A Little Look Into My Life Right Now

“They say that these are not the best of times, but they’re the only times I’ve ever known…”  – Billy Joel, “Summer, Highland Falls.”

Hello Friends,

This afternoon I took a break from working at home in my cottage, and walked up to the Main Office in Chautauqua to get the mail. This is one of the highlights of my day, these days, getting the mail.

The Administrative Building at Chautauqua sits on a little hill in the middle of the Park. It’s a tan clapboard building that dates back to 1900, and over the front door it says, “Academic Building.”  Inside is a lovely little sitting room with high ceilings, Western furniture, and a row of antique mailboxes that look like they’re from some old Post Office.  Each day, Nellie and I walk up and check the mail, and say hi to Connie and Kathleen – the office staff, and to Bert, the Property Manager.

Getting the mail is Nellie’s favorite thing to do these days as well.  She LOVES Bert. He is her Current Favorite Person Besides Mom.  All I have to say is, “Want to go see Bert?” and she leaps up and runs to the kitchen door, wagging furiously.  Bert and the gals at the desk have a stash of dog cookies, and Nellie rushes into the office each afternoon to visit.

Today Nellie was searching around for Bert, who was tucked away in his back office. “Bert’s kinda busy right now, Nellie,” said Connie, petting Nellie on the head.  Then Bert’s voice boomed out from the back, “Who could be too busy for NELLIE?!” and out he came.  He kneeled down on the floor and petted Nellie while she wagged wildly and licked him all over the face.  “Nellie is the only dog he gets on the floor for,” Connie said in a low voice, chuckling. Bert laughed and said, “Who wouldn’t get down on the floor for NELLIE?!” Kiss kiss wag wag.

When I tell Bert that he is a gentleman and a scholar, he says he is actually a “Prince in Training.” Training be darned, Bert is royalty in my book. He moved heaven and earth to get Nellie and me into Chautauqua, made sure my cottage was stocked with dishes and linens, and always makes me feel comfortable and welcomed.  He gets it that most of us Fire People feel like stunned sheep right now, and we are doing our best just to keep walking and talking each day.  He and the staff here understand that we are homeless and raw and rather fragile at times. They cheer us on; they hold us in their hearts.

Sometimes, getting the mail is like Christmas.  On other days, it’s like Hell. Most days, it’s a little of both.

I dig into the mailbox and see that it is stuffed with envelopes from various companies. I take the stack and walk over to the reception desk, where they have a recycling bin, and borrow an opener from Connie. I read some of the mail out loud to her as I open it –  “Dear Fire Victim, – Oh, that’s a good one,” I say as I toss it into the recycling. “Dear Displaced Homeowner – Well, that’s not so bad…”  And on and on. There is a huge stack of mail from trades people from all over the country – Contractors, builders, architects, carpenters, plumbers, storage companies, realtors, tile companies, wood workers, demolition companies, window installers, heating and cooling companies, and claims adjusters. Their brochures say things like, “Who can you trust after a disaster?” and “Let us build your dream!” and “I can handle your insurance claim for you!”  Everyone wants to get a little piece of the Four Mile Fire Victim action.

I open one and read out loud to Connie, “Dear Fire Victim, We are so sorry for your loss…”  “Sorry!” I snort, “Yeah, you’re not sorry at all, you just want to SELL ME something.”  I push the pile over to Connie and she scoops them up with a grin. “Into the bin they go!” she says.  I walk back to the cottage with Nellie, and open the rest of the mail. There are only three pieces of “real” mail left.

First, a large manila envelope from my cousin Nonie Newton-Breen, who is an actress in LA and does a comedy show called “Late Night Catechism.” I call Nonie “Newt Girl” and she calls me “Favorite Cuz.” Inside the envelope is a DVD, and a short letter from her. Here is what she wrote:

Dear Favorite Cuz –

I am with Mom and Dad in Tucson. We spent the day digging through family photos, scanned and burned to this DVD. Lots of pics of your dad – large group of Newts at beach, loved the one of your Dad dancing with Mom at her wedding. Frosty is in California but will check when she gets home for more.

Mad love to you —

Nonz and the Old Ones

Nonie always calls her parents, “The Old Ones”, which cracks me up.  I look at the DVD and am so touched that my Aunt Anne and Uncle Bill, who are in their 80’s, spent an entire day digging through family pictures for me.

I put aside Nonie’s envelope and look at the rest. There is a letter from Jake Jabs, the owner of American Furniture Warehouse in Denver.  I sigh and think, “Not another promotion.” To my surprise, it reads,

“Please accept my sympathy on the fire that leveled your home. I myself have had two fires and I know the loss of absolutely everything is so very difficult… My hope is that the enclosed gift card may lift your spirits while providing some spending dollars as you put your lives and homes back together.” – Jake Jabs, CEO

Inside is a gift card for $500, good in any American Furniture Warehouse store.

I am stunned. Do I know Jake Jabs? No. Has he done a big promotion, touting his “help for the fire victims?” Not that I know of.  He’s just a guy who has been through fire, like me, and wants to help. Wow.

The last letter is from the power company, who is refunding my September utility bill in the amount of $77.55. I guess because there was NO HOUSE there in September to get the power. It’s actually a nice letter, and it talks about how the crews who worked to restore power after the fire were “inspired by the resilient spirits of the residents they had the privilege to meet.”

I remember meeting one of those guys when I was up on the mountain the week after the fire. It was about 95 degrees up there that day, and the guy from the power company was covered in ash and black soot, and looked shell-shocked as he walked among downed trees and melted power lines. I bet he felt like he had been up there forever. I know I did. He asked if I was going to rebuild in the same spot, and I said, “Yes.” Did I ever think about selling out and moving to town? he asked. “Not for a minute,” I said. He smiled a crooked, sad smile and said, “You folks up here are amazing. God bless you.”

“God bless YOU,” I said, patting him on the arm. “This can’t be easy work.”  “No, it’s not,” he said grimly, and climbed back in his truck to go help put up more power lines for the few surviving homes at the top of the hill.

I stuff all the mail into Nonie’s big envelope and toss it on the table.  I think I’ll bring this with me tonight when I go out to dinner with some of my friends.  I’ll show them the DVD, and the gift card from Jake Jabs, and the letter from the power company.  We’ll eat and laugh and share our troubles, and the world will be a better place for our laughter.  I will take this slice of my life and share it ’round —  the agony and the ecstasy, the strange and surprising Gifts of Fire.

For this is My Life Right Now; burnt and broken yet mending, slowly, as my heart turns on the wheel of pain and loss, as the seasons change, and I walk through another day, another afternoon, another evening — another small chapter in my small story.

Sending You Good Thoughts,

Andi and Nellie

New Grass Growing in the Burned Meadow

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Chautauqua, Friends, Good Moments, Nellie the Dog, The Kindness of Strangers | 4 Comments
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Fire Season

November 8th, 2010
Two Months and a Day After The Fire

It’s supposed to snow here tonight, and I am restless with anticipation. Snow; when will it arrive?  I’ve been waiting all day, checking the sky, looking up at the gathering clouds, smelling the wind. Snow. Could it be true? Finally?

My friends here in Boulder have been loving the hot fall weather – it’s been seventy, eighty degrees some days. The sky has been a burning, glorious blue without a cloud, and the days have been hot and sunny. In the evenings we’ve been sitting out on the screen porches here in Chautauqua, and I haven’t had to turn the heat on yet. And it is November.

