I outlived my beauty, outlived my youth

Chased my illusions but only caught truth,

Looking back is a trap, regret is a curse 

I could have done better but it could have been worse

My little troubles are no tragedy

And they can be blamed on nobody but me

Blame the voice in my head that always said no
Blame the fear that said stop when I wanted to go

New Year, Old Year

For some reason, I thought 2018 was an uneventful year. I was wrong. 

Some highlights

• 2018 marked the first time in more than 20 years I didn’t work for the Shakespeare Festival, ending a relationship that began in 1974. My heart is broken but mending.  No regrets Coyote.
• Submitted more than 30 job applications and went on at least 10 interviews.
• Started a new job in an entirely new industry and haven’t fucked it up totally yet.
• Evacuated my home in front of a wild fire.
• Worked with my friend and nutrition coach Pam Christy for several months.  Made a lot of progress and then back slid, as is my pattern.  I’m back at it again with new tools to help me achieve my health goals.
• Started taking spin class at the Y with my old pal Jean Taylor.  I love it. It kicks my ass in a good way.
• Nursed my pup through a broken leg. We will reach the end of our 12 week journey soon.
• Accepted the donation of a 15 foot tall statue.  We have a giant erection in our future friends.
• Played lots of shows with the Serenaders, including my favorite Green Show ever.  Little kids got up on stage and danced with us. it was heaven.
• Resisted the reactionary in the White House by writing, marching, singing, speaking out. We progressives must get past our petty differences and work together to defeat the maniac and his minions.
• Canceled the Camp Out for the first time. My apologies campers. May we gather again in 2019.

Going Gentle

I dreamed I was directing a production of a Neil Simon play, not sure which one. One of my coworkers from the Fire Department was involved in the production. Like me, she's a half-time admin assistant and also like me she comes from a Nor Cal alternative/hippie background. We haven’t gone too deeply into the details, but it’s clear that we have more in common with each other than with the other women in the office. In the dream play, I was directing two actors from OSF and Kristin, the woman from the office. I wasn't supposed to be directing, I knew that the project “belonged” to Kristin, but I couldn’t stop myself from stepping up and taking charge. I had that strong feeling of being the resident expert, the person who knew more and was most capable, so I stepped in and went to work.

The stage manager/director motif is a reoccurring theme in my dreams. Usually, the dream theatrical enterprise is in total chaos and I’m responsible for picking up the pieces. I often have to go onstage for missing actors, even though I don’t know the lines. These dreams are usually anxiety-filled, but this latest one was not. Every time I started to feel the anxiety creep up, I would remember that it was not my project, it belonged to Kristin. I was just along for the ride. I wasn't invested in the same way.

This is not unlike my job at the Fire Department; well, except the part where I know more than the people around me. I am definitely the least knowledgeable person in that room. But it's true that I'm not invested there in the same way I was at OSF. I take the work seriously, but I don’t live in a constant state of anxiety like I did at the art factory. I can very much leave this job behind when I go home.

The art factory trauma is slowly starting to fade. In truth, Art with a capital A is fading too, receding in life’s rear view mirror. OSF is over for me, thus ending an artistic relationship that began in 1974. I'll write about it some day. Hamfist is long gone, much to my sorrow. Bathtub Gin is on its last legs. We are scheduled to play a New Year’s Eve show and it will be my last. I haven’t told them yet, but my mind is made up. The band had to break in yet another drummer and bass player this fall. They're lovely people and good musicians, but I can't get excited.  This band has been through so many drummers and bass players, I don't think I have it in me to train another rhythm section.

The truth is, I can't get over losing Jesse on the bass and vocals. He is the kind of musician who can hold his own in any circle.  He is rock steady, swings like a pendulum, and really feels the music, which makes his collaborators feel it too. It's a rare pleasure and hard to describe, but musicians know what I'm talking about. Playing with Jesse took so much weight off my shoulders. I could depend on him onstage and off, which freed me to PLAY– not just play notes, but play like a child, playing a game, play with abandon. He made playing fun. Now playing is work. I’m in a constant state of alert, banging out tempos, trying to keep everyone on the beat, signaling stops and starts. I can’t let go and melt into the music.

