The Nature of Impermanence

(or, “Impermanence Sucks”)

February 25, 2011
Nearly Six Months After the Fire

Hello Dear Friends,

Tonight at dinner I saw my friend Sandy, who asked, “Hey, do you still want us to give you candles for your birthday?” I stared at her for a second and then burst out laughing. She smiled and said, “I’ve been waiting until you looked like you could laugh again to make that joke.”

I explained to the other people at the table that in my previous, pre-fire life, I used to light dozens of candles in the dark months of deep winter, to cheer me through the snowy evenings. By spring I would have burned my whole stash, and so for my birthday in July I would ask people to just give me candles, so I could stock up again for winter.  When the house burned down, my beautiful collection of candles melted away, as they were intended to do, but of course, before their time. Such is the nature of impermanence.  We are all candles, waiting to melt and burn away, but each day we say, “Not now, it’s too soon. Let’s wait until Winter, okay?”

I remember the moment when I decided not to become a Buddhist.  I was in my early twenties, and (as many Twenty-Somethings do) searching for the Meaning of Life. One day I was reading about one of the classic Buddhist exercises on the nature of impermanence, “The Pot is Already Broken.” In this exercise, you pick one of your favorite things, and hold it in your mind. It might be a cup, a precious jewel, an heirloom…You imagine it first cracked, then broken, then turned to dust. The point is to realize that every precious thing in your life is already gone, that dissolution is just the nature of things, and that this is the true essence of life – impermanence.  When I read this I tossed aside the book and thought, “God, that is the most depressing thing I’ve ever read!” And then, did not become a Buddhist.

Like most great truths, Impermanence is a pretty hard pill to swallow.

I did pursue a spiritual path, though, and at one point wanted to be a monk.  I lived in an ashram for a year – put everything in storage and lived in a tiny room, and all my possessions for a year fit under the bed.  It was incredibly liberating, living so simply.  The days and nights were spacious and long, and filled with rich discussions about life, service, renunciation, and great spiritual texts.  At the end of a year, I decided that monastic life wasn’t really for me, and when I returned home, I was overwhelmed with how huge my house seemed, and by what felt like mountains of “stuff.” I looked around my kitchen and thought, “Who on earth needs all these sets of dishes?  Why do I have so damn many  mugs? What is all this stuff FOR?”  As I re-acclimated to life “in the world,” I realized that you need stuff to make a life. You need all those dishes for when you have a big dinner party, and you need all those mugs to serve coffee afterwards, and you need three big boxes of candles to light up your house during the long, dark, Colorado winter.

So when we started talking about the beauty of renunciation and other Great Truths at dinner tonight, at one point I said, “Sandy. I’ve lived in an ashram. I practice detachment all the time. I’ve been contemplating my own death as a spiritual practice for twenty years. But what I’d really like right now is just a BREAK FROM ALL THIS!” We all laughed, and Sandy said, “Well, my twenty-year old daughter turned to me a while back and said, ‘You know Mom, impermanence sucks.'”  And then we all laughed again. Impermanence sucks – I think we’ve hit on another Great Truth here.

As I was driving home from dinner I thought about a story I heard on “This American Life” on NPR, where a guy thinks he only has a year to live, and so he gives away all his money and spends the year bicycling across the country with his brother. When he realizes he’s not going to die, he also realizes that in spite of the popular philosophy to “live every day as if it were your last,” human beings are just not built that way.  We actually can’t live every day as if we were going to die tomorrow. Our brains are wired to hope for the future, to plan, to dream.  Even though the pot is already broken, we love our stuff, we love our attachments, we love the things that keep us tethered to this earthly existence.

And yes, we all know we’re going to die some day, but some part of us has to pretend each day that we will just go on and on and on, doing our best at work, having long dinners with friends, driving home to our beloved dog on a snowy Colorado evening. And that is the best we can do.

Each day I remember something that I have lost, and have to let it go in my mind.  The bowls that I hand-carried from Hong Kong. The teapots collected from around the world. My mother’s silver baby cup.  Those things are broken, melted, gone. But I am not.  I am learning to laugh again, at my friend’s odd jokes, at my dog, running around my cottage squeaking a toy while I write, at the thousand things a day that present themselves to me. The pot may already be broken, but I want to enjoy life and all its treasures in the here and now, to embrace, to let go; to embrace, to let go; and flow on in this strange and lovely Dance of Life.

May we all enjoy the Here and Now and all that surrounds us, today and every day.

Sending You Much Love, and Wishes for Sweet Dreams,

Andi

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Andi
Posted in Friends, Good Moments, Spiritual Experience | 17 Comments
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True Confessions

February 6th, 2011
Five Months After the Fire

Hello Friends,

Well, I’m going to tell you some weird stuff. Some Woo-Woo stuff. But hey, I live in Boulder (You have to say that like this; “BOUL-der”) and Boulder is one of the Top Ten Woo-Woo Towns of All Time — yet another reason why I love it.

Anyway, there are a few Strange Things that I haven’t shared with many people since the fire, and I thought I’d finally share them with you.  So here they are.

