“Not in my reality,” has been my mindset since March. When schools and work shut down last spring, I considered it a fortunate opportunity. I got to spend quality time with my boys hiking up nearby mountain peaks, letting them teach me how to fish, and adventuring on our first camping trip. Our small town stood pristinely through the pandemic, and I enjoyed the fact that I had moved to the countryside before shelter-in-place. I was ahead of the game, my ego emblazoned as I considered myself well above all those who lived in fear and urban constraint. So when the wildfires unfurled throughout California, I took on the perspective that I was protected. I even shared my cabin home with friends who fled the Bay Area, and felt like I was the safe spot.
Then the winds kicked up one night last week and I tossed and turned in the hot darkness. It was unsettling, like something was coming. The next morning, I took my youngest son to his first day at his “mini-school,” a pod of fifteen kids engaged in virtual learning spearheaded by an enthusiastic middle school teacher and his friendly dog. My son spread out his laptop on a big wooden table, twinkly lights and cozy pillows softening the background, and got to work. By noon, I got an email that the power had gone out and the kids were escorted to the park. By 1:30 the teacher texted me to pick up my son. A fire had started at the south end of town, the freeway was closed and traffic was being rerouted downtown.
That was the beginning of the end of my “sanctuary thinking.” Although the fire was twelve miles away and traveling in the other direction, we instantly shifted to another reality where smoke, masks and the loss of wifi became real. We lived in this in-between state, each day looking for a way to connect to our online work, school, family and friends. Why did the internet provider I picked have to be the one to have its infrastructure melt? Such an incredibly small problem compared to those who have lost their houses and businesses not too far from us.You see, things don’t feel real until they affect your daily life, and my tiny problem has allowed us to be affected, to wake up and be a little more compassionate.
My children’s schools are out of the area, and although their absences were excused, their work was starting to pile up. When I briefly moved us to a hotel for a night so that we could access wifi, my fifteen-year-old, who is usually rather hormonally nonverbal, thanked me for doing that for them. His teacher told him that to stay in a hotel just so that they could go to school showed my commitment to their education. But it was when I brought my boys the cheapest junkiest pizza for dinner in our room, that I was bestowed the highest compliment teenage boys can give. They declared, “Mama’s the GOAT,” and my eyes narrowed until I understood – The Greatest Of All Time.
You know, I wasn’t sure if I could even consider being a part of this wildfire experience because I have not lost my home. 50-80% of the families whose children went to the schools I’ve taught in here have lost their homes. I have wanted to help others who are truly displaced, but I also know that maybe I fall somewhere in that category of need as I guide my family through this. That feeling of wanting to give when perhaps it may be better to receive is one I have allowed myself to open up to more. I haven’t felt that blue-sky creativity and optimism I did awhile back, and that’s okay. A musician by the name of Collin Braley played a song amidst one of the devastated neighborhoods here, and called it “Melancholy Improv No. 1.” With the smoke settling in the valley, we are indeed moving through melancholy, where life is a flexible dance between the momentary conditions, what needs to be done that day and the malaise that blankets us from doing anything at all.
The threat of fire isn’t over yet, or for anyone living on the West Coast. I may not be suffering as much as others in this, but I know I am experiencing exactly what I need to for my own learning. I can definitely let myself be carried further into a somber state, but I know that this time offers me a chance to see things differently if I choose to. What I’ve learned so far is that fire does not discriminate, even for those who think they are fearless. It is a great unifier and humbler. It is also an agent of change, dynamically destroying the old and instantly banding people together.
From the hotel receptionist who let us camp out in the lobby chairs way past checkout, to the enthusiastic teacher who let me use his mini-school classroom to work, I can be nothing but grateful. Grateful that I have a job I love as a mindfulness educator that I want to attend to even if I’ve had to work out of the day shelter that provided wifi and free food for the past few days. I am grateful that my children are with me, and that I feel love and supported by my widening circles of friends, family and colleagues. I am thankful to not only have external resources, but internal ones I’ve cultivated over the years that are keeping me grounded. I can attune to suffering and also wear gratitude kind of like a superhero cape as I continue to improvise my way forward.