Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Hot, windy, dry – high fire danger again.
FIRE! Then and Now.
As I slowly walked the 200 steps between my house and studio this morning, I heard the echo in my mental museum of the events of five years ago. The evidence of that day still marks the landscape I walked through – and my response remains the same. But my reflections on what the day meant have deepened. Here’s an edited and expanded view of that experience.
FIRE!
That’s what a deputy sheriff shouted at me from my porch.
What?
“Yes, big fire headed down Pack Creek Valley – grab your valuables and evacuate now!”
And so I did that – and the fire swept through the valley – burning trees and houses and many living things – such as cattle, rodents, rattlesnakes, scorpions, and Black Widow spiders.
To make this short and take you to the end of the story, the inside of my house and studio are still standing and usable – heroic volunteer firemen from Moab saved my property, but just barely. The outsides of both buildings were scorched, and windows were cracked. The landscape is toast – all trees and vegetation burned. However, I will be able to return home. But nearby neighbors won’t.
Three houses burned to the ground. The fire has moved on East and North into the mountains – and may burn for a long, long time. Helicopters, tanker planes, and 400 men on it. I moved in with friends in town. And will slowly move back home. That’s the short story.
And the longer story?
As I’ve walked around my property, I’ve been thinking – Now what?
The first question was what were my valuables? Not much.
Just me, my memories, and my attitude.
And I saved those.
As for “stuff”?
I always turn to the words of the 4th-century Greek philosopher, Epictetus, for perspective.
He said: When a neighbor breaks a bowl, we readily say, ‘These things happen.’ When your own bowl breaks, you should respond in the same way as when another person’s bowl breaks. Carry that understanding over to worldly consequences.
And I recall the words of a patient at the end of long and successful psychiatric treatment. “Out of much evil, much good has come to me.”
And there is the story of the English airman who lost one leg when his plane was shot down. He was a prisoner of war in a German concentration camp. When the camp commander learned the prisoner was planning an escape, his artificial leg was taken away from him. The prisoner’s leg was finally returned, but he didn’t need it. He already had plans on how to escape on one leg. And he did.
I’ve been around a while now – this is my 85th year, as you know.
During my life, I’ve had first-hand encounters with a tornado, the polio epidemic, a major automobile accident, a rattle-snake bite, a forest fire, an earthquake, a typhoon, two recessions, two world wars, Vietnam, the battles for civil rights, and now the COVID-19 pandemic.
I’m still here.
I’ve been to Hiroshima, France, and Germany, and Crete – and witnessed the incredible human capacity to take it and rise up from the rubble and go on. Humans are bad-weather creatures – and I am one of them.
It’s dangerous just to be alive. You can fall and break your neck getting out of bed in the morning, or slip in the shower and fall down and die. We live in and with hazard as a condition of existence.
You can’t control what life throws at you, but you can control your attitude towards that.
I often say, quoting Camus, “In the midst of winter, I found with me, an invincible summer.”
And that’s the case once again.
In the midst of a catastrophic fire, I find myself looking for opportunities to make the best of the situation.
Simply said, could have been worse – will be better.
There, that’s what I’ve thought while walking around.
And I will have the honor of staying here in this burned-out landscape and see the green push up out of the earth as the wheel of life turns. Rain will finally come – and snow – the fire will burn itself out. And then Spring! And I will have the privilege of being part of that.
I will feel the greening of Fulghum, whose bowl of life can be reassembled with grace and imagination and super glue and used again.
Onward!
That was then – and now?
For one thing, I’m still here – at the beginning of my 90th year.
For another, I’m still paying attention to the power of ongoing life.
For example:
When I read late at night, I am often surprised by UFOs – Not flying saucers from outer space, but by tiny bugs that land on my page. By tiny, I mean smaller than the periods at the end of a sentence. They land, race across the page at incredible speed, and disappear into the spine of the book.
Mostly black, but sometimes a red one. My first reaction is to squash them, but I forego that and admire them. They were not present before the fire. I wonder where they came from and how they got here.
They are kin to the tiny ants that survived the fire somehow and still build their mounds in the hot, red soil alongside my path. I am careful not to step on them.
Why is there something instead of nothing?
The essential question.
Nobody knows
Life prevails.
All around me and in me, as well.
So far, so good.
Onward!