Yesterday brought news of a death in the family, of a beloved aunt—actually my mom’s cousin. She lived in Oregon, and I hadn’t seen her much since I was a kid. But all my memories of her are fond ones, and I miss her, and I know her two daughters and son and grandchildren miss her an awful lot. I hope she, her husband, my mom, and all the other relatives who’ve gone on before are having a happy reunion on the other side. I can almost hear them, and I like that thought. It brings back memories of family get togethers when I was a kid and would sometimes sit and listen to all the grownups talk and tell stories.
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After a quiet day yesterday, I woke early this morning (early for me, anyway), to sirens, thinking I’ve never lived in a place with so many sirens, even when we rented within a couple miles of Montgomery Field and one of the busiest intersections in San Diego. But here we’re right off the main road that runs through town. This morning the sirens were especially disconcerting, and I decided maybe I’d had too much coffee.
Then I realized yesterday began the fourth anniversary of the Gavilan Fire, which started in Fallbrook on February 10, 2002. During the course of that fire we were surrounded by flames, the air so full of smoke we had to keep all the windows closed. Wildfires came within a mile of our home on three sides—west, north, and south. For a few hours I sat with packed suitcases, the cat in her carrier, and the dog on a leash, so I could leave in a hurry if needed.
We avoided disaster then, but many others in town didn’t. An amateur radio repeater system went into use. People were evacuated. Forty-three homes were destroyed. A total of 5,000 acres burned, much of it on Camp Pendleton, as well as along De Luz Road, which runs through a beautiful stretch of the Santa Margarita River basin and includes a wildlife study area full of sycamores, live oaks, and other trees, as well as animal life. Hillsides were denuded of chaparral, transformed into brown, charred earth.
That fire wasn’t as large or nearly as devastating as the Cedar Fire, two years ago, but it struck so close to home it’s no wonder, after the past couple of weeks of dry, summer-like weather and an earlier forecast of wind for today and tomorrow, the sirens made me nervous this morning.
As of a year ago, the De Luz preserve has wireless wildfire sensors. Wildflowers bloomed profusely in the burned areas by spring of 2003. (Scroll down the linked page for wildflower photos.) And in fact, some of the plantlife in Southern California actually depends on our preponderance of wildfires.
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Now that I’ve talked myself out of fire and siren anxiety, and gotten carried away again with online research, I’m headed back into the mystery novel. I’m on the third draft, and that’s nearly done. I’m happy with how this is going, feeling enthused about this book, and anxious to finish, to get on with the final edits—the minor, nit-picky stuff—then finish and send it off.
I’ll be off-line for a few days.
My sympathies on the loss of your “aunt.” I’ll bet the sirens do bring anxiety after what you’d been through. The wildflowers are so lovely-I couldn’t believe my eyes. From near devastation nature rebounds.
Many oaks survived the Gavilan Fire. The ones around the valleys near the swimming hole (where swimming is prohibited) that did burn looked like they were completely dead. Within one year, it was apparant that they didn’t, in fact, die, but rather just lost a few peripheral, smaller branches. It is curious how nature has, in some cases, adapted to survive being burned alive.
Sorry about your loss.
I guess as we get older, more and more of our loved ones leave. At least it seems to be true. I don’t recall meeting her.
Barbara, do you want to take a drive through the southern Cleveland National Forest and down through Pine Valley to see how the pine trees did after the Cedar Fire? My guess is that they did die, but confirmation of this would be nice. We could stop in Julian or Ramona and get an apple pie and some coffee!
I’m looking forward to reading your next novel! For any of you readers out there who think it’s normal for a spouse to read the author’s work in progress, chapter by chapter as each one is completed, it isn’t necessarily the case. Barbara has never allowed me to read anything of hers until it’s in one of its final drafts. It used to drive me crazy with anticipation, but I guess I’ve adapted
. Well, sorta.
Hey…I have to let Mary read my in progress novel because she’s working on it too. But I hate people reading stuff in progress. I never let Mary read anything else in progress.
Sorry about you aunt. I hate the list of departed family and friends I’m accumulating.
I remember being in LA last year and seeing the masses of wildflowers that came out after the round of fires there. That was pretty amazing.
My cousins in El Cajon & Ramona had to evacuate during those wildfires. The ones in El Cajon saw the village at the top of the hill behind them go completely up in flames. They said they never thought fire could move so fast. They evacuated to their daughter in Ramona, and then they had to evacuate again. Their daughter & her husband actually were about to demolish their home to build a new, larger one. Two other homes at the bottom their hill burned, but ironically, the one to be demolished wasn’t damaged. Ain’t life strange?!
My condolences on the death in your family. I keep getting calls & emails about 2 ailing family members in other countries. It’s very stressful, and brings a realization that when these last few are gone (they’re all in their upper 80’s or early 90’s,) then I will be a member of the eldest generation. That’s a truly scary thought.
Sorry for your sorrow. It’s wonderfully odd, but I have lost few people in my life, only my grandparents. There are many relatives I am very close to and they are getting up in years. It might sound silly, but there are days I do pre-mourning for them – know how much I’ll miss them.
