Category: Writing

(*Note: This was written on 11/1/19)

I have been through a few natural disasters. The first one was an ice storm that hit Birmingham, Alabama when I was a kid. My mother was trying to get me, my brothers, and some other kids from the neighborhood home from school when the storm hit, and we got trapped on the highway. I was five years old, and for me, it just seemed like we were on an adventure. I found out years later that is was a terrifying experience for my mother, who was afraid that she would cause the death of her and these other kids. We had to abandon the car, and my mother was able to get a ride home for all of us with a big rig tow truck driver.

Then, the next major disaster was sitting through two hurricanes that sideswiped New York City. Sandy was the worse of the two, and I clearly remember the wind howling as the gusts cause our five-story walk up to sway. There was a fast second of thinking that our building would collapse. In the end, our life was back to normal in two days, and we never lost power.

Then the Kincade fire started, and it was only 20 miles from our apartment in Santa Rosa. There was a twinge of nervousness about it, but honestly, it was far enough away that it couldn’t get to us quickly.

Then PG&E cut our power in the evening after we had been notified that we wouldn’t lose power.

Not good.

Next the wife and I had an awful night of sleep of getting a notice, of what seemed like every hour, notifying us that neighborhood after neighborhood was being ordered evacuated. It was like watching dominos slowly falling in succession, leading to the investable notice that it was our turn to pick up and run.

It came at 6am.

We packed in the dark, and woke the kid up, telling her that we were going to be on an adventure to see our friends in Los Angeles. (All my life is a circle, as one might say)

The feeling of adventure, and excitement of the challenge of survival was completely gone, as now my only thought was about trying to get the kid out of danger, and also not scare her.

She’s been rolling with all of it, but I know that it might be several years before I will know what affect this has had.

(*Note: This was written on 11/1/19)

This has been a very difficult week for us.

I had no idea how paralyzing the feeling of helplessness would be when it looked like we might lose everything in a wildfire.

The move to California, which happed a year ago now, has been a huge challenge for us, and I think we are both coming to the conclusion that it might not be the right fit.

I have contemplated, and I keep wondering if it is the passing of Ma, and the depression that has followed, which is making it hard for me to accept the new situation we are in? I don’t feel happy, and I am just sad all the time. Is that her death affecting me, or is it that we live in a place where I cannot accomplish the things that I want to do?

Deb coming home every night, just vomiting the hate that she has for her place of work, hasn’t help anyone. We both hate our jobs, but seemed to be trapped in them. We got into so much debt on the move out here, and with me being unemployed for three months, only made everything worse. We went from $40k in debt, to $80k in the space of 6 months. There is such a burden on us, that we can’t really see a way out of it.

And then the fires hit, and luckily, we had a place to go, even though it was all the way down in Los Angeles. As we tried to land for a few days and plot our recovery, we started wondering if maybe, just maybe, if the fires went through town and torched our jobs and home, that we could pick up and return to New York. Wouldn’t that be funny?

What was funny, was how excited it made us to think that we could return to New York.

That’s when we knew we really were in trouble.

We weren’t enjoying living in California. The move hadn’t made us happy, and now we were half a world away from our friends and family. But we also had to admit to ourselves that we were stuck, and couldn’t pick up and go.

Yet, that is exactly what we want to do.