I left home with a garment bag, my backpack and a cooler. I packed five days' worth of clothes, some fruit and water. I thought I was going to the country for three or four days, then I'd be back home. Like always.

That hasn't proved to be the case.

My lower Ninth Ward neighborhood twice sat under 12 feet of water. After six weeks, I felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown, not knowing the status of my property. On Day 44, I made the five-hour trek down Interstate 55 to New Orleans. I was on a mission.

Driving along I-10 through the western suburbs, I noticed wind-battered high-rises, missing billboards, blue-tarped residential roofs and piles of garbage. Once inside the city limits on I-610, I was struck by the utter lack of traffic. And by something, eerily strange, that I couldn't immediately put my finger on. It finally hit me: everything in our subtropical landscape was now brown.

My part of town — which isn't even delineated on the tourist maps — looked like a war zone: deserted streets void of all signs of life, mud-caked streets, overturned vehicles. Two of the three bridges leading to the lower Ninth Ward were raised and out of commission.

Somewhere between McComb and Hammond, La., I'd heard on the radio that this was the first day of reentry into the lower Ninth Ward. National Guardsmen passed out EPA pamphlets warning of toxic dust, water and mold to each vehicle, and I crossed the St. Claude Avenue Bridge. But I was unprepared for the barricades obstructing the northernmost quadrant in which I live.

I was four short blocks away from where some uninformed soul had spray-painted in black: "RIP Fats" on the still-living music legend's pink, yellow and white manse.

It was six weeks after Hurricane Katrina and two weeks after Hurricane Rita. But the Channel 6 was on the scene, and other media types were also wandering around.

I joined a crowd of aggravated and concerned residents after briefly chatting with my neighbor, Charles, who had driven down from Shreveport. He told me that when he drove by my house, all he saw was the taxi. My heart raced. I felt perplexed. Charles lives a half-block from me.

After standing around for 20 minutes, commiserating with others and intent on not being kept away from my property, I saw someone in a position of authority who could get me in. I'd have to leave my car and be escorted in. So I gathered the cleaning supplies, boots, gloves and respirator mask I had purchased for this occasion.

Maybe I could retrieve some of the things that were at the tops of my closets: two pairs of leather boots, seven years of journals, spare car keys, some photos. . . . Primarily, I had come to get my passport.