Fires! The Laguna Beach fire came within about 300 yards of my home as I drove off with a few precious items. I didn’t know until the next day whether or not I had a home to return to. I didn’t evacuate – stayed at a friend’s house. Probably right after I drove off, the winds shifted and the fire tore into Emerald Bay. I’m too lazy at the moment to document the numbers, but about 350 homes were lost in that fire. The canyons surrounding town became a smoldering moonscape. Within months the vegetation was back, beautifully. It took much longer, if ever, for the people to recover. Very traumatic. I have same reactions to sirens or if my nose catches a whiff of smoke. I call ii memory panic.
Yikes, I’m winded this morning. Ya know I wrote that wonderful essay about Ray – the guy I considered hiring for freelance editing, and now I’m having second thoughts. Not because of him. He was good and reasonably priced. It’s just that I experimented and gave the same portion of manuscript to Michael Jaspers (I have done reading/critiquing for him, as well), and his response was equally good and kinda the opposite of Ray’s input. Critiquing is so important, but can be so confusing. I guess the wonderful thing is that now I have two viewpoints to sift through and apply to my manuscript. It’s times like this when I REALLY miss not being in a writers’ group. So, poor Ray, I don’t think I’ll engage his services. Though his critique was free, my moral compass compelled me to send him a wee recompense through Paypal. Anyway, I’m burned out on ‘big’ at the moment, and have another writing project I’m about to hatch and will divulge later.
Barbara, do you want to swap finished manuscripts?
All my talk of fires, that happened two to four years ago no less, is meant in no way to downplay the winter weather some of you have been experiencing. Stay warm and safe. Those of us in this sometimes freakishly warm, dry region are wishing you the best.
Susan:
Weren’t those wildflowers amazing? A few of the shots reminded me of impressionist paintings, though some of that is no doubt the grainy resolution they used to keep Internet theft under control. I like the thought that so much destruction can nourish a new cycle of life. Life is indeed a cycle with beginnings, endings, and continuity.
I’ve known since I was a little girl that the Matilija Poppy requires high heat to germinate. My grandmother heated the seeds in the oven to get them to sprout. But it was interesting to learn from the linked articles how much bio-diversity is found in the plant life of this region as compared to other places. Maybe needing to adapt to so little water has its positive side after all. To us humans the designation “semi-arid” too often represents nothing more than a ghastly water bill, or roses that bloom in the morning only to shrivel by afternoon.
Ken:
It’s a date.
The biggest loss for me personally in any of those fires was that of all the trees in Cuyamaca from the Cedar fire. We used to camp in those parks when I was a girl, and I considered them my second home, sort of a sacred playground. On that last drive through, soon after the fires, nothing recognizable remained. Those big old oaks take decades to grow. Many of them were well over a hundred years old. Live oaks especially manage to survive most fires, but that was more than your average wildfire. It eradicated way too many older trees, and we had too few left, even before the fires. I know that place will never be the same as I remember it.
Eric:
I’m in awe of anyone who can write collaboratively, and you and Mary do it so well you make it look easy.
Feedback is important to me, but I prefer not to share with others as I go along. That’s the main reason I left my critique group. The people were terrific, but the clamor of all those other voices in the group got to me, especially in the fragile early drafts. My own thoughts about my work are varied enough while I’m in the middle of deciding things, so other opinions become just another distraction.
I also find that the story (and I) lose energy if I share it too soon, and losing energy is enough of a problem in the later drafts and edits, without allowing it to dissipate further—even if that’s all in my imagination.
I believe there are social and solitary writers. I’m one who values the isolation, rather than thinking of that as a downside of the craft. I had too little of that during my last few years of employment, when people would follow me to the restroom, or wait outside to talk to me. I love people, but I’m an introvert above all else. Now that I work alone, I’m lovin’ it.
Violetismycolor:
I’m glad you got to see some of our color. Southern California is not green, as I’m sure you noticed, and we don’t get the vivid fall colors of the east coast, but some years we get this lovely golden-pinkish-bluish-purplish pastel mixture for a few weeks in the spring. One of my favorite sights is rolling hills covered with wild mustard in bloom, and those small wild sunflowers, or golden poppies.
Heather:
Yes, too bad the fire didn’t at least help with demolition costs for the one house that needed it. Those two particular fires moved faster than anyone could anticipate. The first victims didn’t even know there was a fire until minutes before it struck. No time to evacuate with anything but their lives if they were lucky. Big as those fires were, and with the number of homes lost, the worst aspect by far was the speed and lack of warning.
Reenie:
Three hundred yards is close. Glad you made it through the Laguna fire safely.
You could do what Michael Jasper did on his blog, letting people who visit yours have a crack at reading and offering feedback on some chapters. As to your question, I’ll email you privately. Mine has a ways to go before it will earn the distinction of “finished.”
Too bad that didn’t work out with Ray. Sounded like he offered a good service. I did some paid editing just recently, and I’m considering doing more of that. It’s how I used to make my living at one time.