My friends say, “Isn’t this weather glorious? Don’t you wish it would stay like this forever?” “No,” I say, “I hate this weather.”  And I do not use the H-word lightly.  This heat and sun and unseasonably dry fall have made me feel edgy and irritable and like I was about to lose my mind.  All the Fire People I’ve talked to have felt the same way. “When we get a foot of snow,” they say, “then we can relax.” People in town don’t realize that although it’s early November, it’s still Fire Season.

Fire Season.  We think of it as starting in July in the mountains, and going through September, when we usually get our first Real Snow. That day usually starts out sunny, and then in the afternoon it gets cold all of a sudden, and the sun ducks behind a bank of clouds and then – the first white flakes begin to swirl off the Divide and you can see it, smell it coming – The First Snow.  We’re like a bunch of children up there, when it first snows. We run around the meadows and laugh and let the snow fall all over our faces. It is the end of Fire Season, the beginning of Fall, and a time when we can relax.

Today it was sixty-five degrees, and my neighbors were all out in the Park, enjoying the weather. They were lamenting the end of the warm days, and saying sadly, “Tonight the weather is supposed to turn.”  I love that image, of the weather “turning.”  It makes me think of the Earth, slowly tilting from Summer to Fall, and then one day just doing a little turn, a little pirouette, and wham! The season has changed. The weather has turned.

Snow; it’s supposed to snow tonight.  The very thought of it makes me giddy. Big, wet flakes falling from the sky, covering the ash, the rubble, the charred earth.  White snow falling on black ash, purifying the burnt and brittle death that covers the mountainsides. Snow like a white funeral robe; snow like a blanket of peace.  Snow.  If it snows enough, and the weather really turns, all of us Fire People can relax. We can take a breath, and stop thinking about red skies and helicopters and winds whipping a small wildfire into a devastating firestorm. We can start to think about Fall, and Winter, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and the end of Fire Season. At last.

When it snows, I think to myself, that means the Fire really has gone out.  What a relief.

Wishing You a Good Night, and a Happy Fall,
Andi

The Next Day…

Chautauqua, November 9th, 2010 – 10 a.m.

Chautauqua, November 9th, 2010 – 5 p.m.

The First Snow of the Year – Finally.

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Boulder, Good Moments | 3 Comments
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Armies of Angels or, This is Not a Pain Contest

October 27th, 2010
Seven Weeks After the Fire

Last night at dinner, my friend Sandy Hockenbury was telling me about the effects of stress on the human body.  “Intense bursts of short-term stress are actually good for the brain,” she explained to us as we sat eating Mexican food, “But prolonged, ongoing stress, like in people who have lived through trauma…” she said, looking over at me. I looked at her and said, “I know! I know,” exasperated but laughing. “I’m a mess! My adrenals are probably shot!”  “Yes,” she said, “They probably are.” And then the flan arrived, and it was sweet and smooth, and I stopped worrying about my immune system, my adrenals, my stress levels –  for there are moments of sweetness in every catastrophe.

Yesterday the housekeeping staff came to clean my cottage for me, for free. They don’t normally do that for long-term residents, but they just decided they wanted to help me – that girl with the little dog who lost her house and everything she had in the Fire.  They arrived like an army of angels with their mops and buckets and brooms and spray bottles, and I started to cry when I saw them walking up the steps.  How can people be so good, so kind? How can this world be filled with such terrible news each day, when quiet miracles like this one are happening all around us?  I dried my tears and put Nellie in the car and went and did errands while they cleaned.

And when I came home, the cottage was sparkling, and in the bathroom were fresh towels. They had folded them into little triangles, like in a hotel, and had left me cute little soaps and shampoo.  I ran my hand over the towels – so sweet, this gift of their time.

Generosity is our nature as humans – I have come to believe this lately. We have to give and give and give – to our friends, our families –  and when they are taken care of, we give to strangers.  What is it about us that compels us to do this? Biology, natural selection, some intrinsic connection to each other? What are these webs, these golden threads, that connect us all? How is it that when one strand is broken, we all rush in to help it mend?

Tonight I walked the few blocks up to the Laundromat to do a bunch of wash. I have not been in a Laundromat since I was in my twenties, and it was ten o’clock at night and I was exhausted.  As I loaded the small washers I thought, “Okay, I can do this. This is no big deal. Lots of people do this, it’s not so bad.”  And when I came back later to move the wet clothes and towels and dog bed and dog towels and sheets to the dryer, I realized I only had enough quarters to dry two loads, and would have to take home all the towels and sheets wet.

This was kind of the last straw to a very long and difficult day, and I was so tired I just sat and put my head down on the wooden bench by the wall.  I thought, This is what it’s like when your life falls apart.  This is what happens when you get divorced, or your partner dies, or you lose everything in a flood, or you run out the back door while the Secret Police kick down the front door, and you flee into the night with only the clothes you have on. You end up in a strange place at night, exhausted just from getting through the day, three quarters short of a load, and you feel like you just can’t take it any more.

Now, I’m a middle-class American with an education, a job, insurance, and more privilege than you can shake a stick at. Some day I will get to go home again, unlike real refugees, who have to run from Death Squads and wait for decades to go home, and often never get back there at all. My life compared to theirs is a walk in the park –  I know this. But you know, it’s all relative, and people have killed themselves over less.

Walter, my eighty-something, up-the-hill neighbor on Sugarloaf, survived the Holocaust. He said that compared to Auschwitz, losing his house in the fire was No Big Deal. That doesn’t mean we’re both not in pain, and suffering – It just means our experiences are different, and of different orders of magnitude. Some people endure great hardship with grace and wisdom. Some people sink into bitterness and never emerge. And some decide to just check out from This Life, and see what’s on the Other Side.

People hesitate to talk about their troubles around me, because what I’m going through right now makes their own worries pale in comparison. I tell them it’s not a Pain Contest. We’re not all competing for the big Who Has the Worst Life award. We all have our own problems, and Life sends each of us those little Trouble Trolls that come and kick us in the shins and leave us hopping around in pain.  Sometimes they just leave us bruised; sometimes they can take us out completely, and leave us writhing in the dust, unable to breathe. Some of us fall, and never get up. And some of us have friends who come over, extend their hand, and quietly get us back on our feet – dusty and battered, but standing once again.

And that was me in the Laundromat tonight. I didn’t think I had the strength to get up – I thought I might as well just stay there, with my head resting on the wood, watching the dryers spin, for the rest of my life.

And then my cell phone rang.

It was a friend, calling to see how I was doing. “What are you up to right now?” she asked. I said, “Um… I’m kind of lying here, watching the laundry.” Then I said, “I don’t think I can do this. Can I please just go home now?  Can I be done with all this? Can I please just have my house and my washer and dryer and my old life back? I’m a grownup, I’m not twenty anymore, and I don’t even know how to have the right amount of QUARTERS,” and then I started to cry.

My friend said gently, “What about those plastic hangers you bought at Target? Do you still have those?” “Yes,” I sniffed. “Well, just take the wet stuff and hang it up in the bathroom. And you know what?” she said, “You can also say Screw It and just leave it all there wet. Let the mice eat it!” and then we laughed and laughed.

