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.