big becomes little and little becomes big

it's april 22. almost four months exactly since christmas day. for four months we've been working through everything - the emotions, the insurance stuff, the reconstruction plans. for four months we've been looking out the front door of our rental house at the burned shell of our home.

we know we are so very lucky. still, it is something i have to remind myself of almost daily. i have to make a conscious choice to see the good, each and every day. it's like my logical self is on board - i mean, obviously, look at the overwhelming wave of love and support that has come our way in the aftermath. it's staggering, really. we've never even come close to not having a roof over our heads, clothing on our backs, and food on our table. in fact, as i have said before - even now, we have more than our share. even now, we have more than enough.

i am reminded of this each morning as i try to button my pants.

oops.

anyway, my emotional self is another story and that's where i have to make the conscious choice each day - because the deep and dark and negative seems to have this amazing pull. it's like an eddy, or what i imagine quicksand or a vortex would feel like. it could be so easy to surrender to it. so i have to fight it every day. i have to pick up my head and focus outwards, rather than in. easier some days than others.

we have selected a builder. it's such a huge relief. we had solicited bids from three, and kind of had a gut feeling about who we wanted from the very beginning - but went through the process for the sake of due diligence. in the end, we went with our guts. we made the decision just yesterday and confirmed it with our designer over the phone. she relayed the decision to the builder and he was out there today with a couple of his subs, evaluating this and that. we talked about the demo, how we need to go through the house one more time before they come take it down, and how we need to salvage any landscaping we want to try to salvage before demo day.

i mentioned that i thought it would be very emotional for me to see the house come down. our builder said "you guys should just go away for the weekend, go to fredricksberg or somewhere, and when you come back, there will just be a slab." jack likes this idea. i, of course, have mixed feelings. i see the value in the "poof!" approach, but part of me also wants to be with the house in its last moments, so as not to abandon it and also to give me the closure that i think i need. i told jack that it was very sad, that our house has a soul and that it is languishing, and dying a slow death. with all the gentle, heartfelt empathy he could muster jacko said "that's only in your warped world." god i love that man. he helps make my bigs things little.

recently, emmett came back from jamaica and brought me a little braided bracelet. very simple, bought from a street vendor. it's probably the type of thing that won't last too long - but it's become so precious to me. i don't ever want to take it off. then, last weekend we went to a WWII reenactment and i found a deer antler in the battlefield. i've been driving around with it in my car for 4 days now. this has got me wondering - what the heck is going on on my warped world? why am i developing these deep attachments to the simplest little things? over time, it's actually gotten easier to detach from the material things we lost on christmas day. so why now these exaggerated attachments?

part of what makes some otherwise unspectacular, ordinary little things in my life have meaning (and therefore immeasurable value) are the memories that the little things evoke. for example, that's what makes losing the christmas ornaments so difficult. i bought each of the kids a christmas ornament every year since they were born. the idea i had back when they were tots was that when they moved out on their own (a concept that is rapidly settling in) i would be able to set them off with a starter set of 25 or so ornaments representing every phase of their lives. the little hallmark ornament that i found one year when emmett was about 2 - it was a little puppet stage with tiny puppets - in and of itself may not have had much value (about $7.95, if i recall). but the memory of toddler emmett walking around for weeks saying "puppet area" is a cherished one. we would ask him "what are you saying?". he'd look at us as if we were daft: "puppet area!". we'd say "puppet area?" and he'd say "no!!! _puppet_area_." to this day we have no idea what he was saying, but that puppet ornament took on such meaning for me because it would bring me back to that precious time at least once a year when we unpacked the christmas ornaments to decorate the tree, even now almost 15 years later.

there were many little things like that throughout the house - of insignificant value to those not in the know, but possessing a world of meaning for us. so the sadness i feel is not so much over the physical loss of the little things, but it's representative of the fear i have over losing the memories tied to those little things. and so emmett's little jamaican bracelet, and the deer antler found in the field last weekend, take on extreme importance as i try to attach them to new memories.

big becomes little, and little becomes big.

those people

tonight i finally wrote the thank you note to the family we've never met who gave us their own christmas presents on christmas morning. i wrote about it back in january ("hello, kind stranger") - how overwhelming this whole ordeal has been, how overwhelming and extremely humbling it is to be on the receiving end of so much love and support. and it is tenfold when it comes from people we have never even met.

humility is such an intense emotion. i am sure i have experienced it in small doses throughout my life, who hasn't? but to be absolutely buried by the tidal wave of kindness that has been bestowed upon us - it is almost too humbling to bear. it changes the source of the "why us?" question that is ever present in our hearts and minds since that day. instead of "why us?" with regards to the fire, and our loss, which would be such an easy road to head down - it is transformed to "why us - why are we worthy of this much kindness?" and then "how can we ever repay everyone?". it really boils down to simply being overwhelmed at the undeniable realization of just how very much we are loved. humbling, indeed.

i know that people have said that we shouldn't worry about thanking everyone personally, that the giving is a two-sided gift, in and of itself. people do it because they want to do it. people feel good when they give. logically, i get that. and it's certainly what i would be saying if i were on the other end this time.

but i am not on the giving side this time. and there are moments when i am simply overwhelmed and at a loss for what to do or say. the list is endless. the acts of kindness and generosity have been endless.

