I woke up this morning in a kind of panic. It was Sunday morning, around 6 am, and the “Red Flag Warning” had just gone into effect. That means that there is a “high probability of fire starts with any lightning. Rapid spread of fire possible depending on terrain and local wind conditions.” Also, the “potential for isolated to scattered dry thunderstorms will increase later today or tonight and into Monday.” That warning is in effect for a good part of the state, friends. That’s bad news for California, this state that I love.
This is not new for us, though. We’ve had Red Flag Warnings for years in these parts. But the anxiety I felt when I woke up this morning was different. I felt an urgency that I haven’t felt before to gather up papers, to pack a “go bag,” to talk to my kids about what we would do if we got awakened in the middle of the night and just had minutes to leave. Who would get the dog? Who would get the cat? What about their most precious personal belongings? My son’s hand-held electronics? My daughter’s scrapbook from high school?
I went out this morning and emptied the trunk of my car. I took out my portable massage table and put it in the shed. If we need to make a hasty getaway, we will need all the trunk space we can find. I filled up the dog’s food container and put together a bag of pet supplies. I got the big box of industrial strength trash bags out of the shed and put it right by the kitchen door.
“If we need to go quick, just grab a trash bag and throw your clothes into it.” We learned last year when we moved our daughter to her dorm at UCLA that trash bags full of soft items squish and make it so that the car can hold a lot. Big hard sided suitcases? Not so much. I found a helpful check list on a local Facebook chat group that I printed this morning. It tells you what to grab if you have a 15 minute warning, a 30 minute warning, a one hour warning, or a two hour warning, which would seem quite luxurious in this season. People in that group who have already lived through fires recommend that you bring the dirty clothes out of the hamper, because those are the things you wear the most.
These are the days we are living in.
I pulled out all the scrapbooks I’ve made over the years and put them in the car trunk, along with two quilts, including one that my Grandma made. I made room for the book I compiled years ago of clippings from National Catholic Reporter articles I wrote. I gathered up my autographed Madeline L’Engle books, the shoebox with DVDs of my children when they were little, a few pictures that aren’t in the cloud (note to self: why aren’t these pictures in the cloud? I guess I have yet another project to do someday. Get all pictures in the cloud!), small knickknacks that remind me of my parents, and of course, all the PAPERS: our passports, car titles, insurance papers, birth certificates, vaccine records.
That’s about it, really.
It’s a kind of reverse-nesting, that period that I went through years ago when I was about to have my babies. Instead of trying to get everything just so in the house, I’m trying to get anything out of the house that means something to me. We already had one fire evacuation a few years ago in July. We were lucky, then. My sister and her children came up with their fleet of trucks and vehicles, and also about 30 empty storage bins. We had time to pack most of our valuables and drive them down to my Mom’s garage, where they would be safe. As it turns out, the firefighters stopped the fire well before it reached our little town. But I remember the panic, how I couldn’t breathe or think.
I’m hoping we are a little more prepared now. Strangely, the worst and best case scenarios feel like they are the same today. The best case scenario? I gather up my precious mementos and load up the car and have to unpack them when fire season passes (which sadly might not be until late November). The worst case scenario? I have gathered up my precious mementos and loaded them in the car and we get awakened in the middle of the night and we have to evacuate. But at least then, the few things that we care about most will go with us.
I know that I happily meander through most of my days with the illusion of safety and control. Times like these remind me that it is just an illusion.
I am thinking about all this, and realizing that there is a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I cut up some chicken yesterday and marinated it overnight. My plan was to go out and grill it and have it for supper later today. I’m still going to do that. Also, I will do the dishes. But it seems sort of pointless. All the people who lost their houses this week in the fires burning around the state? They probably did dishes last Sunday.
I read about one couple that had a perfectly lovely ordinary weekend, even enjoying their pool, just hours before the fire broke out that destroyed their home. Worse than the destruction of property? People have died.
I made a little YouTube video yesterday, talking about my “Red Flag Warning” induced panic from the day before. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlukAsxuHiE
So this is a prayer: a prayer for firefighters, for the people close to the big fires that are burning out of control, for the people who have already lost their homes, who were stressed and worried about the pandemic and jobs and life last week, but who suddenly realize that it wasn’t so bad back then, just a few days ago. This is a prayer for the people who are safe now but who are hours away from tragedy and loss from lightning strikes that haven’t quite happened yet, but which are on the way. This is a prayer for mercy, an acknowledgement that really, we don’t have control over much of anything, even though we like to think we do. This is me repeating my mantra from Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” Even when all evidence seemingly points to the contrary. Amen and amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
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