As you know, I was out of town when my house burned down. On the day that I was packing to go on that particular road trip, I had finished loading up the car and was about ready to head out and drive cross-country to Port Townsend, Washington, my current Favorite Place That is Not Boulder. Nellie was already in the car, and I was walking around the house, checking the doors and windows and making sure everything was off – just the normal stuff you do before leaving on vacation.  All of a sudden I stopped in the kitchen and had an odd thought – If anything happened to the house, is there anything that I simply could not live without?  I wanted to get going, but this thought began to nag at me. Impulsively, I went down to the bedroom and grabbed the strand of Mikkimoto pearls my father had given me as a teenager, my backup hard drive, and the only existing copy of my Birth Certificate.  I tossed these in a bag, stuffed it under the passenger seat, locked the front door, and drove off.

My friend Beth laughed with disbelief when I told her this story after the fire. “You brought your birth certificate and pearls on a KAYAKING TRIP? Andi, do you realize that NOBODY DOES THAT?”

Especially not me. I have to say that I have never been an overly cautious person.  I grew up in the late sixties and early seventies after all, and have had many a Wild Adventure in my day. I still travel a lot, and usually toss everything in the car and hit the road without a second thought. But on that particular morning, I just had a funny feeling about leaving the house. There was something that gave me pause, and I’ve always believed in following those instincts.

And so, without knowing it, without thinking, I had grabbed a few of the most important and irreplaceable objects in my life; the pearls that my father had hand-carried from a trip to Japan and gave to me when I turned 13 – my first real grown-up gift; my Birth Certificate – the proof of my very existence; and my backup hard drive –  the small, metal box of wires and chips and technology that holds ten or more years of writing, research, films and photos. Just a flick of the wrist and it was in the bag – saved for my own little eternity.

As Beth said, Who DOES that? No one I know, including me.  As I said, pretty Woo-Woo.

The other big Woo-Woo thing happened the day of the fire. Long before anyone told me, I knew in my heart that my house had burned down.  On Labor Day, when I heard that the fire was burning in Sunshine Canyon (still a pretty big distance from my house) I began to sob uncontrollably. My brain kept thinking, “What’s the matter with you? It’s not even in your neighborhood!” But my heart knew the truth. My house was gone. Everything was gone. It was only a matter of time before I would get the Bad News. My head was hoping for the best, but my heart was already breaking.

That night in Port Townsend, I finished packing for my road trip back to Colorado, and then got into a steaming hot bath. I remembered a story I heard a spiritual teacher tell many years ago.  It goes like this:

In China long ago, there was a businessman who owned many factories and stores. He spent his days running his huge empire.  Yet he was never stressed, and always seemed very serene. One of his employees finally asked, “When you have all this responsibility and pressure, how is it that you manage to stay so calm, so centered?”  The businessman replied, “Each night when I lie in bed, in my mind I burn down my factories, and I burn down my stores, and I go to bed knowing I have nothing. So I sleep like a baby, and when I wake up in the morning, everything is new.”

I thought about that story, and closed my eyes.  I mentally burned down the house, and thought, “If everything is gone, where will I go? If I’m not on my mountain on my three acres behind a ranch, where will I be?”  The first thing that popped into my mind was “Chautauqua.”  That beautiful little camp-like spot in Boulder, tucked right up against the foothills, with the cute cabins and the historic Dining Hall and the wonderful old concert hall. The place with gardens, and quiet, and cool green expanses. Chautauqua Park.

I didn’t even know if they still rented places at Chautauqua; I assumed they had long ago switched over to short-term tourist rentals. But that night, I went on line and looked at cottages in Chautauqua. And in the morning I shot off an email to friends asking them to look into it. Before I even knew for sure that my house burned down. And when I learned a cottage was available, I took it sight unseen, without looking into any other rentals, because that same small voice said, “This is your place.” How did I know it would turn out to be the perfect place for me?

Like I said, Woo-Woo.

Here’s the thing about Woo-Woo.  I think there is a kind of mystical web that connects each and every one of us.  Call it God, or Nature, or Spirit, or The Heart, or Quantum Energy, or Cosmic Intelligence or Random Matter. I think there is Something- inside or outside of us –  and that Something, when we get in touch with it, tells us important things – things we need to not miss.

In my post-fire life, I’ve been contemplating this. What was it that told me to do one last round in my house, and grab just a few more things? How on earth did I know that my house had burned down, long before the official report, when in the end, all of my closest neighbors’ homes were saved? Why did I have that funny feeling, on that day last summer, that I might never come back to that house?

And what IS that Something? Where does it live? Inside me? Outside me? Is it God? Intuition? My own good sense? These are questions good people have wrestled with for centuries.

The jury’s out for now, but I will keep you posted, as I make my True Confessions in this writing, and listen for that still, small voice, that messenger that whispers, and tugs at my sleeve, and tells me that the house is burning, burning… and to get ready.

Wishing you a Good Night,

Andi

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Andi
Posted in Boulder, Chautauqua, Spiritual Experience | 17 Comments
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Food is Love

About a week after my house burned down, my friend Anne, who is in her 70’s, showed up on the doorstep of my rented cottage, her arms full of groceries. She marched right into the kitchen and began unloading bags of stuff from Whole Foods — Vegetarian lasagna, pizza, macaroni and cheese, frozen vegetables, vegetarian “meat” loaf with gravy and mashed potatoes, ice cream, bread, eggs, organic milk.

“What’s all this?” I said.  She patted my cheek like a good Mom would, and started loading it all into the refrigerator. She said, “Just taking care of Our Girl.”

