Fire. It’s been a bit of a threat here at Blueberry Hill Cottage. While my home is nestled against the Angeles National Forest, and it is surrounded by nature and wildlife and the very best that life has to offer, it also is exposed at times to wildfires brought on by wind, drought, and careless humans. Such was the case earlier this month.
We were in the thick of things with the Creek Fires. We were under evacuation orders. We scrambled to pack our car for the “escape” should it come to that.
Years and years of experiences in the form of artwork and trinkets and momentos sit on shelves and hang on walls. File cabinets filled with photos and unpublished stories are kept locked away for safekeeping. Treasured hand-me-downs and gifts — my father’s mandolin, my mother’s dress patterns, my uncle’s typewriter — are all memories of the people who made me me.
Which “things” does one choose to take?
When space and time are limited, it presents quite an extraordinary dilemma to choose one memory over another. The thought that in doing so, I am committing the one thing chosen to its survival, and the one that didn’t make the cut to its potential destruction is heartbreaking.
I want it all — the good, the bad, the cheap, the expensive, and everything in between.
Being forced to choose is such a life lesson.
I learned that when push comes to shove, high-priced artwork is left behind in favor of falling-apart letters handwritten by my parents. I learned that decades of journals I had written and forgotten illustrate a life that at every age presented challenges and obstacles and doubts and fears, all of which I surmounted and triumphed over, sometimes in ways I would never have predicted.
Like this hollow tree being burned from the inside, disasters often force us to face realities, to look inward, and to realize what among all else really matters to us. Things are, indeed, just things. And much of what we spend a lifetime accumulating can be replaced. That said, some of we possess is one-of-a-kind and represents a person, a moment, an experience, a memory that can never be replaced.
Fortunately, all of what we chose to pack and all of what we chose to leave behind survived, unscathed. But like this hollowed out tree, burning from the inside out, something inside of me has reignited. Embers that I thought had died out long ago, smoldering remnants of excitement and purpose and passion have been rekindled.
Just as acres and acres of our forest perished, the clearing of the charred and no longer viable has made way for new growth. So, too, do I feel the same within me.
Leave a Reply