Listen to me bitch about playing music; what a spoiled brat. But, the joy is gone and that's the truth. It's the end of my Art and it's breaking my heart. 

It has been a hard year. My 50s are going out with a whimper, will my 60s come in with a bang? Shall I rage, rage against the dying of the light?

A Tedious Brief Scene of Tragical Mirth

Joe texted out of the blue on Tuesday and asked if I wanted to go to the John Prine's Birthday open mic at the Wild Goose. Hell yes says I, and we agreed to meet at his place. 

I know how much Sequoia misses playing music and hey, John Prine, so I told him about it and he said he wanted to come. I suggested we play Oughta Name a Drink After You and Chain of Sorrow. We've been playing those songs for decades and I figured we couldn’t fuck up too bad. Plus, I was sure someone else would play Fish & Whistle before we got a chance.

I dropped in at Joe's and we chatted for a bit then went to the Goose. The place was packed. There was no place to sit and the opening act played for more than an hour so Joe bailed.  I might have bailed too but Sequoia wanted to play, so we waited it out. 

As we were standing by the back door waiting to go on, a guy walked in who looked vaguely familiar, but I didn't give it much thought.

Finally we went up. I played the accordion and sang harmony which always charms people. It wasn’t our best outing ever, but it was at the Goose on a Tuesday night, people were drunk, who cares?  

I do, but that's another story.

We got a big ovation and people told us we were great, etc. I perform often enough now to take those kinds of compliments with a grain of salt. Mostly people are charmed by the accordion, not the music. By then it was past Sequoia’s bedtime and he left right after we played, but I decided to hang out.

The guy who looked vaguely familiar started chatting with me, told me we were terrific, we should do a few more songs, etc. I was gracious but skeptical. He said he loves accordions and mentioned he plays banjo. We both told banjo player jokes and talked shop a bit. I thought he must be a local musician and finally said, "You look so familiar to me, are you in a band?" He said, "Yeah, I play in a band called Devil Makes Three. We played here once many years ago."

I was standing in the fucking Wild Goose on a Tuesday night chatting up Pete Bernhardt.

I kept my cool, told him I'd missed them at Wild Goose but had seen them at Stillwater just up the street. He remembered that show and asked what happened to the people who ran that place. We talked about how Maria Kelly had been dumped by JPR. It was all very casual and relaxed. He went to stand in line at the bar. I hung out hoping he would come back, but his friends had gotten a booth and he sat down with them.

At that point I got inside my head, like I do. I was too intimidated to insert myself into their group and was overwhelmed by the whole scene. I looked in my car for a Bathtub Gin Serenaders CD to give him, but didn't have one so, coward that I am, I left. I know, I know, golden opportunity squandered; story of my life.

It was like something out of a fantasy, or maybe a nightmare.  If it had been a fantasy, I would have scripted a different ending.  The moral of the story is, I care far too much about what people think. It is my tragic flaw.

Rich Man

Back in the early aughts, I once held in my trembling hand a paper check from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation for 1.5  million dollars. Yup, $1,500,000, "One Million Five Hundred Thousand and 00/00," as it was written on the check. It came by U.S. Post in a Number 10 envelope with a first class stamp, they didnt even bother to send it by registered mail. As I held that insubstantial slip of paper, I realized it represented more money than I would earn in my entire life.

When I worked at OSF, Paul Allen came through the Development Office every few years. I was never introduced and rarely laid eyes on him, but I got to meet his dog. My friend Sharon stepped in as a last-minute replacement dog sitter while Allen attended a play. I don't remember what kind of dog it was, but I do remember it wore a Burberry collar.

Allen wasn't a "modest" billionaire. He didn't give all his money to high-minded causes like Gates and he didn't live in a suburban home like Buffet.  He bought sports teams, arenas, a freaking space ship. He gave billions to an oddly eclectic array of arts and science organizations. He built an entire museum dedicated to Jimi Hendrix.  He once took his 400 foot yacht cruising in Russia and gave his guests Faberge eggs as parting gifts. (This according to Peter Thomas, who had a nose for those kinds of details.) I guess what I'm trying to say is, the guy knew how to spend money. He was not trying to take it with him.