The other night I realized I hadn’t eaten all day, and I found the pizza in the freezer.  I took it out of the plastic wrap and read the directions. “Preheat oven to 425, and place pizza on a cookie sheet.”  I said out loud, “COOKIE SHEET?!  Who the heck has a COOKIE SHEET??”  These cottages were made for long, romantic weekends, or maybe a week-long getaway, but they are not outfitted from someone who has just lost everything.

I rooted around and found a lasagna pan (nope, wrong shape altogether) and then opened the broiler and found, ta dah, the broiler pan!  Wide, slotted, and just right for cooking a little pizza.  I was extremely proud of myself, and gloated a little bit while the pizza cooked.  When it came out 15 minutes later, it was delicious.  I thought of Anne and sent her a mental hug.

Tonight once again I am rummaging through my cupboards, looking for something to eat. As usual, I have been running without stopping since eight o’clock this morning.

I open the fridge and it is a Showcase of Love. There’s the corn chowder Ellen made me. The chocolate (five bars!) that Matthew brought from Chicago.  The box of Coke that Kathy got me – a wild indulgence for a purist like me. There is a jar of stew that my friend Gale’s husband made for me, and a little bit of Dana’s amazing beef barley soup.

Soup is good, I tell my friends who ask what they can bring me.  Soup I can eat without thinking or chewing too much. And it is comforting. I am in need of comfort these days.

Last week my friend Laurie brought over a box of canned goods she collected for me, and I rifle around in the cupboard through these.  It is like a journey back in time. A can of Chef Boy Are Dee Mini-Ravioli.  Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup. Boxes of Rice-A-Roni.  This is so charmingly Not-Boulder.  This is the kind of stuff I ate in college, before becoming Vegetarian then Macrobiotic then Low Carb/High Protein then Wheat Free/Dairy Free/Gluten Free then Vegan and finally Moderate Omnivore.

I open the can of ravioli and pour a few into a bowl, and stick it in the microwave. When it beeps, I take it out and sniff the bowl.  It smells good, and I laugh with guilty pleasure.  This is full of wheat, carbs, sugar, red meat from questionable sources, and an entire day’s allotment of salt.  The list of ingredients is longer than my arm.  This is the kind of food my friends and I warn each other about.  It is definitely not Organic. And it is really, really not Local.  I take a bite of a tiny ravioli. It is delicious, because it is filled with Love. I can feel it when I eat it, and that makes me smile.

After a few bites, I cover the mostly-full can and put it in the fridge.  Nellie looks up at me from her bed, and sniffs the air curiously, hopefully, as if to say, “Is that for me? What are you doing?”

“Just taking care of Our Girl,” I tell her. And happiness washes over me like a wave.  Just taking care of Our Girl. Who has ever been so loved?

Wishing You a Good Night,

Andi

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Andi
Posted in Food, Friends, Good Moments, Nellie the Dog | 13 Comments
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Home for the Holidays

January 7th, 2011
Four Months Since the Fire

Hello Friends, and Happy New Year!

Nellie and I are curled up on the couch, enjoying a quiet evening by the light of our little Christmas tree.

It was a quiet Holiday season for us, full of gifts and friends, laughter and sadness — the strangely mixed blessings that constitute life these days.  During the holidays there were times when I could pretend I was on vacation –  just another tourist among the many who booked cottages here in Chautauqua.  And yet, on the day after Christmas as I watched them check out of their cottages and load up their cars for home, I was filled with longing. Home. They get to go home.

Photo Courtesy of my neighbor, Lauren Schowe

As I was walking Nellie that morning, I watched as one woman loaded her final suitcase into the trunk of her car and then looked around for one last time with a smile. She seemed to be taking it in, imprinting the lovely meadow and mountains of Chautauqua in her mind, as we sometimes do when we’re leaving a place we love – we stop for that one last look, and then we get in the car and head for home.  As she drove away, she smiled and waved, and I waved back.  I wondered, was she thinking, “Ah, I have to leave, but you get to stay. How lucky are you?”  It’s funny – When we look across the fence and long for someone else’s life, we never know what they’re really experiencing. What looks like a vacation is really a strange homelessness, and what looks like a walk in the park is a little trip through hell, in spite of the scenery.

And yet there were many moments of joy and fun this Christmas. My friend Beth came over on Christmas Eve and we made dinner and played dominoes and watched the Muppet Christmas Carol, and laughed about how geeky we were to be spending Christmas Eve playing dominoes and watching the Muppet Christmas Carol.  I typically host a big open house dinner up at my place on the 24th, but this year Beth and I made turkey meatballs and roasted vegetables for two, had Bananas Foster for dessert and sat on my little couch and watched the Muppets on my computer, and I wondered out loud what Charles Dickens would have thought of his beloved Bob Cratchit being played by a big, stuffed frog (Kermit.) Nellie snuggled in between us, alternately flopping her head in my lap, then in Beth’s, then back to mine, each time letting out a long, blissful sigh.  Much better than a big dinner party, she seemed to say – way snugglier.

On Christmas Day my friend Linda came over and we made eggs benedict (a family tradition) and opened presents together and drank coffee and talked for hours. It was so relaxing. Then we headed over to my friend Val’s house down the street for a very Boulder Christmas dinner —  organic roast turkey with gluten-free gravy, dairy-free mashed potatoes, and wheat-free Christmas cookies.  We played games, listened to a CD of Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai playing Christmas carols, and talked about family, and the Ghosts of Holidays Past, and how nice it was to be at a Christmas party where no one got drunk, or yelled, or burned the turkey because they weren’t paying attention.