I picked my head up and dried my tears and told her I loved her, and that now I was alright. It’s just my Daily Meltdown, I said, and somehow I always manage to get through it.  I hung up the phone and looked at the wet laundry and squinted. “Okay,” I said to the pile of sheets and towels. “I have been through worse, and I am certainly not going to be defeated by YOU.”  And I plopped it all in the plastic basket, and took it back to the cottage, and when it was all hung up in the little bathroom, I smiled.  I did the laundry. Another small miracle.

Annie Dillard, in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, wrote, “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.” So I will try to be there. I will keep showing up for this roller coaster of a life that I have right now. I will do the laundry, and eat the flan, and cherish the Armies of Angels that keep appearing, unbidden, at my door. It is not a Pain Contest, I tell myself. I am not winning, and I am not losing. I am just walking through it, one step at a time.

Sending You Love, and Wishes for Sweet Dreams,
Andi

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Chautauqua, Friends, The Kindness of Strangers | 19 Comments
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Lost and Found

November 7th, 2010
Two Months After the Fire

English mapmakers used to place the phrase “Here There Be Dragons” at the edges of their known world. If you sailed past this point, they said, you would end up in the Teeth of the Beast, and never be heard from again…

This morning I woke up early, just as dawn was breaking, and felt restless – like a pressure cooker with no release valve. I paced around, fretting and itchy, wondering what to do with myself. “Low altitude sickness,”  I thought. “I need to get back up the mountain.”

I realized that in the mountains I had a way to let off steam from my busy life – I would go hiking with Nellie, on the trail that went from my kitchen door, up the side of the mountain to the Old Dime Road.   Each evening I would hike up there with her, through the trees and grasses and flowers, hiking quickly, and quietly, the trail winding around, and finally reaching the top. I would take in the quiet, the aloneness, the peace and green of it all.  Nellie would run, wagging wildly, and sniff and roll around and explore the mountainside, and I would simply sit quietly, letting go of the day, of work, of any hurts or frustrations. I would just watch my little dog play, and toss pine cones for her, and take in the view.

And every day, every single day, I would say, out loud, “I LIVE here. Here. In this beautiful place. I am so lucky.” And I would smile, and hike down the mountain with Nellie, back to our warm and cozy home, to make dinner and watch the lights of Boulder come on, and the stars come out, as the day turned to night.

We floated up there, at eight-thousand feet, in our quiet and peaceful ship, like sailors in the clouds. I would watch the lights of town twinkle in the distance, and listen to the deep Whoo-who-who-Whooo of the Great Horned Owls, who hunted at night – our brothers and sisters of the rarified air.

View from My Old Porch

Sometimes at night I’d hear the screech of a mountain lion, or the wild cacophony of nearby coyotes.  And always there was the whisper of the wind in the pines for company.

Once, a friend of mine from Ohio visited Colorado for the first time, and that night she stepped out onto my porch and froze in rapt attention. “What is that SOUND?” she asked. And I got quiet and listened. “I don’t hear anything,” I said. She was quiet and then said “That! What is that?”  I laughed, “Oh, that’s the wind in the pines. You’ve never heard that before?” “No,” she said. “It’s so beautiful.” That night I thought about this and felt so sad for her. Imagine living forty years before you heard that soft, ocean-like whisper of the wind in the pines on a Colorado evening. I was grateful that I heard it every day, and every night. So grateful.

And now my ship has run aground, and I am here on the rocks and shoals of Life in Town. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to be in this lovely little cottage, in this warm and wonderful community of great souls here in Chautauqua.  This little neighborhood is full of writers and artists and dancers and architects, and grad students doing fascinating work on bio-mechanical arms, and Just Plain Interesting people, none of whom I would have met if I’d stayed in my little ship up there.  My next door neighbor is a Scripps Journalism Fellow, and the folks on the other side of me work for the Teton Science School in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Their daughter has become Nellie’s New Best Friend, and at night we play Cribbage and smack down the cards and laugh, and I forget about All This.

Chautauqua Cottages

We have Movie Nights, and Cooking Classes, and Historical Walking Tours. There are Ranger Hikes and Star Walks and amazing trails all around, just steps from my door. For a mountain girl like me, used to living on three acres behind a forty-acre ranch, this is as good a Halfway House as I could get. This is my refuge, this place, and it is lovely, and yet. And yet.

There are people all around me, at all times. Tourists and hikers walk by my porch, only a few feet from where I’m sipping my coffee each morning.  I am not used to this –  this concentration of people, all day, every day.  I’m used to driving up Boulder Canyon each day, and marveling at the sparkle and flow of the creek as I drive, and thinking to myself, “Home. I will soon be home.” Even the drive home, up the mountain, was relaxing.  The higher I went, the better I felt.

But this is my Year in Town, my Mandatory Vacation, my Rest Between Measures. This is Where I Am Right Now, so I’m trying to pay attention to all that it has to offer me — the new friends, the new experiences. And yet I grit my teeth when I have to put a leash on Nellie each morning for a walk – my little dog who has run free for years, who has spent her days lying in the meadow, or playing with her buddy Rusty, the big Golden Retriever, who roamed the mountainside and always ended up at the kitchen door, peering in and wagging, as if to say, “Is Nellie home? Can she come out and play?”

Nellie can’t go out to play these days – she has to walk on a leash like a normal dog, or hike with me up to the leash-free area, where there are big, strange dogs that frighten her with their bounding enthusiasm.  Nellie has her own version of PTSD, and all these dogs overwhelm her. She snarls at them, when they run up to her – City Dogs, who are used to dog parks and fenced yards and who have spent the day in crates and doggie day care. Nellie is not fond of these dogs. So instead I take her to the back meadows, where there is no one around, and let her run for a bit.  But these quiet places are hard to find, and it is not Our Meadow, and she knows this.  She runs a little, peering around nervously, and then trots over to me and sits down.  I pick her up and tell her we will go home some day, and she will have Her Meadow back, though it will be changed and strange.

Nellie in the Burned Meadow

Our Mountain and Our Meadow are gone, and will not come back in my lifetime. And most people don’t understand this. Most of us hear the happy little Forest Service talks about how the grass comes back so quickly after a wildfire, and how fire is good for the land, but that’s not the whole story. I was a Park Ranger for eight years.  I used to give talks about Fire Ecology. And I know that in a really hot fire like this one, the land can be sterilized, and it will be dead and lifeless for decades.

I drove through Yellowstone on my way home this summer, and saw acres and acres of black, dead trees. And it’s been twenty-two years since that fire. Twenty-two years. It’s good for the land, but how would you like to live in the middle of it for the rest of your life?

You’ll see cheery pictures, I’m sure, in the paper and on TV, of new, green grass growing in the midst of ashes and blackened soil. This is true – I already have little green sprouts on some parts of my land, little patches of grass pushing up – new life in the midst of tragedy. But all around the meadow are dead trees, hundreds and hundreds of them, and this breaks my heart.  This is the story you will not hear on TV, as newscasters try to find the Silver Lining in this Local Tragedy and then move on to talk about the weather.

The beauty of mountain life in this area was that you could live surrounded by pine forests, and look at acres and acres of trees.  And six thousand acres of those trees are burned, charred, and scarred beyond recognition.  Six thousand acres. The foothills and the canyons that were burned by the Four Mile Fire were a patchwork of private and public lands, and most of those acres will never be cleared. The grass will come back, but those ghostly, corpse-like trees will stand, a grim remembrance of this fire, for the rest of my life.