Good on him, says I. It was his money, who am I to tell him how to spend it? He didn't inherit his wealth, he didn't steal it or conjure it out of some hedge fund. He made his money the old fashioned way, by building and selling a good product. He built something extraordinary and people lined up to buy it. We didn't even know what it was and we sure didn't think we needed it, but now we can't live without it. And that, my friends, is the American dream.

And yet, there is something about that much wealth concentrated in one man's hands that makes me queasy.  Sure, Paul Allen built an outstanding product; so what?  Are products our greatest good, our highest value? Are they the metric by which we measure a woman or a man? By some accounts, Allen's product wasnt even the best of its kind, but he marketed it brilliantly while ruthlessly monopolizing an emerging industry. In return, capitalism honored him with its highest accolade: lots and lots of money. I'm not assigning blame to Allen. The man didn't create our system of predatory capitalism, he just played the game particularly well.

And so it goes. Good night sweet Prince. May your passing mark the end of an era.

BMOC

Yeah, I knew Brett Kavanaugh in high school. We all knew this guy in high school.  He was the class president, the quarterback of the football team, the captain of the debate squad. He wore a letterman jacket and spent a lot of time and money on his hair.  We called them jocks and "soshies" (short for social), and they occupied the farthest end of the social hierarchy from the freaks I ran with. We even had a name for them: BMOC, Big Man On Campus. These boys strode the halls like they owned the school because they did. They stood in judgement of all who inhabited their world. They decreed who belonged and who didn't.

They called us faggot, dyke, whore, pig. They threw things at us as we walked by. They tripped some kid in the cafeteria and screamed with laughter when he landed hard and his tray went flying.  That laughter, like the baying of rabid coyotes, it still rings in my ears. They didn’t fuck with me as much as the quieter kids, I was too big, too loud, too angry to qualify as an easy mark. But, they would murmur among themselves and hoot their hideous laughter as I walked by. I didn't need to hear their words to know what they were saying.

When they got drunk, watch out; that's when things turned really ugly. Weekend keggers at someone's house, the parents out of town, classic rock blasting on the stereo, some girl puking in the bushes. Wasted frat boys making themselves as big as possible, generating as much noise as possible, howling giant primates careening through an over-sized suburban home like coked up rats pinballing off the walls of a maze.

We were drunk too, we girls. We drank Boones Farm Wine or Jack and Coke until we didn’t know any better, or at least didn’t care. Girls like me, we were so desperate for male attention, so hungry for their approval. Male attention was how we measured our worth and it was the only marker that mattered.  If you were pretty, rich, graceful, if you had a certain quality, it was easy to attract a lot of male attention. From what I hear, that kind of attention carried its own costs, but at least you were on the inside and at the top. For the rest of us, for girls like me, male attention was harder to obtain, but it was always the most important goal. I sought that attention like a diver seeks oxygen. I needed it.  I catered to male egos, flattered their vanity, relented to their drunken aggression, acquiesced to their clumsy moves. This is their world and that’s how women like me live in it. We mold ourselves to fit. I had to squeeze myself down, shut myself up, make myself sweeter, lighter, less intimidating. Liquor did the trick. I drank until I felt like I was seen, heard, valued, because desire equaled value. I drank until I found myself in some dark bedroom or cramped back seat with a sloppy, out-of-control animal who had never heard the word “no” in his life. It was not in his lexicon. It didn’t apply to him.    

I don’t apologize. I was just trying to survive the only way I knew how.  Sometimes I felt powerful. Sometimes I felt beautiful.  But, mostly I just felt used. 

Yeah, I knew Brett Kavanaugh in high school. Not him, but dozens just like him. We all did. When I think of that entitled, self-satisfied, racist, misogynistic, elitist frat boy on the Supreme Court of the United States of America, it makes me literally sick.

Son of Boo Boo and Other Close Encounters

Sequoia leaves for work at about 5:20, well before dawn. Last Thursday he got up, made his coffee, let the dog out to pee and then left for work. Within a minutes. he remembered that he had left the stove on under the coffee pot, so he turned around and drove back toward the house. As he was coming down the driveway in the pre-dawn twilight, he noticed a lot of road dust in the air, more than should have been lingering after his original trip up the road. No-one had come out the road behind him. As he pondered this mystery, he rounded a corner and came upon a full grown bear running down the hill right in front of him. It had to be a 300 pounder, maybe more.  The bear ran up the tree where our "2390" sign is posted, bent the metal sign sideways, and released a mighty shit that fell to the base of the tree.

