Out of the Ashes

The rain came today,
and I heard a collective sigh.

After the fires that have ravaged our city for the last 11 days, we have all watched the skies for any sign of it like hawks.
We’ve held our breath for the thing that would help wash it all away.
The smoke.
The ashes.

The fear.

We’ve spent our time walking around like zombies.
We’ve gone through the motions.
We’ve driven stretches we later don’t remember.
We’ve shifted priorities,
and used phrases we had never used before.
We’ve hugged complete strangers,
and reached deeper into ourselves to find which pathways best pour out.
Friends who’ve lost their own homes have raised funds for someone else.

This last week,

The broken became the glue.

The pain that has been felt in this beautiful community has been more immense than any burn.
We’ve run away far, and huddled in tight,
and stared at screens while we all cried.
The life that we knew now scattered in particle form onto whatever lawns and gardens remain.

Our lives and memories have blown mixed together all over this city like Pixie Dust.
But I see now...

We can fly.

Something has changed inside my own still-standing walls.
The attachment to my things has changed.
There’s something different now about being home.
It’s gone from what I am doing at the time
to what I actually HOPE TO BE.
Because, in all of this, I think those of us spared have to try to do just that.

We have to BE. HOME.

For the lost, and the displaced.
For the one who needs us most.

I pray that any still-standing walls and
un-damaged couches will be used for solace still.
That what is left will be given back out as a place that feels like home for someone missing theirs.
I pray that even one person’s heart recognizes their own home here
in mine.

Our view is different now.
WE are different now.

We’ve stood back up,
Dusted ourselves off,
And vowed to reclaim it all again.
We’ve become something deeper, fuller, and firmer than we were before;

and because of that,
I think,
no one is quite ready to just jump right back to where we once were.

To paying bills and watching TV shows and making appointments for pedicures.

Somehow it feels important to
linger a moment in the ash.

I went to the laundromat today and had a strange moment of feeling a little guilty for washing all of our clothes.
For the freshness.
Like by getting rid of the remnants I was betraying all of us a bit.
I avert my eyes from tabloids in check out lines now.
So unimportant “Who Wore it Best.”

I’ve seen more beauty this last week than I ever have before.
I’ve seen giving unmatched.
Unselfishness only dreamed of.
I’ve seen the the fire ignite something that I don’t want ever to be contained.

I pray my actions now are not born just from tragedy,
but from doing what one does when they have tasted what is real.

There is unspeakable beauty in these ashes.

When the rain rolled in today,
at first I thought the clouds were smoke.

When the smell of the rain drifted in through the open door of that laundromat,
however,
I was reminded that often what looks like the worst thing that ever happened to you,
Can sometimes become the best.

Like labor pains that result in LIFE.

It looked like smoke…….
but was actually the RAIN.

I breathed in the smell of it.

It turned into beauty.

It only started as pain.

Fire came and took our home.
Our treasures, ashen piles now hide.

Fire came and took what surrounded,
But it can’t take what’s inside.



#sonomastrong