A Burned Tree on My Land

My neighbor, Walter, who is 81, isn’t moving back up to Sugarloaf. He’s going to get a condo in town. He knows that his time on the mountain is up. “It won’t be as pretty as it was,” he says. He was surrounded by green woods for the last forty-five years, and now his land is black sticks.

I tell a reporter who interviewed me the other day that our once-strong mountain communities are now fractured, and fragmented, into Burned and Not Burned areas.  The fire jumped around a lot, so in some places there is one lone house left atop a mountain road.  What will those folks do now, alone on a mountain top, surrounded by burned foundations, piles of rubble, and charred pine trees? Some neighbors will sell out and move to town, some will clean up and rebuild, but the communities will never be the same. We will all have to shift, to adjust to this New Gravity, to see what the future has in store for us.

For twenty years I floated in the clouds, but that ship has sailed. Nellie and I are on a new journey now, through strange and uncharted waters. And yet there is so much to see along the way. There are islands of hope and friendship, filled with interesting new people, and new experiences.  There are incredible acts of kindness that float up like buoys each day, and deliver small treasures of food and clothing and dog toys and good wishes to our little ship.  There are songs of hope sung in our ears, like siren songs, that beckon us on.

We are moored for a time, in this little safe harbor, this cottage in Chautauqua. There is much that is Lost, and much that is Found.  I grieve for my losses, and embrace and treasure what is Found.  Each day I find more tiny gems —  small sparkling objects that I gather up and hold in my hand, and watch as they refract and reflect the light, and guide me Home.

May we all embrace what is Lost, and what is Found. This is the Dance of Life, I think. Sometimes we decide to let go, to loosen our tethers and sail on into the Unknown. And at other times the moorings are cut in the night, slashed by the Great Hand of Fate, and our little ship is pushed into the torrent, rudderless and spinning. But it all leads to the same place in the end. For this is the Great Adventure, after all, and if we are fearless, we may sail past the rocks and shoals and brooding islands, past the sign that says, “Here There Be Dragons,” and find a New World.

Wishing You a Good Night, and Smooth Sailing,
Andi and Nellie

Nellie in the Charred Meadow

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Chautauqua, Nellie the Dog, Yellowstone | 29 Comments
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Life On The Edge

October 22nd, 2010
Six and a Half Weeks After the Fire

Hello Friends,

Tonight is the beginning of a big football weekend at CU Boulder. Chautauqua is booked up, and all the vacation cottages are rented for the weekend. That means people are arriving all night, car doors slam, and city folk talk in loud voices in the parking lot, unaware of how sound travels in this quiet foothills neighborhood.

It means that when I and step out my kitchen door to take Nellie out in the morning, there will be people walking by – going to brunch, visiting with their kids, dressed up and enjoying a Colorado vacation. I will stand with a leash in my hand, leaving them to wonder about the strange looking woman in her pajamas with the little dog. The other day, a girl walked by and sniffed to her friend,   “Are dogs even allowed here?” while she gave me a sideways, disapproving glance.  “In fact THEY ARE,” I called out as she walked away. “ESPECIALLY THIS ONE!”  She looked back at me like I was crazy.  The funny thing is, I didn’t care what she thought.

This is a new experience for me.  I was raised to believe in appearances – Look Good No Matter What, was a family mantra. What other people thought was of utmost importance. Image was everything.

These days I am too tired to worry about what people think of me.  There is a sharp, raw edge to everything, that seems to have temporarily taken away my Need to Be Liked.

All my life I have known people who didn’t care what people thought of them. I was envious. They seemed so out there, so free.  I think that’s why I used to drink – to let loose some of that self-consciousness, some of that pride.  Let it all hang out, we used to say in the Sixties and Seventies.  Well, this fire has loosened the boundaries of my personality, and my inner self seems to be oozing out, splashing out, flying out all over the place.

When a friend sends me an e-mail that leaves me reeling at its callousness, I do not take three deep breaths.  I do not write an angry email and then delete it.  I write an angry email and then send it. Immediately.  I do not regret this action at the time, and I do not regret it now. When she writes that she wants to talk on the phone I say No, thank you. I already get about 35 calls a day that I have to answer and I DON’T REALLY FEEL LIKE TALKING RIGHT NOW.

The Edge. This experience has put me on edge, on the edge, has made me edgy – in so many deep and subtle ways.  Most of the time I forget to eat, or I’m too tired to eat, or too busy, or the thought of even microwaving something is exhausting. And then there are times when I take a bite of something, and it is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.  Strawberry rhubarb jam on a piece of toast late at night.  A square of chocolate that my friend Matthew left for me in the refrigerator.  A glass of water.

At times, water from the kitchen tap tastes as sweet as a mountain stream after a long, hot hike.  My entire body thrills at the taste.  I sniff the glass, trying to figure out why the taste is so miraculous.  What is it?  The lack of chlorine?  Is it well water?  No, I think.  It is The Edge.

I’m sure psychologists have some reasonable explanation for The Edge. Neurological impairment. Lack of sleep.  Temporary Trauma Psychosis.  I prefer to think of it as a Somewhat Mystical Experience.  Something about this fire has put me closer to the reality of life, and everything seems in sharper focus, more real.  The hurts cut deeper; the moments of joy are almost unbearably sweet.

I remember my first mystical experience as a teenager.  I was on a small island in the Bahamas, on vacation with my family. I had ridden a borrowed bicycle out to the north end of the island and climbed up on top of a tall, sandy bluff. I stared out at the ocean for a long time, marveling at the dance of sunlight on the water, the cresting waves, the rhythmic sound of the surf as it beat against the nearby cliffs.

Suddenly I realized that something strange was  happening – I had stopped thinking. I looked out over the ocean – it was so beautiful that I started to cry, and I realized that I was connected on some deep level to everything – the water, the sky, the cliffs, the birds.  All of life seemed lovely and welcoming and part of my own Self.

And then it stopped. Thoughts crowded back into my mind, my vision shifted again, and the world went back to “normal.”  The sea was just the sea, the sky was just the dome over the Earth, and the birds were just ordinary seagulls.  I stared out at the sea in desperation, trying to recapture the experience.  For a moment I had know the Truth of All Things — And within seconds, the experience had disappeared.

I spent years trying to recapture this experience; through meditation, silent retreats, by following spiritual teachers —  with a bit of success here and there.  I was searching for The Edge, that moment I had captured in the Bahamas, on that cliff top.

Who would have thought that running through fire, in some odd way, would put me back there?

What happens when that sharpness of vision comes unbidden, through tragedy and loss? What happens when the public part of you that you are so used to maintaining, that shell of civility, of pleasing others, of being nice and helpful and polite and looking good, is suddenly shattered by grief, burnt up by fire?  It leaves you raw, on edge.

The Edge is also somewhat liberating.  Right now I don’t have time to worry so much about other people.  I don’t have the energy to look good.  And the funny thing is, I do look good.  People tell me, no pun intended, that there is a “glow” about me. I can actually see it in the mirror. My eyes are clear, my vision is sharp.  Most times, I can hear the truth or falsehood of what people are saying in an instant.  It is an odd kind of clarity, brought on by walking through fire.

When fire burns away all that you have, and in a way, all that you are, you begin to see what is Really Important.  And I guess that’s what I’m here to find out. What is important? What endures?  What is left after the ashes are cleared, the foundation is ripped up, and you step away from The Edge, as you inevitably will?

