The morning we left Bloomington, a freak storm arose. We were supposed to leave at 4 in the morning, and since I stayed up so late, packng and doing laundry, I decided not to sleep. I just settled down on the futon--my bed, my home, my self-imposed exile--watched the lightning flash from the living room windows, and waited for Eric to arrive. Eventually, he did, fifteen minutes late thanks to the torrential downpours. He stood silently in the rain, head lifted up to the sky, an enigmatic expression on his face. Lord, I thought, we can't both of us be angsty and contemplative on this trip.

We loaded up his car with my excess baggage, and without a backward glance at my old home, I settled in for the ride. All the way through Southern Indiana, the lightning lit up the sky, the wind buffeted the car, and rain obscured visibility. Eric sat, hunched over the wheel, and though I was not driving--Eric insisted on driving the entire week--I stayed awake, alert, silent, vigilant, perhaps in sympathy, perhaps in camradarie. Both completely useless, of course.

Finally, we emerged from Indiana, into Kentucky, and with painfully obvious and therefore pedestrian symbolism, the storm cleared up. The sun began to rise, and we stopped off at a terrible diner to stretch our legs and get some (alleged) nourishment. As I emerged from the car and into the Deep South--my home, even if I would never live there again--and felt the humid air, already warmer, and listened to the crickets and mockingbirds ("The Confederate Airforce," as Eric wryly observed) of my youth, a small measure of tension seeped out of my shoulders. New Orleans, my second family, a week away from Indiana with the most stalwart and undemanding travel companion imaginable, St. Paddy's day in the French Quarter, all of it lay ahead, at the end of a sixteen hour road trip. But already, it felt like I was home.

The rest of the trip down was uneventful, save for the fact that the deeper we drove into Alabama and Mississippi, the more torn-up and devastated the landscape became. Felled trees--hundreds, perhaps thousands, in every direction. Homes and buildings damaged. Lives and livelihoods dispersed. Eric and I became more sober the further south we traveled, silently witnessing the damage that heretofore had only existed for us on television and internet news sites.

And finally, Louisiana. Soon we had arrived; I had jumped out of the car and was running for Deshka, my unwilling companion on my emotional pilgrimmage of the year. It had been three years since we had seen each other, but she seemed the same--happy, vibrant, beautiful, charismatic. So much had gone down in our lives in the past three years, life changes in a heartbeat, as we told each other in countless late-night phone conversations, but none of it mattered. She was the same, and it was the most comforting fact I had encountered in months. As I ran to her and threw myself into her arms, I realized that coming to New Orleans had been the most brilliant and sane choice I had made in a very long time.