People didn’t ask much about the fire, and I didn’t talk about it much either. At one point, someone asked me if all my jewelry burned up, and I replied that the only things that survived were what I had on —  one ring, one pair of earrings, a necklace, and the bracelet I was wearing at the time of the fire. She shook her head sadly, and then we changed the subject.

A few days later she showed up at my cottage with a small bag of earrings, culled from her own collection. “I just have way too many,” she said, “And I wondered if you’d like any of these.”  My eyes filled with tears. “Are you sure?” I said, “Are you really sure?”  “Oh yes,” she said, “I just can’t stand the thought of you with only one pair of earrings. And I really have too many.”  I picked a couple of pairs, and gave her a big hug as she left.  There it is again, I thought. That instinctual kindness that lives in us all, and occasionally taps on the door of our consciousness and says, “Hey, DO something.”

On New Year’s Eve morning my neighbor Lauren came over (much to Nellie’s delight,) and we drank coffee and talked about 2010. We talked about the “highlights and low-lights” of the year, and Lauren said, “Well, it’s obvious what your ‘low-light’ was, but what about the highlights?”  I replied that in many ways, 2010 was one of the best years of my life. I took some great vacations, and this year I got to fulfill a long-time dream of going to the ocean for a month and writing. I had a ton of work most of the year, and then in the summer took an amazing cross-country road trip by myself to Yellowstone, the Oregon Coast, and Port Townsend, Washington, which is where I was when the house burned down. I told her that actually, this whole Stupid Fire Thing has been a highlight, in its own weird way.  It’s taken me on a stormy journey into a new world, where my whole sense of self has been turned upside down and shaken, and what’s fallen out of my pockets has been pretty darn interesting. Who knows where it’s going to take me next.

We drank coffee and talked more and she went home in the early evening, and since it was snowy and icy and windy out, Nellie and I stayed in and watched movies, and then climbed into bed. She tunneled in under the covers, warm and  snug.  The wind howled outside the cottage walls, and I fell asleep – for once – long before midnight, and slept a long sleep. And in my dreams I was running from bombs that fell from the sky and burst into flames, and I knew that if I could just get across the border, I would be okay. So I ran and ran and leaped across the river, and then I knew I was safe, and free. I ran down the wooded path into a new country, where nothing could hurt me.

And when I woke up on New Year’s Day Nellie was sleeping curled up in my arms, breathing softly, and there were no bombs, and there was no fire, and I knew that this year, somehow, all would be well.

Sending You Our Very Best Wishes for the New Year,

Andi and Nellie

Cards from Nellie's Canine Admirers

Cards from Nellie's Canine Admirers

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Andi
Posted in Chautauqua, Friends, Good Moments, Nellie the Dog | 4 Comments
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Nellie’s Christmas Bounty

December 27th, 2010
New Year’s Week

Hello Friends,

Princess Nellie had quite the Christmas! She received dozens of cards and letters from fans as far away as Cambodia, as well as treats and toys from friends and admirers from Chicago, San Diego, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Alabama, Virginia, Utah, New York, Washington State, and points beyond.

She especially loved the salmon treats that came all the way from Kenai, Alaska (thank you Cindy!) and the squeaky toys from Laura in Alabama, Linda’s Mom in Boston, and Aunt Karen and Uncle Jim in Ohio.

Nellie also received notes and letters from her canine admirers, including, KJ, Dirk, Cody, Dingo, Cinco, Poudre, the Dayton Pack, Loki, Frisbee, Luna, Cora (AKA Pizza Piglet,) Kijik, CoCo, and Nellie’s feline (!) fan, Miss Tabitha Twitchett of Keene, New Hampshire.  Quite the fan club!

I especially want to thank the students of Linda Dewey’s class from Eaglecrest High School in Centennial, Colorado, who sent Nellie and me such beautiful cards and good wishes.  Thank you Aaron, Alexa, Connor, Sarah, (woof woof!) Cesar, Michale, Matthew, Nicole, Monique, Makayla, and all the students in the class for writing to us.  You’re a great bunch of young people!

Here are a few excerpts from their letters:

Dear Princess Nellie,

May your Christmas be filled with sweet moments!…You always got to keep your head up and look at the future. Because God has a plan for you and it’s big!! 🙂

From, Cesar

Dear Princess Nellie,

I am quite sorry that your home burned down with a whole lot of your personal belongings. But I am positive that if you hang in there, something good will come to you. Even if it comes in strange ways.

From, Someone Who Has a Dog Just as Cute as Nellie

And finally,

Have a laugh this holiday season; it will do wonders for your soul.

Many thoughts,

Nicole

Nellie wasn’t the only one to share in the bounty this Christmas!

My former Park Ranger buddy Laura sent me a beautiful Christmas Ornamentset of ornaments that she hand crafted.  This is actually “tatting,” an old-fashioned art form that isn’t seen much these days. Laura also sent a bonanza of gifts for Nellie and me, which made Christmas morning very special. Thanks Laura!

Tiny Christmas TreeMy cousin Bridget sent me a beautiful live tree, completely decorated. This was a total surprise, and arrived at my door about a week before Christmas.  Bridget doesn’t know this, but I had searched high and low in Boulder for a small live tree to decorate, and had given up the morning that this arrived. It’s gorgeous, and it will be the first new tree that I plant on my property in the Spring.