The Abyss?  Enlightenment?  Paradise?

I’ll just keep looking.

Wishing You a Good Night,
Andi

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Chautauqua, PTSD, Spiritual Experience | 11 Comments
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Nellie’s Little Halloween Adventure

October 31st, 2010

Believe it or not, there is another small fire burning in Boulder Canyon today, about two miles from us. It started on Friday, and is now about 70 percent contained.  My friend David could see the flames from his porch on Friday. Pretty intense.

Today, Sunday, helicopters are going chop-chop-chop over our heads, and some people up in Boulder Canyon still have no power or phone service due to the evacuation Friday.

To take our minds off of this, Princess Nellie decided that it was time to forget about being a Fire Dog and just enjoy Halloween.

Nellie the Dog in a Princess Costume

She got this great costume for Halloween, so she decided to go Trick or Treating!

Nellie the Dog in a Princess Costume

She went and knocked on a neighbor’s door here in Chautauqua…

Nellie the Dog Trick or Treating

And she was home!

Nellie the Dog Trick or Treating

Nellie decided that Love is the Best Treat of All.

Nellie Getting Love from Neighbor on Halloween

…even when it messes up your crown!

Nellie Getting Love from Neighbor on Halloween

Right?

Happy Howl-O-Ween from Nellie and Andi!

Princess Nellie the Dog with Pumpkin

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Chautauqua, Good Moments, Nellie the Dog | 13 Comments
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Old Friends; New Friends

October 15th , 2010
Thirty-Eight Days After the Fire

Kitchen Debris at the Site

I went shopping today. This is a Very Big Deal.  I had to make another trip to the vet for more meds for Nellie (who seems to be recovering nicely) and thought I might as well take the afternoon off. It was Friday, after all, which in my previous life used to be my Favorite Day.

Friday. I used to call it “Forgiveness Friday,” and each Friday morning I would forgive myself for anything I didn’t get around to doing that week, and just forgive myself in general.  I would just Start Over on Fridays. My favorite day.

So instead of sitting for twelve hours at the computer or spending the day desperately trying to return the calls that fill my voice mailbox every day, I took the afternoon off. I turned off the computer and put the phone on Silent. I put on some nice music for Nellie to listen to while she was napping, got in the car, and went down the hill to town.

First stop, the Free Store, which has been set up for Four Mile Canyon folks (I call us the “Fire People.”)  This is a community effort, totally ad-hoc.  There is no organization backing it or helping to run it. Just people from Boulder who actually did something to help us, and didn’t wait for the County or the Red Cross or any other organization. They got an empty store front donated, sent out the word about donations, and were flooded with stuff. People from Boulder gave so much stuff they had to open a SECOND free store.  I tell you, this is Love in Action.

The Free Store is also a place to connect with other Fire People. Even though we’re often total strangers, we hug and cry and talk about our experiences. Then we look at free stuff.

When I walked in, the volunteer at the door looked up at me to find out if I was dropping off donations (a Normal person) or picking up donations (a Fire person.) She said, “Uh, so are you…?”  “Yeah, I am,” I said.  She could tell from the look on my face which category I belonged to.  “Great, come on in,” she said, going back to her phone call.

I went over to the donated Books section, and ran my hand over the spines on the shelves. There were so many titles I recognized – The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver; a copy of Gone with the Wind, almost exactly like the one I used to have.  The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen. It was like looking at the ghosts of Old Friends, the books that used to populate my shelves at home, turned to dust, but reincarnated here, at the Free Store.

I picked up the Poisonwood Bible and put it in my bag. The opening paragraph, in my opinion, is the greatest start to a book since “Call me Ishmael.” The way Kingsolver begins in the treetops and then cinematically zooms down through the forest is masterful. If you own this book, go re-read the beginning and you’ll see what I mean. I think she’s a Genius.

In another part of the store, I found a little bedspread for the single bed in my second bedroom – since I’m renting I’m trying to cover all the furniture so it won’t get full of Nellie hair. And in the Kitchen section I found a few brand new utensils – a ladle, a whisk.  They looked just like the ones I’d bought at Peppercorn last year. It was odd to see them there – more old friends, back from the dead. I put them in my bag as well. And a few more things – a little rug for the bathroom, a box of trash bags, a broom. Small steps at putting a life back together.

The volunteer helped me load the car and then told me she had just moved to Boulder from Arizona. “Wow,” I said, “You just moved here and you’re already helping? That’s amazing.” She said, “This town in amazing. Boulder is just so incredible.”  I smiled for the first time that day, and said, “Yes, it sure is.”

I drove over to the Pearl Street Mall and walked into Chico’s, my favorite women’s clothing store.  I used to buy most of my work clothes there, and I love their stuff. I stood at the door and had to push down the rising tide of panic. So much stuff in there. So many cheerful looking shoppers on a Friday afternoon. I took a deep breath and walked in.

With relief, I recognized one of the saleswomen, who is about my age. “How are you, my dear?” she piped. I told her the Bad News, and said that I had to replace my whole work wardrobe, and had no idea where to even start. She took me by the arm and said, “How about we start with a jacket?” Okay, I said, breathing a bit easier. We picked out a black suit jacket, very long and tailored; a white sleeveless shell, and a tan wool turtleneck. Very simple, and perfect for work. It all fit beautifully, and when I walked out to look in the mirror, some of the other women shoppers in the store said, “Wow, that looks like it was made for you!”  I got a bit teary. I was SHOPPING. Wow.

When I brought my clothes to the register, another customer was talking to the other sales woman, and telling her about how she used to have a house in Sunshine Canyon. “And I just sold it!” she boomed, “RIGHT BEFORE THE FIRE!”  “Oh wow, that’s SO LUCKY!” exclaimed the sales girl. “Where exactly was it…?”

I blanched and dropped the clothes onto the counter, and said, “I’ll be back in a second,” and walked out onto the sidewalk.  I could not stand and listen to the conversation – I was afraid of what I might blurt out.  I don’t begrudge this woman her luck, but it felt like a kick in the stomach. I wanted to shout, “TOO BAD SOME OF US WEREN’T SO LUCKY,” but I didn’t. It was a gorgeous fall day on the Pearl Street Mall, and she was shopping at Chico’s and life was good. Who was I to ruin her day with my post-traumatic stress?

I went back in and paid for the clothes and thanked the saleswoman for her kindness and patience with me. “You just take care of yourself,” she said, “And God bless you.”

This made me cry a little more, and then I stepped back out into the flow of life and tourists on the Pearl Street Mall.

It was Friday afternoon, a football weekend, and the Mall was filled with students, parents, tourists, street performers, locals, Moms and Dads, panhandlers, and business people in suits.  I walked by the Big Rock Garden and as usual, kids were climbing and sliding down the rocks as their parents watched and chatted with other parents.  The guy with the Hat Cart was putting his funny hats on people’s heads – the Buffalo Horns hat, the giant Pink Flamingo hat, the hat that looks like a birthday cake with candles sticking out of it.

I bought a falafel at Falafel King, which I swear to God has been in the same location since I was in College.  And as I took my first bite, I was overwhelmed with how good it was. So simple, but so good.

