Waking Humanity

Dear Mr, Deprado,

We waited for the graphic to appear. We expected a blazing CGI fire, blazing in the center of our screens, and leaping off the edge of the flames would be the fiery words "SAN DIEGO BURNS" or "NATURE’S FURY UNLEASHED," What we got was FIRESTORM 2003. Terrible. There is just no catchy slogan for something like this.

Three quarters of a million acres burned last week. _ of one million acres burned down in October/November. Over half a million acres burned down in San Diego County alone. A firestorm erupted in San Diego last weekend. Almost a million acres burned. A million acres. Hundreds of thousands of acres burned into ash and dust in every part of San Diego.

I keep trying to think of a way to say it, but it always comes out in the same, boring way, the same cliché way. Fire destroyed a lot of San Diego, and a lot of people lost their homes. Some people lost their lives, but what was most powerfully "lost" was security. Our expensive homes, fancy gardens, and sound investments could do nothing against the most basic of Nature’s burning illuminations. Fire. It not only shattered the illusion of the sound construction of Scripps Ranch, it also decimated the security of every ancient home in the upcountry, every cabin in Cuyamaca, and every Ranch in Valley Center.

What do we put our faith in–where does our security rest? Where do we find our hope because it is all an illusion after all. We thought we were so safe in our gated communities and shiny urban condos, we felt secure about the way the edges of our buildings seemed to touch the pacific blue, but when we woke up Sunday morning to the yellow sky and gray snow falling, everything we put our security in failed. It had all been an illusion.

It’s the smell that gets us. There is that inescapable toxic odor. Fire–but instead of the tingly invitation our nerve endings feel when we walk on the beach toward our friends sitting around the bonfire, we have a different sensation. Our nose communicates to our brains our deepest primordial understanding of danger. We begin to change almost immediately. As soon as we understand we don’t have to run, we begin to look around. We search for those around us who might also be in danger. We look for tangible signs of fire. We check our mental stockpiles for what should be saved. We pile up picture frames and photo albums, insurance papers, and tax documents. We unplug our hard drives and fill bottles with water. We grab some dry food, cereal mostly. We’ll take cans and the can opener if there is time. We gather our pets together, put turtles and hamsters into shoe boxes, calm the dog down, beg the cat to "come here," wonder about what to do with the fish circling the tank. We take turns being in control as we load up the car and our frustrations bubble over into short bursts of yelling at each other over whether or not the glass vase from the grandparents is an essential item. We aren’t yelling at each other. Not really.

We shove everything in the car and we do one last check as the Television reports that our area is, in fact, being evacuated. Keys in the ignition, seat belts on, radio tuned to news, back out of the driveway, and go. Where. Where do we go? How many of us have nowhere? We need shelter.

Stadiums opened up and allowed thousands to find shelter. Thousands also found a chance to connect, to volunteer, to find our way out of our helplessness. Until now, it seemed as if all of our humanity had been sleeping in the beautiful slumber of apathy and contentment. But suddenly our humanity woke up to the smell of falling ash, unexpectedly reminded that the only hope we have is to pull together. To be a community, to live with one another, eat together, share our lives together. In my short lifetime it seems like it is these big things, these giant catastrophes that bring out the best in people. I hear story after story about the power of human beings to "come together" in times of crisis. This is a beautiful and hopeful truth, but it leaves me wondering: Why do we need times of crisis? Why can’t we come together and be a community when we aren’t in crisis?

Imagine what we might accomplish.

The other day, I was sitting on a porch swing in Valley Center with a good friend of mine. We were looking out over the edge of the hills where just a week ago, giant smoke plumes from the "Paradise Fire" rushed air in all directions. The air was still now, and the high clouds painted the sky gray and white. We watched a flock of doves circling back and forth between two high trees. In one direction, the doves fluttered white, in the other direction, their inverted bodies were dark gray against the sky. Small doves endlessly turning against the big big sky frantically flying back and forth. My friend and her family and a few other families were preparing to go to another friend’s home just out of the Valley, away from the breath of the fire. There wasn’t even a question for them about where they would go. This family outside of the Valley was ready to receive everyone. Their home was open, and it wasn’t even a question about whether or not they could handle a bunch more kids, dogs, photo albums, fish tanks; it didn’t matter. Even in the midst of all the uncertainty and danger, the prospect of being together in a community was the most important thing of all.

She turned to me as we sat there swinging quietly on the bench and told me how it was hard for her to see all of these families heading to school gymnasiums and stadiums, libraries and police stations, and while it was good that these places were up and running, why didn’t these people have a friend they could go to? A community with an open home?

Are we so separate now that we isolate ourselves into feeling like if we leave our own homes, we are imposing on someone else? Why can’t we just show up on each other’s doorsteps and say, "Hi, I need some help today."

Like when, during the fires, my friend Hope took her two and a half week newborn twins up to close friends up in Carmel Valley, when the fire was ten miles away at Tierrasanta, only to find that the next day, the air was worse up in Carmel Valley because the fire was also spreading there. She could have left immediately the morning they smelled the heavily polluted air, driven somewhere else–to a hotel on the beach, anywhere, but instead...She didn’t move. Instead, they locked themselves into the house, left the clean air conditioner on, took turns feeding and changing each of the fraternal twins, and waited together. Waiting is hard. Waiting for the fires to burn themselves, waiting for the air to clear, waiting for inspiration or practicality to set in, waiting for the air to cool. In this case, waiting became life in its fullest form–A chance for friends to share each others’ lives in openness and urgency, a chance to love each other with abandon because desperate times had come. When are times not desperate?

I saw the twins a couple of days ago. Even though they’re still tiny human beings, they seem to be twice as big as they were during that week when their mom was trying to protect their little lungs from too much work, and even through "FIRESTORM 2003:" the kids grew and felt loved. Maybe because this happened so early in their lives it will wake up the sleeping part of their humanity now. Maybe it will stay awake for the rest of their lives. Maybe they will be some of the first of us to not need a crisis to make us human, realize that our humanity is still the strongest part of us. Because when we allow ourselves to really take care of each other, we shine.

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