We also received so many wonderful gifts from friends and family  around the country. Snuggly blankets! Office supplies! Bath stuff! And look, more squeaky toys for Nellie! There isn’t room to list all the thoughtful gifts we received. But please know that your love and generosity helped us get through a tough Christmas, and going to the mailbox was the best part of each day.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I’ll close tonight by sharing a note that was sent to Nellie from Rolland the Demolition Guy and his wife Betty. The picture on the front of the card shows Rolland and Betty sitting on a Caterpillar 955L, which looks like a gigantic steam shovel. The caption says, “Big Boy’ with Rolland & Betty after the Fire, 2010.”

I must admit, this is the first Christmas card I’ve ever gotten that features a piece of heavy equipment. And the message inside was really beautiful.

They write,

Dear Princess Nellie,

Thank you for helping Andi every single day. Your love is helping her heal. You see, she is writing about how she feels and that is so important. By her writing what is happening and sharing her pain, she helps each one of us to be in touch with ourselves, to feel our own pain, to have more compassion for each other, to realize we are all in this together, to be true to ourselves, to love and accept ourselves and each other exactly the way we are.

We hope that you know you are loved and that you remind Andi she is loved. We send our best wishes and know that the world is a friendlier place because you are in it.

Blessings to you and Andi,

Betty and Rolland

What a lovely way to end the year. Thank you, everyone, for your love and blessings, and I wish you the very best in the New Year. As Nellie’s friend at Eaglecrest High School said, I am positive that if you hang in there, something good will come to you. Even if it comes in strange ways.

Lots of Love,

Andi and Princess Nellie

Posted on January 10, 2011 by Andi
Posted in Chautauqua, Good Moments, Nellie the Dog, The Kindness of Strangers | 9 Comments
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Poem for December

December 22nd, 2010 – Christmas Week

Hello Friends,

This morning as I was drinking my coffee I heard the poem “Voyage,” on “A Writer’s Almanac” on NPR. I literally stopped in my tracks as I listened, coffee cup held in mid-air. You know how every once in a while a poem or song just grabs you, and seems to be speaking for you – capturing exactly your experience, only in better words? That’s how I feel about this poem.

I love the part where he says, “At night we consoled ourselves/ by discussing the meaning of homesickness./But there was no home to go home to./There was no getting around the ocean./We had to go on finding out the story/by pushing into it—”

That’s how I feel this morning – homesick, adrift, no getting around this homeless ocean. And yet I love the ocean; I dream of it constantly.  I woke up this morning dreaming of the sea and walking the beach. And in some strange way, I love this odd voyage of loss and insight,  the daily expressions of love and friendship, the daily pain of loss and disappointment.  This journey is teaching me lessons I never wanted to learn. I have to go on “finding the story,” and I am anxious for the next chapter.

Last night I was at a Solstice gathering, and a friend, a poet, said, “I’ve been reading your blog and wow. I didn’t know you could write like that.”  I replied, “I didn’t know I could write like that either.” Another strange gift of Fire. Somehow losing everything has pushed me into a new place, where words seem to form themselves, and ask to be shared.

As Dickens wrote, so long ago, it is the best of times, and it is the worst of times, and finally, after all these years, I know what he means.  He means that Life gives us the agony and the ecstasy, every day, all mixed up, all at once, without our permission. That Best and Worst are part and parcel of each other, that sorrow and loss are only the flip sides of joy and gratitude, and they all exist, together, in everything, all around us. All we have to do is turn over that rock and see what’s on the other side.

As Hoagland writes, it is our “marvelous punishment.”

Today the light returns, Winter is at its peak, and it’s all downhill from here. Longer days, shorter nights, and with luck, no regrets.

Wishing You a Merry Christmas Week, and Lots of Love,

Andi and Nellie

Voyage

by Tony Hoagland

I feel as if we opened a book about great ocean voyages
and found ourselves on a great ocean voyage:
sailing through December, around the horn of Christmas
and into the January Sea, and sailing on and on

in a novel without a moral but one in which
all the characters who died in the middle chapters
make the sunsets near the book’s end more beautiful.

—And someone is spreading a map upon a table,
and someone is hanging a lantern from the stern,
and someone else says, “I’m only sorry
that I forgot my blue parka; It’s turning cold.”

Sunset like a burning wagon train
Sunrise like a dish of cantaloupe
Clouds like two armies clashing in the sky;
Icebergs and tropical storms,
That’s the kind of thing that happens on our ocean voyage—

And in one of the chapters I was blinded by love
And in another, anger made us sick like swallowed glass
& I lay in my bunk and slept for so long,

I forgot about the ocean,
Which all the time was going by, right there, outside my cabin window.

And the sides of the ship were green as money,
and the water made a sound like memory when we sailed.

Then it was summer. Under the constellation of the swan,
under the constellation of the horse.

At night we consoled ourselves
By discussing the meaning of homesickness.
But there was no home to go home to.
There was no getting around the ocean.
We had to go on finding out the story
by pushing into it—

The sea was no longer a metaphor.
The book was no longer a book.
That was the plot.
That was our marvelous punishment.

“Voyage” by Tony Hoagland, from Hard Rain. © Hollyridge Press, 2005. (buy now)

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Good Moments, Spiritual Experience | 11 Comments
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Christmas Cards for Nellie

Hello Friends,

Nellie and I are feeling a bit blue this holiday season (we miss our home, our mountain, our meadow…) so I have an idea that might cheer us up.