Y'all may remember Boo Boo, the bear cub we found in sleeping in our trash can about 10 years ago.  I doubt that this is the same bear, but perhaps they are distant cousins.

On Sunday, Dazy the Dog and I went to bathe at Queen's Bath.  She took off after something in the bushes and started barking like mad.  I figured it was a squirrel, and paid her no mind.  Just as I was lowering my naked ass into the frigid creek, a hideous red-eyed possum came waddling out of the underbrush with Dazy close on her heels.  Dazy chased the nasty critter right toward me.  I shot out the the water and started screaming bloody murder  The possum dived under a boulder on the bank and Dazy tried to wriggle in after her but was too big to fit into the crevice. I scrambled for my clothes and hollered at Dazy to leave it alone, but she would have none of it, she wanted a piece of that possum.  I finally got her to follow me up the hill towards the house.

Wildlife. It's not just a name, it's an apt description.

Hero

One of my Deputy Chiefs shared this heartbreaking information about one of the fatalities that occurred on the Carr Fire in Redding, California. Redding Fire Inspector Jeremy Stokes was killed while sitting in his Ford F150 pick-up when a fire tornado burned over his location. At the time, he was working in a subdivision, trying to evacuate residents who had not complied with the initial evacuation order. Stokes sent out a mayday reporting that he was about to be burned over, but his transmission was cut off and never regained. Reports and data reviewed from the incident indicate that the fire tornado was over 300 yards wide at the base. Stokes was killed by the traumatic injuries he sustained when his truck was picked up and thrown over 200 feet from where it was originally parked. 

The report goes on to say we are experiencing fire that is burning hotter, faster and with more explosive energy than previously recorded.  It is a bad year. 

Photo of from the Carr Fire:

Blue Skies

Where there is fire, there is smoke. Weeks and weeks of smoke, smoke so thick, we can’t see the mountains that we live in.  Half mile visibility smoke, smoke that makes us turn on our car headlights in the middle of the day. We stay inside all the time and when we venture outside, most of us wear respirator face masks. A woman came into the office today wearing a face mask covered in a bold patterned fabric, safety as fashion statement.  London survived the Great Smog of 1952 and I survived my the nitrogen oxide gloom of my pre-Clean Air Act Southern California childhood, but this feels different.  For one thing, it is not a localized phenomenon. Smoke covers the western half of North America, half a freaking continent. There are fires burning north of the Arctic Circle this summer.  For another thing, this isn’t smog, it is wood smoke. The air smells like a campfire, a scent that sends adrenaline coursing through my body. My nerves snap to attention, a primal reaction that was embedded in my DNA over thousands of generations.  Carbon-based life forms are universally susceptible to fire, we avoid it if possible.  I live in a constant, low-level state of fight-or-flight.

What happens to the next generation, the children being born now? What kind of world are we leaving to them? Will they live in a world in which blue skies are increasingly rare?  How long will it be before blue skies are a fable, a fairy tale? “Once upon a time, the sky was the deepest, most radiant blue that you can imagine and the air was crisp and clean.” They won’t know what that means, won't be able to imagine what that is like.

This is the reckoning for our self-indulgent profligacy, our single serving, plastic wrapped, fast fashion lifestyle. This is the true price of all the worthless crap we create, consume, and dump in the ocean as plastic soup. Oregon's primeval forests have been clear cut and replaced by monoculture conifer plantations, ruler-straight rows of identical trees planted in unnaturally dense stands. The record-breaking heat and aridity turns tree farms into tinder. All it takes is one random, tiny spark from a power line or a car exhaust pipe, one stroke of lighting in these storm-haunted mountains, and we will have a conflagration barreling through the stick-dry Siskiyous like a brakeless freight train. There will be nowhere to run.   

The smoke comes earlier and covers more territory each year, the skies are grey for longer periods of time. The world is changing before our eyes.

