This blog was originally written in 2017 About the Santa Rosa Wildfires
2am on Monday morning. I wake up to the sound of my husband’s cell phone ringing. He doesn’t respond and I reach for the light. The electricity is off. My throat feels raw and the air is thick with smoke. I jump out of bed yelling for Doug to wake up and my cell phone is ringing now. I respond with one hand while putting on my pants with the other. Our friend Steve yells in my ear, “Get out of there right now!” «Are!» I respond.
Using cell phones as flashlights, Doug and I run through the dark house grabbing our laptops and photo albums. Outside on the street, a megaphone voice shouts: “Evacuate now!” We throw what we’ve grabbed into the trunk of the car and when Doug opens the garage door, we see our neighbors getting into their cars, shadows in the white fog of the headlights. The air is warm like a summer day and between the trees I see a crimson glow. As I maneuver the car down the street, I grip the steering wheel tightly, clinging to something solid behind me, so much of what I love escapes me.
Twenty minutes later I turn the key in the lock of my mother’s studio in Sebastopol, 15 miles from Santa Rosa CA. We gently wake her up and turn on the TV in her bedroom. At 85 years old, my mother has mild cognitive impairment, but she is calm as we watch the news, trying to understand what happened. I feel like I’m dreaming but I’m hyper alert and awake. We are alive, I think. It was a full-blown fight, freeze, flight situation and I responded. Thanks, monkey mind!
For the rest of the night and all morning my mind races, reliving our escape over and over again. On Monday afternoon, almost 24 hours exactly after the call that woke us up, I receive a call from a trusted neighbor confirming that our house is burned. It was as expected. I felt numb. That night I fall into a long, deep sleep.
The next morning some friends call about a possible rental space and my husband and I go see it. It is very hard with only a wood stove to warm up. It would need a lot of work and it could never be my home. That’s when the impact of what happened comes. I am a homebody by nature and loved my home. I need a place where I can recharge and regenerate. The simple comfort of my soft sheets to crawl on, my husband and my dog to snuggle with, is one of the greatest joys I have. My kitchen, where I love to cook and listen to music. My desk overlooking the Santa Rosa Valley. It’s all over! Our friends tell me about the place and the fire, but I can’t understand what they say. I say quietly to Doug, “I have to go.”
In my work I teach my clients to accept anxiety and other negative emotions, which are natural expressions of the limbic brain that is dedicated to our safety and survival, what I like to call the monkey mind. Now, here was the pain of loss, right in my path.
Back in my mother’s study, I sat on the couch next to her while she knitted. My body started to shake and I snuggled into his lap. My heart hurt in the most literal sense of the word. «Put your hand on the back of my heart,» I said. I felt the warmth of his hand and let it penetrate. “I don’t have a home, I love my home,” I sobbed.
I cried for half an hour in my mother’s arms. I cried until I was dry and exhausted. I felt calm. My mind was empty. I floated in the calm channel until the next wave came.
As a therapist and author who specializes in stress and anxiety, and who lost my home in the Santa Rosa fire, I write this blog to remind myself of the powerful tools I use in my practice with my clients. If it helps others face their own challenges, nothing would please me more.
Originally written in 2017 about the Santa Rosa wildfires