Would you like to send Nellie a Holiday Card?  It would be fun to see how many readers send cards, and from how far away. Feel free to tell your friends – Let’s see how far we can spread the net!

Currently, Burning Down the House has readers in 46 states in the US and in over 20 countries around the world.  Since Nellie can read in many languages (she’s a genius dog!) feel free to write in a language other than English, if you prefer. (Actually, Nellie can only read in Spanish and English, but we can get help with the others.)

Deutsch?  Dansk? Francais?

If you would like to send a Holiday Card to Nellie, you can do so at this address:

Princess Nellie
c/o Chautauqua Main Office
900 Baseline Road
Boulder, CO 80302

(I’ll help her open the envelopes, since I’m the only one on the team with opposable thumbs…)

Thanks for sending us your good wishes during this Holiday Season. I’ll take pictures of the cards and keep you posted as to how many we receive. This should be fun!

Happy Holidays, and Lots of Love,

Andi and Nellie

(Hey, I feel better already!)

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Nellie the Dog | 12 Comments
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Trauma Insomnia

December 1st, 2010
Almost Three Months After the Fire

In a recent meeting organized for Four Mile Fire survivors, the speaker asked how many of us were having trouble sleeping or were taking something to help us sleep. Nearly every hand went up.

Tonight I can’t sleep.  It is the middle of the night and even Nellie is fed up with my insomnia.  She had been thrashing around on the bed for hours, restless, waiting for me to turn the light off. She finally got up and glared at me, as if to say “COME ON! Are we ever going to sleep?!” and then jumped off the bed and went into the living room and plopped down on the carpet to sleep. Sigh.

I have pills to take that will help me sleep, but they give me nightmares. Terrible nightmares, not just your garden variety types of Bad Dreams. This morning I dreamed that I was in the Free Store, trying to reach some towels on top of a high shelf, and when I reached for them, all the linens and towels and heavy rugs came tumbling down on top of me.  I tried to push them away as they fell, but they just kept coming and coming, like a swarm of locusts, until I was almost buried. I woke up sweating, and pulled Nellie closer to me and wrapped my arms around her.  She sighed and snuggled in, and I calmed down. There was no way I was going back to sleep, but I decided to just surrender to my insomnia, and to not freak out about it so much. “Don’t worry about sleep,” I told myself, “Just rest.”

When I tell my friends about my insomnia, they tell me I need therapy, to which I reply, “Really, YOU THINK I NEED THERAPY!!?” and then we laugh.  They are both pleased and a bit concerned that I am STILL SO ANGRY.  I tell them that I have a LOT to be ANGRY ABOUT.  And of course, being my friends, they agree. And they still think I need therapy. Sigh. I know. I’m sure I do; anyone who’s been through this would, but who has time?  I realize as I write that the dream I had this morning was probably how I feel about my To Do list after the fire – things just keep piling up and piling up, and falling down on me until I feel like I’m being buried.

The other day a friend said, kindly, “I can’t imagine what your life is like right now,” and I said, “Do you really want to know? I get up each day and jump on The Terrible Treadmill of the To-Do List, and I run and run as fast as I can, and at the end of the day I am no closer to the end than when I started. And then the next day I get up, and the treadmill is LONGER. But I get back on, because what else can I do? I hate the treadmill, and I want to just get off and go home. But I can’t.”  She didn’t say a word, but wrapped her arms around me. And then I burst into tears.  It felt good.

I think part of why I hesitate to go to therapy is that I don’t want to lose my anger, my edge. It keeps me going most days.  I’m afraid a therapist will ask, “Exactly WHO are you angry with? WHAT are you angry at?”  And what would I say?  I’m angry at Nature, for creating Fire?  I’m angry at the stupid fifty-mile-an-hour winds, that blew so hard the slurry bombers couldn’t even take off until six hours after the fire started? Am I angry at the guy who started the fire?  What, like he could buy me a new house?  Am I angry at the insurance folks, who are making me write an inventory of every single thing I owned, down to the socks and underwear, and list where I bought it, when I bought it, the brand name, what it cost back then, and what it would cost to replace today? For EVERY SINGLE THING?

They didn’t invent this system –  they’re just doing their jobs, and some of them are working seven days a week on our claims.  One of my adjusters lives in Wyoming – he hasn’t even gotten to go home in months.  He was in New Orleans, away from his home and family, for A YEAR after Hurricane Katrina – can you imagine?  Walking among destruction and tragedy, day after day after day, with crazed, grieving, beaten up folks like me?  So no, I’m not mad at those guys.  SO WHO AM I MAD AT???

I don’t know, frankly, but this whole thing has sure got my Irish up, and I think that’s keeping me going. That, and my friends.

About two weeks after the house burned down, my friends and I loaded up shovels and rakes and went up to see it for the first time, and to see if we could recover anything from the ashes. I was walking around the burned-up foundation with my insurance adjuster, trying to describe what the house used to look like –  the size of the garage, the slant of the roof, where the barn used to be, how big the dog pen was, and a million other details.  While we walked around, the brave friends who had come up with me on that hot day were down on their hands and knees in the rubble, with sifters and rubber gloves, digging through ash and metal and shattered dishes and melted glass in the ninety-degree heat.  It was horrible, miserable, filthy work, and they were down there laughing and crying and digging away in the rubble – for me. Because they loved and wanted to help – me.

