symbol the recovery crew left behind, city building inspectors had left a red calling card. It seems this property has been condemned.
In 1965, before Katrina, even before Camille came calling, Hollywood blew through Bay St. Louis transforming our little coastal city into a facsimile of a Depression-era Delta backdrop for the Robert Redford and Natalie Wood romance, “This Property Is Condemned”. Everyone in Bay St. Louis knows someone who was an extra in the movie. When I joined the 21st century and got a DVD player last April, I christened it with this Southern gothic trash wallow. Bad accents aside, it has always been a favorite of mine.
If I rummage among the rubble in my backyard, I may find my copy next to the carcasses of the DVD player and TV set. It would make a great photo -- me in a tattered party dress (I’m sure I have one hanging in a tree somewhere) standing dazedly amidst the ruins a la Natalie as Alva Starr. Trouble is, who’ll take the picture? Where’s Robert Redford when you need him?
I remember the first time I saw my house. It was my first house. I came late to home ownership, because I wouldn’t buy just any old place. It had to have wood floors and a front porch – someplace with character. One day, as I was driving home from work, I saw a For Sale by Owner sign in front of the perfect minuscule yard of a 1940s cottage. My brakes left tire tracks down Dunbar Avenue. This house had everything I wanted: a wood-burning fireplace, a claw-foot bathtub, and a winding gravel path, bordered by lush green ferns, leading up to a giant shady oak. The previous owner cried as she reluctantly handed me the keys. “I’ll take good care of it,” I promised.
And I did. I put pumpkins on the porch in fall, festooned the door with fresh garland at Christmas, hung wind chimes in trees and nestled bird baths in the ferns. My friend Lou dubbed my house The Fern Cottage. The name stuck.
It was not only my first home; I hoped it would be my last. I lovingly pored over decorating magazines, dog-eared photos, planned improvements. I added a dishwasher and floored the bathroom with period-appropriate honeycomb tile.
There was never a moment of buyer’s remorse. Every evening, when my tires crunched on the gravel drive and the “Welcoming Committee,” – my adopted stray cats, Martha Stewart, Joey and Miss Thang, greeted me by picket fence gate, my heart swelled with pride of ownership. I sat in my wicker rocker on the porch, read my mail and greeted the neighbors as they rode their bikes or strolled down to the water’s edge.
“Love your house,” they called to me.
I loved it, too.
It was the house where stray kitties raised their families knowing they would be loved. It was the house where my closest friends gathered for candlelit margarita parties and soft jazz. It was the house where I brought my mother to live the final good year of her life.
I last viewed my dream cottage – as it once was -- through a rain-spattered windshield. Wind gusts tossed about the branches of the oak tree. Six rescued kitties mewed mournfully in the backseat, but the Welcoming Committee refused to emerge from the crawlspace under the house. My eyes welled as we drove away toward our safe haven. I wasn’t sure what I would find when I returned.
“Maybe it’s all right,” I told myself two days later as my friend Judy and I climbed over fallen trees and downed power lines. As we worked our way down Dunbar, the damage grew worse block by horrifying block. Hope flickered when I saw the glimmer of a familiar tin roof through the debris. At first glance my little cottage seemed OK, battered, but still standing. Then I noticed the structure sagged nine feet away from its pier foundation. The porch where I read mail was ripped away. The deck, scene of so many margarita fests, was now a pile of boards. My walls and ceilings were gutted, and my possessions, what was left of them, were tumbled about in foul-smelling black gunk. The Fern Cottage was gone as surely as if it washed away with the storm surge into the Bay of St. Louis.
And yet, it’s still my home. Miraculously, Martha Stewart and her son Joey survived the storm and wait patiently every evening for their supper by the still-standing garden gate. With every new visit, the muck yields up another old memory: my grandmother’s punchbowl, now the proud survivor of two hurricanes; my grandparents’ wedding portrait; a coneflower painting bought on a trip to Salem, Mass.; an heirloom silver tray. All are packed away for my next home.
My new home has a front porch and wood floors. Soon it will have my reclaimed kitties strolling through a garden gate. I’ll put out pumpkins in the fall and evergreens in the winter. There will be a memorial garden for Miss Thang, the one absent member of the Welcoming Committee. It may even have ferns. But it won’t be quite the same.
Condemned or not, The Fern Cottage will always be my first house, and the home of my heart.
2009 UPDATE: For those of you who have asked for an update, the new place in Hattiesburg has started to feel like home. It took a while to get there. I don't wake up anymore thinking I'm back at the Fern Cottage. I had what remained of the Fern Cottage torn down a few months after the storm. It was a heart-wrenching decision, but it had to be done. Getting that over with really helped me move on.
When I drive down Dunbar Avenue (and I do from time to time), I've gotten over that sick to my stomach feeling. I go there now expecting to see a vacant lot .
I never was able to catch the "welcoming committee." They were never really mine. My neighbor across the street took over the task of feeding them. I occasionally catch a glimpse of one or two when I am in the area.
Will I ever go back? I'm no longer sure. The neighborhood just isn't the same. The insurance is unaffordable. But I still own the property, so the possibility is there.
When people ask me where I live, I still hesitate a little before I say "Hattiesburg". Because in my heart, I still live on the Coast.
And always will.
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