I was flooded with happiness; a sudden, sharp happiness that hit me like a burst of sunlight on a cloudy day. This is My Town, I thought,  These are My People – the Moms and Dads and students and tourists.  The Hat Guy and the Zip Code Man and the Yoga in a Box Guy.  They have been here as long as I have. They pay their rent and take care of their families, and in their off hours, they dig into their closets and load up their cars and haul their stuff to the Free Store, to help people they have never met.  I was filled with love for this town, and I will never, ever forget what it has done for me in the last month.

I think that when it comes to stuff, there are Old Friends and there are New Friends.  Many of my old friends burned up in the Four Mile Fire —  my favorite Irish sweater and my Power Suit and my gardening pants and my Sunday Sweats. My Complete Works of Shakespeare and my hardback fiction collection. The original, signed copy of my dissertation. The letter that JFK wrote to my grandparents that I had framed on the coffee table. I mourn these old friends; I cry for their loss.

Yet as I stood on the Mall on a sunny Fall Friday, watching the day turn to evening, I felt for a moment like just another tourist, eating a falafel, with my shopping bag from Chico’s, watching the CU Marching Band getting ready to play for the Moms and Dads and students and tourists.  For a little while, it was a Real Friday, a Forgiveness Friday, when I could let go of all the things I didn’t do that week, when I could just be a Normal person, and not a Fire person.

I was holding a small bag of New Friends — things that would help pave the way to a new life, the one that’s just on the other side of All This.

May there be many more friends, old and new, ghostly and real, that guide me on my way.

Thanks for being one of them.

Wishing You and Yours a Good Night,
Andi

My Kitchen Table in the Cottage

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Boulder, Good Moments, PTSD | 20 Comments
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Nellie Has a Very Bad Day

October 14, 2010
Five Weeks After the Fire

Hello Friends,

Yesterday when I woke up, Nellie was lying on the bed, shaking.  I jumped out of bed and tried to rouse her, but she just shook and whimpered. Oh God, I thought, Oh God, not Nellie. Please don’t let anything be wrong with Nellie.  I can’t take it, I can’t handle it, this would be the worst thing in the world right now. Anything but that. Anything but Nellie.

I threw on some clothes and called the veterinary clinic that I used to use when I lived in town, 20 years ago. Miraculously, Dr. Cathy, the vet who used to take care of my dogs, was in that day.

As I drove to the clinic, I realized that Dr. Cathy and the gals at the clinic didn’t know The Bad News.  I called them back and told them. The receptionist asked “What can we do to help?” I said,  “Just please understand that Nellie is all I have left right now, and the thought that anything is wrong with her is making me a little hysterical. I’m probably going to burst into tears the minute I walk in the door, so be ready.”  “Okay, no problem,” she said kindly.

When I got there Nellie was still shaking violently, and crying whenever I touched her.  I carried her into the clinic and they whisked us right into a room, where I immediately burst into tears.  The vet tech patiently tried to get a description of her symptoms, asked what she had eaten, and explained that Dr. Cathy was in surgery, and I was welcome to drop Nellie off and they would watch her until she could see her in a half hour. “No,” I said, “I’m not dropping her off. I’m staying with her until Cathy can see her. I’ll wait with her in the waiting room, or here in the examining room, or even in the back, but I can’t leave her alone right now,” and I promptly burst into tears once again.

She thought for a moment, and then told me she would go into surgery and see if Cathy was at a place where she could take a break and examine Nellie, and in a few moments she returned and said Cathy could do that.  I was so relieved and grateful that I started to cry – again. (Good thing I have lost all self-consciousness about crying in front of strangers…)

Nellie was lethargic and wide-eyed with pain, and she whisked her away, and I went back into the waiting room.  The tech came out a few minutes later and said that Cathy was recommending x-rays, and she would let me know what the results were.

After about a half hour, Cathy appeared and called me in to an examining room. She showed me the x-rays and explained that Nellie had an unusual looking vertebrae, and that she might have pinched a nerve or hurt a disc in her back. Dogs often show pain by shaking and whimpering, and my poor little girl was in pain, but not in any danger.  She would be fine, with some rest and medication.

I was so relieved and grateful I threw my arms around Cathy and gave her a huge hug, and then (you guessed it) burst into tears.

Then they brought Nellie out to me, still shaking a bit but none the worse for wear. “My Girl!” I cried, and got down on the floor and folded her gently into my arms. She licked my face and wagged a little – I think it hurt to wag. Can you imagine what that’s like for a dog? “Oh, I love you!… Ow, ow… But I do! I love you!… Ow, ow…”   Poor sweet girl.

I got the meds and then took her home, gently loading her into the car.  Saved, I thought.  I am saved. We are saved.  I can face everything now. I can live again. Without Nellie, I don’t know what I would do. I think I would crumble, I think my courage would finally fail.  I would lose my faith in a Benevolent Universe if she were taken from me now. I would go to bed and never want to get up.  All my friends and Irish ancestors wouldn’t be able to help me then.

But I am saved.  Nellie will recover, and after a week of rest and medicine, she will hopefully be right as rain. She will curl up with me each night and nuzzle my face to wake me up each morning. She will smile and wag and not be in pain, and say, as she always does,

“ I love you! I do! Did I tell you I love you? I do!  I love you I love you I love you I love you!”  Lick, lick, wag wag.

Nellie is fine, and Life is Good.

Wishing You a Good Night,
Andi

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Nellie the Dog | 35 Comments
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Dancing in the Dark

October 10, 2010
Thirty-Three Days After the Fire

Hello Dear Friends,

I was talking to someone today, and she asked, “How are you doing?” I stopped and said, “That’s a rather complicated question right now.” It’s amazing how complex life becomes after something like this, and even the most ordinary of questions becomes a loaded gun, aimed at your heart. “How are you doing?” Oh, God, do you really want to know? Do you really? Because if I really answer, honestly tell you how I’m doing, you might not like what you hear.

It’s like this. Ninety-nine percent of the people I talk to each day are wonderful, helpful, incredible people. And every day – every single day, someone says something that is inadvertently hurtful, stupid or inappropriate, and it goes like a knife into my heart. Wonderful people. Well meaning people. When it comes to dealing with grief, loss and death, we as a culture are dancing in the dark. We put a foot forward, stumble, and wonder why the lights went out. Why is it so dark in here? Can’t they just change the bulb and move on? “Move on.” As a culture we are obsessed with “moving on” after a tragedy.

I got a letter today from some friends – thoughtful, well meaning people – who wrote, “We are so glad you are moving on with rebuilding and getting your life back together.” Moving on? Are you kidding? This whole mess has barely started. Never mind the grief, the loss, the PTSD – jumping when you hear a siren, cringing at the sound of a helicopter – there’s the County to deal with, and why can’t the Post Office find my mail? A friend of mine comes over for a visit and says, “Oh, I’m so jealous you get to live in a cottage!” Really? Jealous? This place is adorable, and it’s 500 square feet. Would you really trade your 3,000 square foot house and big yard for a cottage? C’mon, think about it, willya?

When I say things like this I sound mean, ungrateful, intolerant. I am not any of those – I’m merely trying to tell the truth about my life.

Back when I was an undergraduate English major, I read a piece by Muriel Rukeyser, who wrote, “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” I remember I wrote a tedious paper titled, “World Split Open: The Truth About My Life.” I was 18, and some poor graduate instructor in Women’s Literature had to wade through it. I probably got a “C.”