Andi's Friends Digging Through the Rubble

At one point I turned around and was so touched by the sight of them, down there digging, that I started to cry, right in front of the adjuster.  I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Look. Look at my friends, look at what they’re doing. Aren’t they amazing?” And he turned to me and said, “I’ve only just met you, but I know that if it was you – if it was their house and it was you,” (and here he choked up a bit,) “you would be down there, digging through the ashes for them.”  And I looked at him and said, “You’re right.” And then we both stood there, side by side, crying,  and looking out at the charred meadow, and the burned trees all around, and the twisted pile of metal and ash that used to be my house.

And now, tonight, in the middle of the night, I think to myself that maybe when this whole thing starts moving a little bit I will not be so angry.  Maybe when the debris is finally cleared, and the insurance is settled, and I find a builder, I will be able to breathe again. Maybe when I’m not on the phone all day, calling lawyers, or the phone company, or the bank, or the County, or the adjusters, all the while working full time – maybe then I will be able to calm down a bit. Maybe when the outline of my new home begins to take shape, when I can actually start to visualize my new life in the mountains and not as a vagabond down in town… Maybe then I will sleep.  But right now, the To-Do List looms over me, day and night, threatening to fall on me like a mountain of castaway blankets, and smother me with its musty weight.

I look at Nellie sleeping in the living room and think, I must get more help with all this.  I have to reach out some more.  I have to ask for help – I’m so tired of asking, but I have to do it.  Just like surrendering to my insomnia, I have to surrender to needing people right now.  I have to be at peace with it, to rest in the arms of my friends, who will rally once again and say, as my friend Bhanu did, “Give me homework, I’ll do it. Whatever you want – I’m yours.”

“Whatever you want, I’m yours.” It’s true, isn’t it? Some of our friends can’t be bothered; they can’t deal with the grief, or the craziness of our lives. They say “I’m so sorry,” and go on their way. And some people want to help, but it comes with a price tag. But our Real Friends, the people who really love us – they are merely waiting for the call, their hearts at the ready. They will show up at the door with food or flowers or a shoulder to cry on, day after day, month after month. And some of them will just pick up a shovel, and start to dig. These are the friends worth keeping.  They are ours, and we are theirs.

I hear a soft clicking across the wood floor, and see that Nellie has come back into the bedroom to give it another try. She stands at the side of the bed and wags, asking for a lift up. I smile, and pick her up and plop her down on one of the pillows. She stares at me for a moment, then sighs a deep, contented sigh, and closes her eyes.

I think I can sleep now. And tomorrow, I will get up, and get back on that treadmill. And maybe, with the help of friends, I will get a little closer to that time, that day, when I can sit on the porch of my new house, and look out over the greening meadow, and say, “Wow, it’s over. It’s really, really, over. And I made it.”  For I will make it – One day at a time, one hour at a time, one breath at a time. With your help, I will finally, one day, make it Home.

Wishing You a Good Night, and Sweet Dreams,

Andi and Nellie

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Friends, Nellie the Dog, PTSD | 9 Comments
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Cleaning Up

Hello My Friends,

I was up at the house today. The ex-house. The future house. The house site. These distinctions drive me crazy when I try to talk to people. There is no “house” there, but I still think of it that way. The house. My house.  I can’t quite get my mouth around “The Land” or “The Site.”  When your house burns down and you’re going to rebuild it on the same spot, when does it stop, then start, being called “The House?” When the new foundation is poured? When the frame is up? When it’s all done? Help me with this, friends. What do I call my once and future home?

Anyway, I was up at the ex-house, which is now a pile of rubble and metal and ash and trash, but at least that rubble is getting sorted out.  A local contractor, Pat Minniear, is supervising the clean up. Pat is my Hero of the Hour.  He lost his own home in Sunshine Canyon, so he is a Fire Person, and he knows the Score.

Here’s how I found Pat. A few days after my house burned down, I was crazy and frantic and in shock and didn’t know where on earth to start with the million details of dealing with the aftermath of the fire.  So I called one of the only construction guys I knew, a neighbor up on Sugarloaf named Roland. Roland excavated my driveway years ago, and he is our local Ferocious Old Swede.  Roland is an off-the-grid kinda guy, and when his house burned down in the Black Tiger Fire, he and his wife camped up there in a tent while they rebuilt. He is one tough bird. Plus, he has heavy equipment, and you always want a guy like that in the neighborhood.

Roland has a deep, gravelly voice, and when I called him up and was frantic and crying, he listened to me and then said, calmly, kindly –  “Don’t worry about it. The last thing you need right now is to worry about it. Just wait a few weeks, and we’ll get it all sorted out. I promise.” I said, “Okay, Roland, ” and dried my tears and felt a little better. When you have a Tough Old Swede on your side, you’re bound to be okay in the end.

Roland got in touch with Pat, who got in touch with me. Cleaning up hazardous waste from the side of a mountain in the middle of a six-thousand acre burn is a tricky business, and one that requires all kinds of equipment and expertise. But Pat and his team have unfortunately had lots of practice at this, and they’ve got it down.

So today I went up there to meet him for the first time in person, after weeks and weeks of phone calls and faxes and emails. I drove down my long, ashy, dusty driveway, and there, next to the piles of twisted metal and rubble and ash that used to be my house was Pat, standing by his truck, with a bunch of equipment and a team of guys, ready to go. I have to say, it was a lovely sight. Finally some clean up, some movement, one tangible thing we could move forward with.  Finally.