on the phone that morning with basile, i remember saying (among many other ramblings) "i don't want to be *those* people". we don't know how to be these people, the people who everyone gives to and cares for". when basile shared this with some of our friends, our friend ardie said "be sure to tell veek that, no, you're not _those_ people, but you are indeed THOSE people, meaning the ones we cherish."

humbling, indeed.

the phoenix all around us

random musings about survival....

half the house is basically gone (kitchen, office, family room, and living room), and the other half (the 4 bedrooms) had severe heat and smoke damage - severe enough to actually melt the light fixtures, and to melt photos. severe enough for insurance to declare all of the contents a total loss. everything in those rooms is jet black, covered in soot. the broken windows are all boarded up so there's no daylight - it's pretty eerie in there. the bedrooms are in total disarray, mostly due to the tireless efforts of our courageous fire fighters. so it struck me as odd that in the jet black, pitch dark, smokey guest room, in which everything is totally covered in soot, and knocked over or turned over, there is a lone white styrofoam cup from sonic sitting on a table in the corner that appears untouched. it barely has soot on it. apparently styrofoam can withstand heat that can even melt metal.

i apologize to my fish whenever i go into (what is left of) the living room. it's a little ritual, i'm not sure why i do it but i always tell them that i'm sorry i couldn't save them. there were about 20 little mickey mouse platys in a 30 gallon freshwater tank on a stand in the living room. they were all named "fish" (we were very close). there was also a pleco (sucker fish) that had survived for years. he had seen many of the other inhabitants come and go and he had outlived most of them. his name was "little sucker dude". i'm sorry i couldn't save them - truthfully they didn't even cross my mind that morning - but i couldn't have lifted the tank anyway. i am hoping that they thought "hmm, it's getting a bit warm in here" and then it was over. at least that is how i like to imagine it.

in the first couple of months, i also apologized to my japanese maple and mountain laurel, which stood in the little garden area to either side of the front door. they were all singed and black, and it made me so sad because i loved being greeted by them whenever i came or went. but they were mere feet from the flames that shot out the front door, so i knew their prognosis was grim.

i was thoroughly surprised and thrilled when i walked the property a couple of weeks ago and saw that spring would indeed revive the mountain laurel and maple despite their harrowing experiences. both trees had fully bloomed new leaves on the side facing away from the house. the mountain laurel even gave me flowers. i greeted them like old friends and told them i was proud of them. yeah, i'm weird. i could see exactly what branches and small limbs would have to go - on the side facing the house, where they were jet black and barren. it was almost as if i would have to cut the trees from their tops right down their middles vertically. sure they'd look a little weird, but maybe over time they'd regain a more symmetrical shape. their determination and tenacity renewed my own.

yesterday i decided to go sweep up the glass in the driveway, pick up the toasted ornaments and wreath remnants, bag all of the live oak leaves, mulch-mow the front yard, and maybe start selectively trimming the mountain laurel and maple. i think our neighbors have been more than patient, and they've been oh so supportive. i was determined to make my poor little home the best looking burned out shell on the block. as always, i checked on the mountain laurel and the japanese maple. their front-facing sides looked good. pruners in hand, i moved around the back of the mountain laurel to assess the situation there. i was drawn to a little bright green growth sprouting out of a blackened branch at eye level. i looked up, there was another. i backed up and saw little bright green dot after little bright green dot all over the otherwise black barren branches. it lived! the maple also had new growth. they were working so hard.

in a raised bed in the backyard i had an on-going and usually frustrating relationship with a tall strawberry pot, and the strawberries i tried to grow each year. it's just too darn hot down here, or too dry, or we had enough rain but it all came at once, drowning the poor things. no matter what i tried, it seemed that i rarely got more than half a dozen tiny strawberries. per season. but yesterday there was my strawberry pot, ignored and forgotten over the winter and since the fire - and darned if there aren't 5 or 6 strawberry plants all hale and hearty poking out of the pot. no berries yet, but at this point i won't be surprised. i know they are mocking me, but i don't mind.

speaking of the back of the house, things are much more grim there. that is where the fire was the worst, and there are big gaping holes in the roof and rear exterior walls. i had been delighted a few weeks ago when i noticed some things blooming in the backyard garden areas. a small bunch of daffodils came up, and the lantana and salvia were both doing their best to come back.

and finally, on the burnt deck itself - which is the blackest of the black and the most charred of everything - where once stood a multitude of potted plants, there are now just clumps of singed and scorched dirt. the pots are all gone, either smashed or melted (there are also toasted cans of beer still standing on the deck even though the cooler that held them was melted away). the plants themselves are just charred remains now - or gone altogether. but yesterday i saw the first signs of life in those clumps of dirt. my asparagus fern is fighting the noble fight and coming back, despite the fact that it's been completely ignored for the past 3 months: winter temperatures, no shelter, no water - heck the poor thing doesn't even have a pot. but it is coming back. it is trying so hard. i made jacko take a picture - i wanted to capture that kind of fortitude.

when construction begins, hopefully in a couple of weeks, i know that the mountain laurel and japanese maple cannot stay where they are. before i knew if they had even survived, i had asked my friend stan about transplanting them until the new house is completed. he gently gave me the sad news - neither one takes to transplanting too well. and especially in their condition, we probably wouldn't be able to save them. i just know this one thing: we have to try.