But now, in my 50’s, in the wake of this bizarre, surreal experience of homeless limbo, I am too tired to not tell the truth. Being nice and taking care of everyone is too exhausting – I can only tell it like I see it. And when people ask me if I am “moving on,” I want to spit nails. Talk to me in a year, okay? Moving on. People cannot bear to stay in the feelings of tragedy for long, and we Americans are famous for our short attention spans. As my friend Sharon Glassman joked, “People are like, ‘Hey, your tragedy is So Last Month. Whaddaya got that’s new?'” Whaddaya got, indeed.

Last Saturday I went to the Four Mile Canyon Revival Concert. It was headlined by Phish, Yonder Mountain String Band, and Leftover Salmon, among others. Several people who lost homes in the fire had been given tickets by the sponsor, The Community Foundation, one of my all-time favorite charitable organizations. So I was thrilled to get free tickets and take my friend David, who has been so helpful in dealing with the insurance company, builders and contractors, and my crazy moods.

If I’d realized how shell shocked I still was, I probably wouldn’t have gone.

David and I got there right before six, and my stomach dropped when I saw the crowd outside the Event Center. There wasn’t a line to get in – but rather a huge crush of people, pushing helter-skelter to the few entrances. I grabbed David by the arm and said, “I’m not sure I can do this…” But I took a deep breath, hung on to David, and joined the fray. The crowd consisted mostly of twenty-something Phish fans, dressed in all manner of Hippie/Dead Head attire, who ran around hugging each other and squealing with delight over long-lost friends. As we stood there, a young woman in a pink tutu ran up to another young woman and screeched, “Oh, it’s so good to SEE YOUUUUU!” and then leaped into her arms. I thought it was kind of cute, actually. The woman in the tutu gave me a rather stoned-looking smile, and I said, “Yep, I’m probably old enough to be your Mom. Maybe even your grandmother.” She smiled and said, “Oh, I wish my Mom was half as cool as YOUUU!” and then leaped up and gave me a long, stoned hug. As I said, kinda cute.

When we finally got inside and I could breathe again, we asked an usher where our seats were. “Are you with the fire fighters?” She asked. “They’re over there in the front, in a reserved section.” “No,” I said, “We’re with the people who lost homes in the fire.” “Oh,” she said. “Those are General Admission. Just sit anywhere.” I turned to David with panic in my eyes and said, “General Admission? Are you kidding? This place is a zoo.” I had no idea how frazzled my nerves were until I faced the mass of dancing, pot smoking fans gathered on the floor of the arena. Sit anywhere? Oh, my God. I haven’t had a General Admission seat since I was about thirty. But again, deep breath, and we found two seats in the back, by the door, a few rows up. It wasn’t very crowded there, and from up there I could watch the incredible theater taking place down on the floor as the bands began to play. There were guys in rainbow caftans, top hats, and Jerry Garcia wigs; a guy in a silver lame jumpsuit and chunky, platform shoes. A girl with a skirt made entirely of glow-sticks. Lots of young white guys in dreadlocks, bobbing and weaving and shuffling to the music of the first band.

After a while I actually relaxed. The music was good, and our section was only moderately crowded. Everyone got up and danced, and after a while I joined in. The young guy dancing next to me leaned over and shouted over the music, “WHERE YOU FROM?” I shouted back, “BOULDER. YOU?” “TELLURIDE” he shouted back. “WE DROVE SEVEN HOURS TO GET HERE AND WILL DRIVE SEVEN HOURS TONIGHT TO GET HOME. I HAD TO CALL IN SOME SERIOUS FAVORS TO GET THESE TICKETS. HOW DID YOU SCORE YOURS?” I leaned over and shouted in his ear, “MY HOUSE BURNED DOWN.” He stopped dancing and looked at me, shocked. Then he recovered himself and hollered, “CAN I GIVE YOU A HUG?” Hugs being the order of the day at a Phish concert, I acquiesced. And then we just danced.

When the first act ended, a couple of speakers came out and talked about how scary the fire was, how they evacuated with only a moment’s notice and how they struggled to figure out what to take with them. And how the firefighters saved their homes, saved the town of Gold Hill, and how they got to go home again. Then the emcee shouted, “Let’s give it up for the REAL HEROES sitting in here tonight, OUR VOLUNTEER FIRE FIGHTERS!!!” The crowd went completely crazy, stomping and cheering for several minutes, while I clapped my hands over my ears. Each time a new act went on stage, this was repeated. Another story about how a house was saved, another thunderous standing ovation for the firefighters. A check for ten thousand dollars was presented, to the fire fighters. Another happy ending. Let’s go on with the show.

About half way through the concert, they began a slide show. As the huge screens on either side of the stage darkened, my heart caught in my throat. “Oh no,” I thought, “Oh no, they couldn’t, they wouldn’t…” Sure enough, they began to roll pictures of the fire. Smoke billowing out over the Flatirons. Firefighters and trucks. Red skies. Black, burned trees. Slurry bombers flying over the forest. “Oh my God,” I said, putting my hand over my mouth. “David I have to go get some air.”

I walked out into the nearly empty lobby, trying to breathe, wondering if I needed to tell David it was time to go. Suddenly a voice called out, “Hey, you’re from Sugarloaf,” and I turned around. Standing there were some other people who had lost their homes in the fire; I recognized them from the meeting we had with the County a few days before. “You spoke in the meeting,” a woman said, “How are you?” I looked at her and said, “HOW AM I?” and we all burst out laughing. “I’m a mess,” I said, “How are you?” She said, “Oh God, we’re a mess too. We thought we were the only ones. It seems like everyone else has moved on.” I snorted, “Yeah, it’s been almost FIVE WHOLE WEEKS since the fire. We should definitely all have MOVED ON by now.” And again we laughed our exhausted, disoriented laugh. We talked for over an hour, while the music played inside the arena, and the Phish fans danced and drank and smoked more pot, and the standing ovations for the firefighters punctuated our conversation.

We talked about our guilt, our anger, our frustrations; about the State declaring our beloved homes and property hazardous waste sites, about the exorbitant cost of haz mat debris removal, about our charred trees, which one man at the County meeting had described as, “Like corpses – we’re surrounded by corpses,” as he burst into tears. As we talked in the lobby, one man said quietly that he felt like something was wrong with him, because he felt compelled to go up to the site of his burned home every day and sift through the ashes. Many of his neighbors, he said, didn’t even want to go look. They just called the bulldozers and said, Take it all away. “Are we in denial?” his wife asked. I said, “If you want to go up every damn day for a year, have at it. You just go up there as much as you want and who cares what people say. Everyone has their own process, and there’s no right or wrong for any of us. Screw the people who tell us we should be “moving on.”

One woman said that she had been called in by her daughter’s teacher, who scolded her for her daughter’s missed assignments, and said that other kids in her class who were “affected by the fire” had “moved on,” and it was frankly time for her daughter and their whole family to “start moving on.” My jaw dropped and my eyes filled with tears at this story. Did those other kids who were “affected by the fire” get to go home again? Or did they lose everything — their toys, their stuffed animals, their safe and familiar home? Having been there as a kid, I know the trauma of losing my childhood home to a fire. How dare a teacher, or anyone, tell a parent that their child has to truncate their grieving, put their pain in a box, and move on. For shame.

