Chaos Theory

The Definition of Home

Finding meaning after the storm of the century

By Cassie Bustamante

What do you take with you when you’re evacuating for a hurricane? Baby, check. Baby accoutrements, check. Both dogs, check. Toiletries, check. Enough clothes for just a few days — because surely, we won’t be gone that long — check. (Though overpacking was a nonissue since my two-week-postpartum body wasn’t squeezing into much besides drawstring sweatpants when Katrina made a beeline for New Orleans.)

After living it up for a year in an old, baby-blue, converted Victorian in New Orleans’ Garden District, Chris and I moved across Lake Pontchartrain to Slidell to begin our more “respectable,” suburban newlywed life in 2003. The Lake Village rancher was our very first home and I took much pride in making it ours.

A year-and-a-half later, I coated the walls of the soon-to-be nursery in buttery yellow and filled the space with blue-and-green furnishings from my own childhood. And, much to my current self’s embarrassment, I decorated with a frog prince theme. Royal amphibians in place, we were as ready as we’d ever be. In August of 2005, we welcomed our first baby, a boy, into our home.

As if being frazzled new parents isn’t enough of a sleepless whirlwind, an actual cyclone had just announced its impending arrival. Lucky for us, my dad was visiting. His timing couldn’t have been better because it turned out that we needed him. Since I wasn’t yet allowed to lift anything heavy, Dad and Chris boarded up the windows of our rancher.

Together, we hurriedly packed up all the essentials and loaded everything into our two cars. Chris drove his Jeep Liberty, our two pups panting anxiously in his ear, and Dad took the driver’s seat of my Ford Escape, with 2-week-old Sawyer and me riding in the back. One by one, we joined the slow-moving interstate parade of evacuees. Because I was still nursing every couple of hours, highway truckers — who had a straight line of sight into our car — got quite a show. Helpless, I simply waved and smiled as we passed them.

Our hours-long drive finally landed us in Knoxville, Tennessee, home to my in-laws who welcomed the four of us, plus our canines, to crash their house for what we’d wrongly assumed would be just a few days. My mother-in-law, Pam, raved about how I was holding it all together, especially as a new mom in crisis. Honestly, I didn’t know to do any differently. What else could we do but accept things as they were and keep putting one foot in front of the other?

But, eventually, my breakdown came. We watched the news relentlessly to find out the latest at home. All of our friends had evacuated as well, so no one was there to fill us in except for reporters who tend to exaggerate. The tears finally fell when an anchorwoman said, “Eighty-five percent of homes in Slidell have been destroyed.” At that moment, it finally occurred to me that we may not have a house to return to.

Noticing my wet eyes, Chris put his arm around me reassuringly. I looked around and took in my surroundings. Baby asleep in hand-me-down Moses basket, check. Partner by my side, check. Dogs sitting at my feet, check. In short, we were lucky to all be alive.

In the coming week, though, we’d learn just how lucky we were. Aside from needing a new roof, our house, which sat less than a mile from where flooding reached, survived. But that experience redefined what home means to me. It’s not a building filled with precious things you’ve put on walls and collected over the years. It’s a feeling of safety and security, a knowing that everything you need is within reach and that your family will be by your side throughout any storm. That is home. OH

Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine.

Chaos Theory 101

An introduction

By Cassie Bustamante

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been enthralled by magazines. My parents gifted me my very first subscriptions — to Highlights and National Geographic, which I would anxiously await each month, religiously checking our mailbox daily anticipating their arrival. And when I was old enough to walk to the drugstore in our small New England town center, I’d use my own babysitting money to purchase high quality publications — Bop and Seventeen (plus wet n’ wild Pink Frost lipstick— it was the early ’90s). Holding those glossy pages filled with bright images and stories felt magical in my hands.

Years later, as a senior at Wake Forest University, I knew I wanted to move to New York City after graduation and work my way up to editor at a magazine, to be a part of something that always brought me so much joy. However, that same year, I met my husband, Chris, and, much to my college advisor’s chagrin — sorry, Dr. Zulick! — I put my own dream on the back burner.

I’ve spent the last 20 years all over the career map as a retail manager, personal trainer, group exercise instructor, vintage store owner and DIY blogger/influencer. I’ve raised two kids who are almost ready to fly the coop and added a preschooler to the mix. We’ve moved from North Carolina to Tennessee to Texas to Louisiana to Maryland, and back to North Carolina in 2019. Through it all, one thing has remained constant: my love for magazines. OK, two things: my love for magazines and my love for my husband.

I’d long since buried that dream of working in the magazine world, but a chance meeting with a neighbor reminded me that it still lived within me, simmering quietly all along. On an early, pre-dawn morning walk in the midsummer of 2020, I met Jim Dodson, the founding editor of O.Henry. It was one of those moments when your soul responds to another with, “Oh, it’s you. I know you.”

A couple months later, knowing that I had social media experience, he called me about “a job you’d be a perfect fit for,” and asked me to attend a driveway meeting, as one did in 2020. At the time, I wasn’t looking for a job, but, after thinking it over, I decided to give it a shot and applied.

For the past two-and-a-half years I’ve worked as O.Henry’s digital content manager, adding the role of managing editor in 2022. Now, 23 years after putting that dream of being an editor on the back burner, it’s bubbling over with excitement. The fact that I get to play an integral part in delivering into your hands a magazine filled with beautiful, hopeful and humorous writing paired with stunning photography and artwork is the fourth greatest joy of my life, ranking just under my kids.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it’s a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect.”

Full disclosure: We’re still a hot mess at our house. There are currently dirty dishes piled in the sink, dog slobber streaks on the windows and dried Play-Doh crumbs under my feet as I write. Life with three kids, two rescue dogs and two full-time careers can be, at times, utter chaos, but it’s given me pages upon pages of content — sometimes funny, sometimes bittersweet, always honest. And finally, I can see the storyline developing in the midst of the mess. OH

Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine.

Tag: Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory

The Definition of Home

Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory 101