The Year the West was Burning

Looking south from the Hilt overpass, July 5, 2018

My decision to cancel the 2018 Colestin Camp Out prompted me to finally post to this blog.  It has been a long time since I posted and much has happened in the interim. I quit my job at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Long story, I’ll tell you all about it sometime. I was unemployed for months, applied for at least 30 jobs and took a temporary position that ended badly.  I recently accepted a half time position with the City of Medford’s Fire-Rescue Department. I’ve been here for almost two months and like it a lot. The compensation is not great but the people are lovely and the work is interesting.

So, there’s much to tell, but that’s not why I’ve broken my silence.

July 5 marked the day I’ve been dreading for 21 years: I evacuated from my home in the Colestin in front of a major wildfire.

My brother-in-law Danny and nephew August were returning from Portland and planned to stay the night in the Colestin before pushing on to California in the morning. I planned to drive out there and meet them after work.  We had been communicating about dinner and at 3:30 he sent this message: “Grabbed food fire in hornbrook.” (Just like that with no punctuation or capitalization. I know, only a grammar nerd pays attention to such issues in a text message, but it took me a second to decipher exactly what that meant.)

What the fuck, says I. Not out loud, mind you; my days of swearing like a sailor at work are over. It’s not that kind of office.

I checked the news and discovered that an out-of-control fire had blown up in Hornbrook, about 5 miles south of Hilt, which is less than 5 miles from our house as the crow flies. Red flag fire conditions prevailed and the fire had exploded to 5,000 acres within hours of ignition. It was entirely uncontained. Hornbrook was under emergency evacuation and one civilian had been med-evac’d out with what we later learned were fatal injuries.

Authorities had just closed I-5 from Ashland to Yreka.  A Level 3 “Go” evacuation had just been announced for Hilt and the Colestin Valley.

Holy shit, says I in my head. This is not a drill.

Danny and August were heading to my house and their phones don’t have reception out there  The dog was awaiting them at home, roaming her indoor-outdoor enclosure. She can’t run away in an emergency. Sequoia was on the east coast visiting Arly. I was on my own.

I texted my neighbor Cathy to make sure she knew what was going on. She texted back that Danny and August had just stopped by her house on their way to my house.  They had heard about the fire at the liquor store in Hilt and stopped to make sure she knew. I messaged Danny that he should get the dog and get out, but I knew he couldn't receive my text. I didn’t hear back.

During my last hour of work in Medford, I kept checking the ODOT tripcheck cameras like I do when there is a winter storm and Siskiyou Summit pass can close at any minute for snow. Sure enough, just before I left work, I could see I-5 traffic was backed up to the South Ashland Exit 12.  I got on the freeway and planned to get off at the North Ashland Exit 19. Just after I passed the Talent exit 21, I got a text from Jimmy saying that the freeway was backing up and I should get off in Talent. It was too late, I was committed. Traffic was very heavy but moving and I made it off I-5 just a few yards from where it came to a complete stop. A few minutes later and I would have been stuck between exits, unable to get off the freeway.

I slipped through Ashland on side roads and headed out to Highway 66, a.k.a. the Greensprings Highway, which runs past Emigrant Lake, over the Greensprings Pass and out to Klamath Falls. At the south end of Emigrant Lake, Old Highway 99 turns off Highway 66 and runs parallel to I-5. It’s the old wagon route over the Siskiyou Summit that runs past Callahans Lodge and connects up to the Mt. Ashland Ski Road. Old Hwy 99 is steep, winding road that makes the Greensprings Hwy look like the interstate. My plan was to take Old 99 to Callahans where I could either a) jump on I-5, b) take Old 99 over the pass to Hilt, or c) take the Ski Road to the Colestin Road and follow it down 8 miles of switchbacks to our road.  After 20+ years of driving over that pass in the winter, I know every possible option. 

Traffic was heavy on the Hwy 66. Big rigs had bailed off of I-5 and were trying to take the Greensprings route to Klamath Falls. Hwy 66 is a narrow two lane highway that crawls up some crazy grades to cross the mountains.  There are length and weight limits for trucks traveling on Hwy 66, but there is no sign indicating the limits until well past the entrance to Emigrant Lake, several miles south of Ashland.  There is a purported “truck turnaround” just south of the entrance to Emigrant Lake, a dirt median barely wide enough for one truck and maybe long enough for 3 trucks.  When I drove by, there were at least 10 trucks in the turnaround and more trying to turn in. It was mayhem. Traffic came to a halt as we crept pass the mess of big rigs trying to turn around on a two-lane highway. After passing the truck turnaround snafu, traffic started moving again, but not for long. About ½ a mile before the Old Hwy 99 turn off, traffic came to a stop.

