“What are you looking at?” Jonah puzzled as I drove slowly down the driveway, leaning forward over the steering wheel, peering up at the brunches arching above the driveway to meet in the middle.
“Nothing,” I said.
Kindling, I thought.
The Caldor Fire had its point of origin less than 20 miles away, which seems far until you see how fast and how far California fires have been traveling the last few years. The fire is currently about 46 miles wide. By morning, it had gone from 100 acres to 300, then quickly to 700, then 2,000 by that night, which seemed crazy then, and now is minuscule. On one day it grew 8 times in size. At the time I write this, we stand at 219,267 acres, 65% contained.
We woke Sunday morning to heavy smoke and fear. I got the kids up and had them pack. This is our first close-ish fire, and I wasn’t sure how concerned to be. It hasn't felt that long since I drove to Santa Rosa to evacuate our friend Joyce, not once, but twice, with a year off in between. The smoke had been so thick, there were times I was following the tail lights ahead of me, hoping that driver could see the road better than I could. The flames on the hillsides were terrifying, as were stories of whole neighborhoods consumed with no warning. The heartbreaking image my brain conjured of the elderly man who had held his wife in his arms in a neighbor’s swimming pool as the fire storm passed over them lingered with me for weeks. She didn’t make it.
We piled our packs by the door and then began pulling photos from the walls -just the ones not saved digitally- and it felt strange to leave some of my babies' faces behind. I began to gather a few precious keepsakes, and gave each child a box for their special things. Standing in the dining room, staring at the table scattered with an eclectic collection of medicines, photos, books and ancient bud vases, I heard a squabble between Natalie and Jonah.
“What’s wrong, guys?”
“Natalie is trying to bring more toys,” Jonah fussed.
I called them to me. Natalie came around the corner with a red, tear streaked face. “I’m not going to tell her no, Jonah,” I said. I looked into his face, and saw his rigid expression, the rims of his eyes also red. I gathered them in my arms and they both burst into tears. I called Tessa and Adam from the other room, and with the Littles still in each arm, I said, “I know this is really scary.”
Tessa’s beautiful pale eyes filled with tears, which pushed mine over the edge. I looked to Adam, who ducked his head to hide that he had joined us. “Com’mere. Everybody.”
I held the Littles, one on each side, and shuffled toward Adam, who was closest, beckoning Tessa over. I gathered them all in my arms together, more than a mama can hold, trying to pull myself together for them. “We can do this. It’s scary, but nothing bad is happening yet. And as long as we are together, it can’t, because you guys are all that matters. The rest is just stuff, most of it just hand-me-downs.
"But this is a defining moment. No matter what happens, the most important thing right now is how we treat each other.” I wiped my cheeks and took a deep breath, then patted backs in the way you do when you are ready to move on. “Alright!" I said in a faked-cheery voice. "Let’s put some music on.”
Guy called to check in. There had been way more than fire prep going on that morning. It was the day after Jonah's birthday, I was dealing with a legal matter, the dishwasher had broken, again, we had a mysterious water leak somewhere that was making the meter spin like crazy, and homeschool was to start the next day. "Do you want me to come home?" he asked in response to my trembly voice. "No. It's okay. It's just scary. It's a lot." He wasn't fooled.
"I'm coming home."
My heart settled down almost immediately. We powered through the next couple of hours, scooping up a tearful Ellie along the way. She had missed the family cry-fest earlier. “I’m not worried about me," she wept, "But you and Dad have been through so much, you don’t deserve this."
"No one ever does, sweetie."
We had calmed considerably by the time Guy made it home. He seemed a little distressed that I had let him come home when everything seemed just fine, but I assured him that knowing he was on his way home was the one thing that had helped me hold it together.
Perhaps the strangest part of the day had been walking around the house selecting what few items to keep. We had gathered the basics, along with the photos, hard drives and important papers. But then I was wandering. I gathered a little drawing by one child, knowing I couldn't grab them all. I cradled a special ceramic pot Guy had given me on our first anniversary, a few books that had been gifts from dad, and my mom's porcelain bird, in my hands. After a while, just thinking about it all made me so emotionally tired, that I just stopped caring. The "stuff" all blurred together; a roll of paper towels and an antique bowl both vying for equal attention. Is everything special? Or nothing? Ellie came in and said, "It's strange to see how much stuff I have, and how much of it I don't really care that much about." So true. And not.
We weren't done, but we were done. It had been such a long, strange day. And stranger still than the random packing, was later cooking dinner and settling in for a movie that night. It felt like we should go, but there was no reason to. Yet. And we hoped there wouldn't be.
****
The following Saturday was spent on more concentrated outdoor fireproofing (which seems like a silly word, but I can't think of anything better at the moment. Fire resisting?). It's like shaving, No matter how good a job you do, you have to go back and do it all again later. We had been working on clearing the dead trees from our tiny-but-dense acre+ patch of woods (which seems a little pointless when you see the other folk's woods all around us that are just as bad as, or worse, than ours), but we shifted our efforts to tight clean up around the house to renew our defensible space.
(The red arrow above points to me. Looks like I'm hiding, but I was scooting down the slope on my bummy, clearing it from above, and trying not to break my neck. It's steeper than it looks!)
There's this ratty plant that grows everywhere here. I've heard it called deerweed, but it sorta looks like French broom, only totally dry and currently flowerless. This stuff would burn like a ghost pepper. It's scratchy and billowy and will grow right back when the rains come, but we cleared a whole slope of the stuff.
I have to mention here the awesome job Natalie did with these photos. She weighs as much as a pair of clippers and is, in most ways, a bit useless when it comes to work, because she can't stay on task for two minutes before she is off in her make-believe land. So I handed her my phone and told her to "document". Oh, boy, did she! And she got her dirty little finger on the lens, which created a strange, otherworldly glow. Add a little movement, and these pix remind me of ones of my dad from the 70's.
You can't really tell, but Tessa is hauling a giant limb. Adam helped by cheering.
How big sticks become little sticks.
Same slope as the deerweed pix above, minus a lot of fuel.
We were told by the fire chief that if fire came our way, they likely wouldn't even attempt to come down our lane, what with all the trees leaning over the top, and it being the only road in or out. I get that. It never occurred to me at the time we bought the house, though. I just thought, "oh, what pretty trees." They are still pretty, but I'll admit my heart has changed, yet again, about living in these woods.
The Caldor fire is well controlled at our end, though I still check the stats and wind direction every night. And we pray. A lot. We had a touch of rain the other night, but I read that the lightning from it started eight new fires, requiring crews to be diverted from the main fire to put them out. Scary, scary, and more scary.
I haven't put our special things back. There are a few bins by the door with our most precious belongings in them. I'm waiting, because it's still the beginning of fire season, and we're not out of the woods, yet.
*************************
Incredible thanks to all who have reached out to us with offers of help and lodging, and who have held us in their hearts and in prayer. We have such lovely friends. Glad we didn't have to take you up on those offers, but so grateful to have had them.
