Tag Archives: wildfires

Rose Rises From Fire’s Ashes

by Woody

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.

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From Woody’s column archives, April of 2018, the feelings relevant anew following the devastating wildfires in Southern California…

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On its homeward voyage, the Apollo 11 capsule – like all spacecraft returning from a lunar visit – crossed an ethereal Rubicon where the moon’s gravitational attraction yielded imperceptibly to the faint pull of Earth’s gravity.

It seems to me there is a similar invisible line where the gravity of grief and loss is overcome by the growing pull of healing and happiness. The aftermath of the Thomas Fire, a heinous monster that claimed two lives and more than 700 homes and also turned a million collective photographs into ash, has reinforced this thought.

For some property victims, this Rubicon of Healing was crossed the moment they safely escaped the fire’s destructive path. For others, it came when they returned to their ruins and uncovered a keepsake piece of jewelry or a treasured heirloom miraculously intact among cinders.

Our Audrey Rose blooming…

For many, however, the Rubicon of Healing remains a point far off in the distance of their journey back from the dark side of the moon.

The Thomas Fire razed my childhood home in the small hours of December 5.  Come dawn, however, I honestly felt I had bypassed the gravitational pull of overwhelming loss because all that truly mattered was that my 93-year-old father, who had lived in the house for 44 years, fled harm’s way.

I was, it now seems fairly obvious, in denial. More than being my dad’s house, it was my late mom’s dream home. She died 26 autumns past, come October, yet inside the front door the overpowering aura and warmth was still of her.

The living room, decorated in her favored sky blue, was of her. The kitchen, where she rolled out pasta by hand, was of her. The dining room, with her cherished Wedgewood china displayed in a hutch, was of her. Her piano, her books, her presence in every room.

Every room gone now, burned, cinders and soot.

Because I have the memories, I did not want to see the ashes. Alone among my siblings, I chose not to go see our home that was no longer there.

I made a similar choice half a century ago. At age seven, at my first funeral, I refused to join the procession of mourners walking by my paternal grandfather Ansel’s open casket because I wanted to remember beloved Grandpa as I had always seen him, alive not dead.

Similarly it was with my childhood home and I stayed away.

But the gravitational pull of loss did not stay away. Finally, the day after Easter, I returned. I drove high into the foothills of Ondulando, turned into a familiar cul-de-sac I no longer recognized, walked up a short driveway leading to where a two-story white house once stood proudly.

Now, nothing. A moonscape. The basketball pole and hoop, gone. Chimney, gone. Even the cement foundation has been removed.

Actually, next to the “nothing” there is something. At the left side of the backyard, near where a hot tub had been, a round fire pit made of red brick remains.

In truth, it ceased being a fire pit a quarter-century back. The first spring following my mom’s death, my dad filled it with potting soil and planted a rose bush. Specifically, a light pink hybrid tea variety named after actress Audrey Hepburn and commonly called simply the “Audrey Rose.”

My mom’s name was Audrey.

In the fire pit-turned-planter on the day following Easter, in a vision filled with symbolism and metaphor, there it was rising from the ashes quite literally: our Audrey Rose bush in full bloom.

The gravitational pull of healing took full hold.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.

Thomas Fire Lesson A Year After

by Woody

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Lesson from Thomas Fire a Year After

It was bound to happen, sooner or later.

Had it been a year sooner, however, I believe I would have been far more upset – both at the loss and at myself for being responsible. Such is one tiny token given by the heinous Thomas Fire that – like California’s recent tragic wildfires – took so very much, from so many, a year ago come this Tuesday.

First, the backstory. For Mother’s Day a handful of years past, my daughter and son came upon the lovely idea of giving their mom four ceramic bowls – each unique in bright colors and design, one for each family member.

Because my wife is half-Italian, on her mother’s side, it was decided it would add meaning to honor this heritage with hand-painted Italian bowls.

Upon finding some imported dishes we favored, it was decided – by me – to get only one. This was because a single bowl cost about as much as airfare to Tuscany where one could meet the artisan and buy his or her pottery wares in person.

Before May even turned to June, the bowl suffered a chip beyond use. Mea culpa – rather, in Italian: colpa mia. Had I known any Italian swear words, I would have used them all. I made do with a few in English.

Prudently, a month thereafter the expensive bowl was replaced with a beautiful locally crafted bowl purchased at the annual Ventura ArtWalk. The bargain was extended with three more bowls to give us a full family table setting.

My wife was perfectly pleased and yet I still felt a need to replace the Italian-made bowl. A few months thereafter, for her birthday, I did. Perhaps it should be no surprise, however, that it went largely unused. We were all afraid of breaking it, most especially me.

Indeed, to eat salad or soup or pasta, or cereal or oatmeal or ice cream, from it seemed a little like hanging an original Picasso sketch on the refrigerator door with magnets. The new Italian bowl belonged safely inside a frame, so to speak, on display in a dining room hutch.

The dining room hutch in my boyhood home was filled with expensive bowls and more. It is where my late mom kept her good china and beloved blue-and-white Wedgewood plates. All were all destroyed when the Thomas Fire razed the house where my dad still lived.

Amid the heart-rending ruins, if one examined closely enough with rose-colored glasses, there was a sliver of a silver lining to be found: at least the good china and Wedgewood had been frequently used.

“A long life may not be good enough,” Benjamin Franklin noted, “but a good life is long enough.” My mom believed the same was true for nice things. She thought her good silver and china should be used and enjoyed regularly, not cautiously saved for special occasions. She considered every day a special occasion.

In the dark aftermath of the Thomas Fire, I decided to start using our Italian bowl daily. For safety’s sake, I never put it in the dishwasher but instead hand-washed it.

Perhaps the dishwasher would have been safer. The other day, a combination of soapy suds and carelessness caused it to slip from my grasp. It fell all of a couple inches before striking the sink, but that was still too far. It shattered like Humpty Dumpty after his great fall.

To be honest, my initial reaction was stubbing-one’s-big-toe-like anguish. Yet, quick as a finger snap, Zen calmness washed over me. People matter, things don’t – that important lesson from the Thomas Fire is an enduring gift.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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