At this point I thought that my brother in law, nephew and dog were all at the house with no idea about the evacuation.  Luckily Cathy called and said that a member of the local volunteer fire department was stopping at all the houses, telling people to get out.  Shortly after that, I got a message from Danny saying that he was heading to Ashland with August and the dog.

The last time the Colestin burned in the 1970s, they didn’t even have landline phones in the valley. Now we have these space age devices in our pockets. What would we do without cell phones? I was grateful for mine.

I finally crawled up to the turnoff for Old Hwy 99.  Barriers blocked the entrance. A highway worker was stopping traffic on Hwy 66 and only letting 5 or 6 vehicles at a time start up toward the Greensprings pass.  I pulled up to the worker with my driver’s license in my hand, showing my Colestin Road address.  “I live on the Colestin Road! I have to get home to get my dog!”  (I slight prevarication; the dog was on her way to Ashland at that point. ) He glanced at my license and let me turn off Hwy 66 onto Old 99.

I hauled ass up Old 99 to Callahans and the I-5 interchange.  There were two cop cars blocking the intersection, making sure no one got onto I-5 or continued on Old 99. I showed my drivers license and the officer looked at it closely and looked at me. They wouldn’t let me onto I-5 but they let me continue on Old 99.  I’m sure they thought I was going to turn onto the Ski Road and head to the top of the Colestin Rd, but I took old highway over the pass and got back onto I-5 South just a mile above Hilt.  I got off in Hilt and saw fire trucks lining the overpass. Near the liquor store, a cop was stationed in the middle of the road, blocking the HIlt Road entrance into the valley. I had my driver’s license out in my hand and started talking before my window was all the way down.  “I live at the bottom of the Colestin Road, near the 8 mile marker.  I have to get home to get my dog.’ He looked at my license closely and asked me what kind of dog I had. Border collie mix says I, a little cow dog.  Alright, says he, but I expect to see you back through here soon.  Absolutely, says I, I just want to get my dog and get a couple of things and get out. If the fire is getting close I might go up the Colestin Road to the Ski Road.  You have time, he said, it won’t make it up that high forr awhile, it’s heading that direction. Don't wait, he said.

 Once I got through all the roadblocks, I started thinking about what the hell I was going to do.  I had rehearsed this scenario in my head so many times, but this was no rehearsal. What did I need to take, what could I leave behind? I drove the road to our house way too fast and finally pulled up to our dear red door.

I tore into the house and went straight to the pantry where we store the recycling in large plastic tubs. I dumped tubs of aluminum cans, tin cans and glass bottles onto the floor; three tubs to fill up.

First the boxes and boxes of family photos, Sequoia, the girls, me, my parents, his parents, our brothers, nephews, dear friends who were closer than family, the dead, the living, the forgotten. Actual photos, printed on paper, stored in cardboard shoe boxes.  Good lord.  Next, my mom’s trunk: handmade crafts passed down by three generations of women, including quilts my mother made for my kids. Handwritten letters from my grandmother who died before I was born. Information my dad wrote down about his service in WWII.  The album from my mother’s funeral, my father’s death notice. Thank you letters that my kids wrote to their grandmother and I found in her house after she died.  So many useless, priceless things, historical detritus, personal artifacts that I have curated into a history.

Then Sequoia’s trunk: Photos of Swedes in the old country, photos of Ginny at nightclubs in the 40s, a program from the Hollywood Canteen when she worked there, photos of Ken in his bomber jacket, photos of Sequoia's brother Grant who died long before the advent of digital photography.  Irreplaceable images of the dead.

Framed pictures, pulled from the wall. The contents of a couple of file drawers. An old hard drive and some very old CDs.

My best accordion, my mandolin, Sequoia’s good banjo, his second best guitar (Danny took the good one.) My mics and cords and bag of charts.  Boxes of Bathtub Gin Serenaders CDs.