Pat walked over to me and extended his hand, smiling, and I ignored it and gave him a hug. “We’re Fire People,” I said, “We are way past handshakes.”

We hugged, and then Pat looked at me and said, “I want you to know that after the fire Roland called me up, and said, in that very Roland way he has, ‘Pat, you take care of that girl. You take care of her.’  So, Andi O’Conor, I’m going to take care of you.” When he said that, I started to cry.  I had been waiting to hear something like that for a long, long time.

You never know in what form help is going to come. Sometimes it shows up as a casserole on your doorstep, or as a check in the mail, from someone you’ve never met.  Sometimes it’s a bag of sweaters from a friend you haven’t seen in years, or a little box of CDs that someone left for you, because they can’t imagine you having to go through even one day without music.  Sometimes it’s a long-time friend who says, mid-conversation, “That’s it. I’m getting on a plane and coming out there.” And sometimes, it’s just a nice, decent guy with a lot of really, really, big machinery.

Pat and I walked the site and made the agonizing decisions about which trees to leave and which to cut down.  He was so patient with me, as I looked at each one and tried to decide its fate.  There were many that were charred black, completely lifeless and burned, and some that seemed like they might come back, and some that were in-between.  I felt like an executioner, like Henry the Eighth. Who would get the chop, and who would be spared? My beloved trees; I wanted to keep them all.

But some were “hazard” trees, and had to come down so they wouldn’t fall on people rebuilding the house.  And some were just goners from the fire.  So we saved anything with needles and I gave him the order to take down the others. It was excruciating.

And then I saw a most amazing looking little tree, and stopped in my tracks. I tapped Pat on the arm, and we walked over to it. “Look at this!” I said. It was a small tree, about five feet high, and I had never noticed it before.

It was burned black, completely dead, but its shape was so lovely. The trunk was curvy and swayed like a dancer, and the branches flowed out like beautiful fingers, as if someone had lovingly pruned it to do that for years.  It looked like a Bonsai tree, painted black, in a surreal landscape of ash.  “We have to keep this one,” I told Pat, “As a monument to the fire.” He looked at me and smiled, and said, “Definitely. I’ll tell the guys to be sure to not cut it down.” He didn’t roll his eyes, or look at me like I was crazy. Like I said, He’s a Fire Guy, and he Gets It.

We talked about where to pile the rocks they were digging up, and how much of the old, ruined fencing to pull up, and what to do with the materials, and if there was anything I wanted to save and how long it would take to haul the ash and sort and recycle the metal and dig up the foundation and then grind it up and dispose of it and then re-level the site, and did I need the electric rewired, and what about the well and Oh My God are we tired yet? And the whole time some looky-loo in his plane kept buzzing over the house, and dirt bikers from town were roaring up and down the Dime Road, touring the burn area, and by the end of the afternoon I was exhausted.

I finally said goodbye to Pat and left, and as I drove off of the property and down the hill, I noticed a woman pulled over on the side of the road, climbing over the ruined fence on my neighbor’s property, taking pictures of the burned trees and ashy foundations.  I pulled up and rolled down my window, and said, “Excuse me, but is that your property?” She smiled and said, “No, I’m just up here taking pictures.”  I said, “I’m sorry, but this is not an art project, and it’s not a tourist attraction, and what you’re doing is not so nice, okay? Please don’t go on our land, and please let us just try to get on with our lives in peace.”

She was actually quite nice about it, and apologized, and drove away.  As she left, I put my head down on the steering wheel.  I’m so tired, I thought. I’m so tired of all this. I’m tired of trying to educate well-meaning, naturally curious people about how awful it is when they come up here and look around and take pictures of our destroyed lives.  I’m so tired of being up here in the dust and the ashes and the smell.  It’s only been a few months, and I am just bone-tired, and I want to go home.

So home I went, to my new little home, to Chautauqua, where I used up the entire tank of hot water in the shower, scrubbing off the layers and layers of black soot and ash and sadness about my house, ex-house, whatever you want to call it.  And after that I felt better. I went up to the Office to check the mail, and Nellie got to visit with Bert, who gave her cookies and let her lick his face. He called her a “Good, Good Doggie” and gave her more cookies, while she wagged with pure joy.

Watching her made me laugh out loud, and Kathleen looked up from the desk and said, “It sounds like you’ve had a good day.” And I looked at her and smiled and said, “Yes, we started on the demolition today, so things are finally moving.”  “Well good for you!” she said.  Yes, I thought. Good for me.

Good for me.

Wishing You a Good Day, a Good Night, and Sweet Dreams of Moving Forward,

Andi

My Worldly Goods - About to Go Into the Dumpster.

There they go...

The meadow is toast, but the ash and debris are cleared. Finally.

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Chautauqua, Good Moments | 11 Comments
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Hey, We Won!

Burning Down the House –  Westword Web Award for Best Personal Blog of 2010!

Here’s the review from the judges:

Best Personal Blog: Burningdownthehouseblog.com

“A touching, incredibly well-written blog by a woman whose house has burned down twice — once at the age of twelve and again in the Four Mile Canyon fire earlier this year. No persona, just enthralling entries from a rare perspective.”

Slight Media Frenzy - Look What's on the Big Screen.

Feisty Fire Survivor Wins Big Award in Spite of Her Life Going Completely to Pieces. Go figure!

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Good Moments | 22 Comments
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