The wake up call came at 6 am, Thursday, August 13th: a voluntary evacuation of Bonny Doon necessitated by the approaching Lockheed Fire. My first sleep-laden reaction was to deny that the fire would spread. Knowing that new first-responder protocols had been put into place since the Martin Fire here in June 2008, we decided to take this early warning to heart and commence packing in a focused but unhurried manner.
What do we value? Will we ever see this house again? Would I miss this memento if it burned?
First to load were our documents, including passports, computers, office equipment we needed for our work, select photo albums, carpets, artwork, household items, treasured books, and finally some clothes and jewelry. That’s about all our vehicles could hold.
Six hours later when the mandatory order came in, we were ready to go. Waiting it out wasn’t an option because we didn’t want to tax our firefighters by having to be rescued at the last moment should conditions worsen or winds suddenly change direction. When a mandatory evacuation order is issued, it’s prudent for everyone to heed the call.
Friends in town quickly offered us their place as a temporary wait station. Our situation was atypical, to be sure, because we were able to “camp out” in our small RV on a beautiful street in Santa Cruz next to the beach, plugged into electric and wi-fi while enjoying the hospitality of friends, new and old.
From our safe vantage point we watched emergency helicopters flying over the ocean transporting buckets of fire retardant and water. We were grateful throughout these four days and nights for the crews’ dedication and expertise and for the comforting gift of a refuge in the midst of uncertainty and potential loss.
Which brings us back to the question:
What do we value most?
Those we love. The rest is secondary. As we move through life into real maturity, we give up more and more – our youth, our illusions about ourselves, our mobility, our judgment of others — until at the end of our days we say farewell to this magnificent planet and everyone we know.
Others have lost everything, started over, and often spoken of a symbolic baptism or renewing realization that brought their life back in balance and essentialized its meaning. This was one of those moments for us.
When Monday’s headlines in the Santa Cruz Sentinel welcomed Bonny Dooners home after the largest conflagration in the region in 20 years, we called the McDermott Fire Station to re-confirm that the roads were indeed open. Getting the green light, we caravanned up into our beloved mountains through the smokey haze.
We feel deeply indebted to our firefighters and first-responders … and we’re not the only ones!
Fire photo courtesy of the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
So happy that the “Dooners” are bonny once again. Thank you for this piece. As always, if we look, out of the ashes rises hope, gratitude and a chance to begin again.
I think we should be evaluating our values regularly throughout our lives. Contemplative self-awareness informs the structure and content of our lives, shaping our very destiny. Perhaps natural disasters remind us rather brazenly that our dwellings, no matter how stable they may appear, are as temporary as life, itself. There’s no place like home…
I really like the third and second to last paragraph, saying how we all eventually give up illusions about ourselves and judgment, and how loss can recalibrate our values and our sense of what is important. Those are important kernels of truth.