A week’s worth of work clothes for Sequoia and me. My good clogs. A toothbrush. A small jewelry box.  A jar of Sequoia’s bud that he grew last year. Dog food and a leash.

Two five gallon gas cans full of gas (because I didn’t want to leave them by the house.)

A rosary. Some magickal tools.

Two paintings by Basil Johns.

Finally, the contents of two file drawers (the deed to the houses, tons of paperwork about the land and the Oak Street house) and a bunch of random mail from the top of my desk that I hadn’t filed yet.

What I intended to take but forgot:

The homeowners policy.  

Our birth certificates.

My sandals.

What I considered and left behind.

My PA, mic stands and mixer.  

Boxes and boxes of Sequoia’s family stuff that are in the top of one closet

Two tubs, one full of Kiva’s school stuff, the other full of Arly’s school stuff.  They don’t want them but I haven’t had the heart to burn them yet.

A tub of old journals and yearbooks and letters that I really intend to burn someday.

Books, books, and more books. Art. Clothes. Food. Dishes, pots and pans, Ginny’s plate silverware (not very valuable, but nice.) Sequoia’s grandmother’s tea cups. The tole painting Ginny made.  My favorite embroideries made by my mom (they’re hanging on the wall, I forgot them.) Generations of memorabilia, personal expression, history. So much history that I haven’t written it down and probably never will. 

All I have is this stuff to remind me where I’ve been, where I came from, who my people were and what they meant to me.  

I turned off the propane. Thought about turning on a hose to wet down the ground around the house, but decided I shouldn’t drain the water tanks.  Left a note on the door that explained where the water tanks are, where the well is, where the propane tanks are.  I’ve registered all of that information with the Hilt-Colestine Volunteer Fire Department’s Community Emergency Response Team, but you never know who will come to the door. The note said that the propane was off, there was no other fuel on the premises and no firearms. It told them that everyone was out. It said thank you.

Then I left.

I didn’t cry until I got to Hilt and saw live flames leaping up along the freeway, jumping from spot to spot.

A crowd of local ranchers were stationed out in front of Rookers ranch at the hairpin turn.  Another crowd was lined along the Hilt overpass with their horse trailers.  They were going to wait until the last possible minute before taking their animals out of the valley. Not me.  I stopped, took pictures, told everyone to stay safe and I drove the hell out of there.

The fire came to within one mile of the Hilt Church.  The wind shifted when the sun went down and allowed firefighters to make their stand and keep the fire out of the valley. If the fire had started an hour earlier, it would have gotten into the valley before the wind shifted. If it had gotten into the valley, it would have been catastrophic. The valley is narrow and steep, all rough terrain and bone dry fuel. There would have been no stopping it. The entire valley would have burned and there would have been nothing anyone could have done.

I’m very lucky.  I had my own place in town to stay at during the evacuation.  I had cash, credit cards. I was surrounded by so much love and positive energy. But, I won’t forget this; it left a mark.

We live on borrowed time in the Colestin, I know this.  Eventually, our land will burn.  The landscape is designed to burn and it hasn’t in a long time. Thanks to global warming, the summers are longer, hotter, dryer, and fire season comes earlier each year. I’ve accepted this reality, but I’m not willing to hasten it.

I love the Camp Out. I love gathering with my friends and family in that beautiful space.  But it only takes one stray ember from a cigarette, one hot car parked on dry grass, to start a conflagration.  When I think about trying to evacuate dozens of cars out our narrow road, the only way in and out of our property, I panic.  The idea of being responsible for a fire that destroys property and potentially takes lives makes me nauseous. I just don’t have the same tolerance for risk that I used to have; at least, not this kind of risk. There is a huge fire in Redding that has killed at least 6 people. There is a fire near Ashland, another threatening Ezra’s ranch up near Grants Pass. We are surrounded by fire on all sides.  The air is choked with smoke and hazardous to breathe. I can’t do it this year, campers. I have reached my limit.

I’m sorry it took me so long to announce the cancellation. I know I have disappointed quite a few people who made plans based on my invitation. Sequoia is completely opposed to this cancellation and we had many long, hard discussions before I finally put my foot down.

It is what it is, campers. We live in perilous times.

And so, dear friends, I am thinking of you, missing you, wishing you well. Let us meet again after the rains come, and may they come soon.