After a while I was hoarse from talking, and we all hugged and said we’d keep in touch, and stumbled away to find our seats and the friends in the arena we had abandoned for so long. I felt exhausted but also somehow at peace. I am not alone, I thought. I am not becoming a bitter, angry person, I am telling the truth about my life, in whatever clumsy and awkward and angry way that I can. We are all stumbling through this together; we are all dancing in the dark. I went back in and asked David if we could leave, and he cheerfully agreed. “Whatever you want,” he said.

These are the real heroes here tonight, I thought. The people who are walking this path with their homeless, burnt-out friends. The people who say “Yes,” who show up, who listen to our rants and tirades and then make a joke and laugh and cry with us. The people who, like David, listen to but don’t indulge our anger. When I get too crazy, David smiles and says, “Dah-link. Me thinks you might be over reacting just a tad,” and then I shout “YOU THINK SO?!” and we laugh until we cry. These are the heroes of my universe tonight.

Lainie, who spent three days on the phone with me as I drove fifteen hundred miles across country, alone in the car, knowing that my house had burned down. Matthew, who took a week off work, and jumped on a plane from Chicago to come help. Kathy, who flew out for a weekend from Massachusetts, because she knows something about facing tragedy and loss as a single person. Ellen, who I haven’t seen in five years, who brought me corn chowder, and said, “I’m going to be a pest. I’m going to check up on you.” Beth, who took me in after the fire and rallied my friends and organized food and a party for me within days of the fire, to make sure I had the basics of life covered. Marki, who showed up like Santa Claus each day, and brought me towels and clothes and furry socks and a beautiful vase, because every girl needs a vase to put flowers in.

My list of heroes and s/heroes goes on and on. Every day, another gift. Every day, another sorrow. This is the essence of it. This is the agony and the ecstasy of life under the microscope of loss. The pain is sharp; the joy wells up in flashing, searing moments of gratitude. What pain will tomorrow bring? What joy? What gifts?

We left the concert at midnight, even though it was still going strong. I came home to my quiet cottage and my Nellie dog, and said good night to David. That night I dreamed of fire, of running from fire, of the ocean on fire, and not being able to reach my friend Ellen on the phone. In the confusion of my dream, my clumsy fingers couldn’t find the numbers, and I ran on and on, alone and afraid. When I reached the edge of the shore and faced the wall of fire, the phone rang, and it was Ellen. “Thank God you called,” I cried. “Thank God for you.” And when I looked up, the fire had gone out.

And then I woke up, with Nellie snuggled at my shoulder, and the sun rising. Another day, I thought. Another step in this confusing, erratic, and strangely fascinating dance. And Nellie looked at me, and wagged her tail. And on we go.

Take Good Care and Good Night,

Andi and Nellie

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Friends, Nellie the Dog, PTSD | 42 Comments
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The Poetry of Loss

October 4th, 2010
Four Weeks After the Fire

(After reading a previous entry, someone remarked, “You are a Poet of Loss.”)

Hello Friends,

I am looking into the closet of my tiny bedroom in this tiny cottage, and counting my clothes. I have four shirts, and a pair of black pants. On the shelf, a pair of tan pants, and a t-shirt. On the back of the door hangs a long blue nightshirt. There’s a story behind that one.

When we went up to check the house after the fire, I absent-mindedly stopped and opened the mailbox. The only thing inside was the nightshirt, back ordered from Orvis, wrapped in green plastic. Somehow the shirt survived, completely intact, oblivious to the inferno all around. Such are the strange gifts of fire.

In the kitchen I have a cup that Rosemary gave me at the potluck, brightly painted with words of friendship and flowers; a coffee maker, and a few utensils. Most of the other cupboards are bare. There is an elegance to such sparseness; a poetry to this bare bones existence.

In the bathroom I have a small collection of tiny travel shampoos and soaps and toothpaste, which I got at the Free Store. The young women there had wrapped up toiletries in small cellophane bags and tied them with ribbons for fire survivors. When I bent down and picked one up, there was a small note tied to it with a shiny pink ribbon. It read, “Always thinking about you. Stay strong.” This made me weep on my friend Matthew’s shoulder, right there in the store. Taken aback once more by the kindness of strangers.

At the Free Store I found a long wool coat made by Jones New York, a couple of pillowcases, and some boots for winter. “Are you sure this is all you need?” asked Matthew, who flew all the way from Chicago to help me for a week. “Yes,” I said. “That’s it for now.” There were so many donations, such an outpouring of clothes and books and toys and food… I could hardly take it all in. “Is that all you need?” Yes. What do I need? How much “stuff” does a person need? This has been a contemplation all of my adult life.

When my house burned down at 12, my father shrugged and said Good Riddance. When he died at 62, he owned exactly four suits, a couple of golf outfits, two sets of gold cufflinks and a sports car. My mother used to say that if he ever decided to leave us, he could pack in five minutes. I don’t know if he was trying to keep the freedom he felt from losing everything, but after the fire he never really bought things again. And if people gave him things he merely gave them away. “You don’t own things,” he would say, “They own you.” And so we all became purveyors of freedom rather than of possessions, mastering the art of moving around, cutting ourselves free, no “stuff” to tie us down.

And then, at 40, I bought a house, and it began to fill up. Clothes, shoes, books, papers, exercise equipment, linens, collectibles… Each spring I would clean house, up there in the mountains, and fill boxes and bags with things for the annual Sugarloaf Garage Sale. I was ruthless, giving away books that had overflowed the shelves, clothes I hadn’t worn in years, kitchen utensils that I rarely used. I would go through files and dump papers, throw out old photographs, pare my memorabilia boxes down to a minimum. And yet there were times, late at night, when I’d walk around my spacious house and feel like a prisoner of all my stuff. “Who needs all these dishes?” I would think. “Why do I have closets and closets full of clothes?” At times I wanted to get rid of it all. But not like this; not all at once.

There is philosophy and there is reality. Deep down we sometimes wish we were free of all this stuff, that we were twenty-two again, and everything we owned fit into the back of an old Honda Civic. But then we realize that, for the most part, we need stuff to make a life. And when it all goes away, we are plunged into a strange and spinning place, with nothing to hold on to — no house, no home, no stuff, no clothes, no papers, no books, no clutter. Nothing to own. Nothing to own you.

My next door neighbor here in Chautauqua also lost his home in the fire, and the other day he came home with a bag of new clothes and sighed as he carried them up the stairs of his cottage. “So it begins,” he said sadly. “I was just beginning to relish the freedom of no-things.”

The freedom of no-things. Who are we when we have no “stuff?” Can we then become somebody brand new?

Yesterday in the mail I received a card from my friend Ellen. Tucked inside it was a small piece of paper with the following poem written on it.

The Guest House – by Jelaluddin Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Such is the poetry of loss — It is an invitation to see what lies beyond sorrow, what sits just on the other side of pain, what sun rises on the horizon of despair. It will pass, as all such experiences do. The edge will dull, the memory of “no-things” will blur. I will shop, and fill this tiny closet with the things that make up a life. I will once again own things, and try not to let them own me. I shall do my best to “meet them at the door laughing” — the things, the feelings, the crowd of sorrows, the unexpected visitors.

We will dance together, in a new place, a new home, with room for us all.

Wishing You a Good Night,
Andi

Andi at the House Site

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Andi
Posted in Friends, The Kindness of Strangers | 18 Comments
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