Bottom photo: Todd Foster
Fire
Does not
exist
In its natural form
Exists by consuming
Another form
It transforms from one
Form to another form
Fuels our passion
Leaves everything ashen
Duels the darkness
Heaves on compassion
Fire, constructively destructive
Fire, destructively constructive
Fire, living death
Fire, dying life
Anand Dixit
My unfinished home
burnt to the ground just before Thanksgiving.
My dream of a book about it and marriage went up in its smoke.
No one was
hurt. This is the best thing.
Like with any
setback in life, time soothes. Already
I’m planning a new life, a new home, somewhere else. I can forgive. This is the other best thing: washing my soul
of anger.
The irony is
I’ve made a fairy tale home so many admire and wish they could live in. Myself included.
I wrote about
it for The Women’s Eye if you want to read the long version stuffed to the
gills with metaphor.
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Star of
Wonder, Star of Night
Stars. Sparkle, glitter, dreams, fire, light. Last Christmas, my life was starry as a clear
sub-zero winter’s night in the Catskills.
This Christmas, my life is as dark as a grave.
This
Christmas:
- I’m divorced
- my unfinished new house (a real
house, not my little shabby streamside studio) burnt to the ground
- and the homesteading book about
it and my once enviable life obviously is nixed
- my Maltese dog Belle is dead
- I’ll see my 3 babies - my dogs -
for a few hours in December
- I paid $600 for dental work my
Maltese Zuzu
- and $900 in car repairs
- I gained 10 pounds
Without my
old dreams, I’m disoriented. Without a
home, I’m dispossessed. Without my
husband, I’m not constantly infuriated but I’m also missing my dearest
friend. It was he that accidentally
caused the fire with the woodstove. The
guilt sears and tortures him. He said he
lay on the cold ground and cried the next morning. I lay on the cold ground and cried when I got
home from the lawyer’s office filing for divorce the next day.
The last 10
years of my life were spent working two full-time jobs a 4 hour drive south
from the Catskills so I could arrive where I was last year: a simple life
without a mortgage. My husband and I clashed
terribly over the years concerning our living space and earning income. He’s a clutterer with hoarding tendencies,
I’m a neat freak. He started businesses
that didn’t work out, I put my dreams of being a photographer/stylist/author on
hold while working good (but unfulfilling) jobs with benefits.
I was
homeless as a teen. All I’ve ever wanted
was a little refuge to call my own.
I built it, I
unexpectedly got a lot of press on it.
My dreams finally were coming true.
My new side career
blossomed, my unemployed husband’s depression worsened. Most ‘ditch the city for the country’ stories
you hear about are of well-heeled individuals that left six-figure jobs or sold
six-figure homes. I ain’t one of
them.
My refuge in
the form of a real home is like a flake of down in the air. The moment I reach it, it sidesteps
away. I’m not materialistic, I’m proud
to own few possessions, but my sentimentalism for some makes it difficult to
accept their loss.
This
lantern’s light once lit our table at our wedding, then our little campsite on
our honeymoon in the Catskills. I used
it in the very first magazine feature I sold.
I lost five matching 19th
century porch columns I bought for $25 at a yard sale. It will cost me $380 at a salvage yard to
replace them.
It looks like
a tiny house for tiny money. But, I make
tiny money. For someone a tick or two above living paycheck to paycheck, the fiscal setback is
monstrous. Especially in light of the
fact I need $7,000 in photography equipment, and my $5,000 Visa is maxed. That’s where I’m at.
So, I’m
living with Mom, looking for a night job.
I seek the
light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s always dark. Holiday
scenes that once inspired me pain me. Christmas music guaranteed to cheer me saddens
instead. I visited my old studio on the
hill to get a few shots for a magazine feature.
The old comfort is there, and irony.
Like millions worldwide, I wish I could live there. I’d never afford the road, the addition, and the septic
system making $20K a year up there.
Like the Grinch, my “heart is
full of unwashed socks”. (Last year, I
wrote a bubbly post to 'be understanding of Grinches'. Life.) The spark of creativity in my heart doesn’t
ignite. I’m uninterested in designing
vignettes and shooting. Or even putting
up a tree.
Then, a star appeared. A design star. A prominent author/stylist/photographer
contacted me to be in her upcoming holiday book. Another (also doing a book) commented on my
blog and we got to sharing, too. Their
compassion buoyed me, their burning passion for what they do heated my
blackened heart. And it’s lit anew.
Neil Peart wrote of losing
his daughter, wife, dog, and career in his memoir Ghost Rider, and one passage stays with me. In the West, we say, “once burnt, twice
shy.” But in Africa,
they say, “wood once burned is easier to light.”
Another great Canadian
writer’s final sentence in her novel Cat’s
Eye stays with me as well. Referring
to stars, Margaret Atwood wrote, “It’s old light, and there’s not much of
it. But it’s enough to see by.”
I go out in the warm
un-Christmasy evening. The sun, our
nearest star, sets. It is cloudy. Stars can lead us home if we navigate by
them. I cannot see the stars. I am lost.
I know they’re still there. But
I’m still lost.
I return to the place in the
woods two mere weeks ago I cut larch branches for holiday styling and shooting.
They burnt along with my
house.
There are more branches.
Their seeded cones are lovely along the dainty twigs. I remember some seeds need fire to germinate. I weep.
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I'm still blogging about my studio, don't worry!
Until next time, stay shabby!
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