Firestorm in Review

I always thought that I was born in the wrong age. I should have been a pioneer, facing the new world,  the wagon road, the trail to the west. Something. Not just mundane and get through life things.
That kind of thinking tells you when the  road is rough, put on the iron suit and keep trudging. It can't kill off the real deep inside "you" Well, I guess we all have lessons to learn.

That policy worked - mostly. But while we were living in our single wide rental  counting the days till we could move back to our spot on the hill and a new house, there were days when I would find myself going back to bed during the day, pulling the covers up and just laying as still as I possibly could.

I haven't cut my hair since about 1974. Just going to be as the Lord made me.
Well, after we actually moved into the house, I found my hair was just getting shorter. I tried no sulfate shampoos. I was gentle with it. But it just kept getting shorter, and its not "even" all the way around. There are places on the sides of my head that are only 5 inches long. Little frizzles and breaks everyday. It doesn't feel like straw or anything, it is just falling off and out. I have read somewhere that that is from trauma. ????

I can see that the whole experiance of the fire taking away alot of your life work in a few minutes of time has changed my husband, my daughter and I. You can't quite put your finger on why we are just, kind of different, do not react the same, have a little trouble getting things to fall together right in our head-- but its there.
Some days I have glimpses of the "old me". But its not quite there. Will it ever be? After all we are adjusting and moving on. Our bodies have gotten olders. Our goals are different. Our humor is different. It just all adds up.

In some ways I am more patient. I know that realistically things have happened really well for us, and that you have to put the things in order by importance, adjust to change in plans, by who offers to help do what and wait for the comfortable and ease of  a new chickenhouse and make do with the  surviving  goathouse. The chickens are alive and doing, they just don't have a roost yet, or laying boxes or screens to keep the birds away from their food.

There are things we need to do before we plant shrubs and stuff, but it will have to wait abit longer. The siding took so long to get on, but its almost completely on now-- so, what if it has to wait till spring for paint now?

We have got so very much done-- be happy.

I feel very old now and am testing what few skills I seem to have left. There is so much that I could do before the fire, that now I can't. It took a toll on the very quality of my health and lfie. It would have happened anyway, right? Well, maybe not just how it has.

Its an adjustment.

Still alive and hopefully well here

Things are going fast and furious here. There seems to be no way to meet every commitment on time.
But it is comming together.

We had a friend drive up from Oregon just to work on some tile. No time to do it all and too busy and harried himself to try. But he did the the "different new" tile job on the upper bath floor and started the master bath and  gave some ideas for the stove backsplash or whatever you call it for the range in the kitchen.

It gave us heart again, I think.

So many things that I never thought about, visulized or was consulted about, but thats ok, I guess. This home will be part ours and part some of the kids. And thats ok. When I start to leave it each day, I slow down and stop in the drive and try to imagine it covered with greenry and stuff. I have a few notes laying about-- must replant roses, Gertrude Jeckyl, Midas Touch, Sally Holmes, Dortmund and on and on. Small trees with bark interest. Bird feeders and how to plan them. And I like to stand at the new back doorway and think of paths for grandkids and hidden turns and cover for mystery exploring and the mind games that kids play, if you can get them away from the screens.

The cabinets are mostly in. Tomorrow, we go select cuts for countertops and granite. Today I walked through the kitchen and tried to imagine using it.

The next day, the carpet comes. All but two rooms we will have to ask them to wait on. Our budget is shrinking and each delay, each not ready, each decision unmade keeps hacking away at it.

Oh, well.

The March winds have arrived. Funny, I worried about deep cold, I worried about heavy rains, which will still be a danger for long time to come. But today, driving into Brewster, I watched  part of a field blow by overhead, a huge brown cloud of dust, and I wondered what indent it made on the river and where it would wind up, this migrating dirt. I had forgotten the  March winds. If we are lucky, two weeks of it and then nice weather with an occasional storm. I do not like the wind. It comes from having bad ears and a bad chest. But this too will pass.

Its nice to have blue skys sometimes and the most of the grey gone. I still watch to see if its clouds up on the hills or fire though.
There are all sorts of ashes from the fire and its not all on the ground. Some of it is in my head.

Post Trauma Depression from the firestormII

All I have to do is talk to the locals. We are all doing it. Its called doing meltdowns, trembling, and sitting alot doing as little as possibles.

No, I have nothing to complain about. well, I do, but it isn't going to change the course of my life, or anything like that!

Mostly I am one of the very blest. We have a warm. comfortable place. We have a lovely house going up on the hill. My kids are alive and well and doing their own lives and being productive.
So why is it sometimes during the day, I just crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head and lay just as very still as I can. I can do that much longer than I used to be able to. And don't I just despise slugs!!

Its helps a lot that we are having some sunshine. That the Willow branches are turning golden, that my tulip bulbs along our drive are growing like nothing every happened. We have even had tulips come up where the aspen trees burned and their roots have been prised out and the tractor has moved dirt around and rearrange the topography of  our lot. Thats a good word. Topography! Don't know what some words appeal.  But those tulips, they just somehow endured and managed to land near where they were, put down roots and grow. And hopefully they will flower too. I would like to do that too.

Some people say, you are going to be better off than you were. A brand new house that you designed and built, something you could never have done with out the fire!! Too true--- if it even matters. Sticks and Stones may hurt my bones but truthful words do not hurt me. Neither do they make it all better.

I am "thinking" about working a little in the garden. I am thinking. But I am not doing much. My husband has done until he is about done in. He is driven. I am hiding under the covers. I do despise slugs. They have no back bone.

This too will pass.  I hope. I would like to respect myself again.