I received a voicemail a few days ago which in addition to the multitude of other saved messages I have from you people I treasure deeply.  This one I transcribed; these words I needed to hear and to remember.  Thank you Anne Gillespie for saying:
“Stay in the manure as long as you fricken need to.  Anyone who thinks that grief looks pretty and can be tied up in a little box and is linear hasn’t been through it.  Grief is messy and unpredictable and non-linear.  It’s really good one day and like hell the next day.  There is nothing you need to do.”
As long as I fricken need to...  What I want to tell you today is that I just want to go home.  I really really do.  I just want to go to my home.  That home.  The one that is lost forever and now is being scraped away.  That’s what I want.  I want this experiment to be over and things to go back to “normal”.  I want my bed, my sheets, my creaky staircase, and my infestation of stinkbugs in the bedroom.  I want my leopard chairs, my silver spoons that are the perfect size for a serving of agave in my coffee.  I want my beautiful stove, my claw foot tub.  I want my windows.  I want my meditation loft and my purple office.  I want to sit in there and contemplate the world and my life and think about how lucky I am to live in such a place.  That’s what I want. 
I wrote yesterday but only managed to squeak out 456 words.  Given I have been cranking out an average of a 1000 every time I write, this felt like writing failure.  And, I couldn’t quite “finish” the piece so I ended up abandoning it and going dress shopping (more on that in a minute). 
Now I have 39 minutes to write this post and get it out there.  I really want to keep my morning writing routine.  At 6:51, I am getting a later start than usual and need to leave the house at 7:30.  Pressure.  Writing under pressure doesn’t flow so well.  Writing what comes to me as I sit is very different than writing on a prescribed topic or under a time limit.  Yesterday, I began (again) my challenge of re-writing my book Waiting for Jack.  And, yesterday on my second attempt since the fire, I went down many paths none of which lead to many words on the page.  I took a drive into town, got breakfast at Einstein’s, took the garbage out, browsed house plan books and websites.  And, I was very very sleepy.  I had planned to write all day yet it took me until 10am to even sit in front of the computer.  A rusty 456 words later, I still wasn’t getting anywhere.  I did do some cleaning of my email inbox however. 
I love my husband.  He was up before the sun, making coffee and writing his blog (www.northforkashes.com) – and these are not the only reasons I love him.  I love him because he is a very good man.  He is someone I am proud to go through this life with.  Besides our melee on Sunday, we really haven’t fought during this stressful time.  We have pulled together and are walking through this side by side. 
We have more space for each other than usual.  In the regular course of events, we get along well but often have little spats that sound like, “you stepped on my toe”, “no, you stepped on mine!” “Well, you did it first…” Or some equally ridiculous argument that most couples engage in.  We haven’t been doing that recently. 
I look into his tired eyes and see my own.  I read his thoughtful words and allow them to alter me.  I watch him cry as he thinks about how lucky I was to get out alive and the tragedy of the loss of our neighbors.  He pats my head when I am too tired to think and the world seems very very dark.  We crack up at each others jokes no matter how bad they are.  And we experience pure joy as we watch our dogs ongoing antics – the ultimate proof of goodness in life. 
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. 
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead
What will this day hold?  More letters to the Governor?  Sifting through emotional ashes?  Meetings with attorneys?  Writing insurance inventory?  Maybe a walk with the dogs?  Then falling into bed at the end of the day exhausted yet waking up before the sun far from rested?  I wonder.
Except for a few precious things, my life is unrecognizable from before.  Fortunately, I do have the same friends – and even more than before, I must say.  My friends carry me when I want to stop.  Two of my dearest have shared their letters they wrote to the Governor they both voted for yet now are dismayed to watch him shrug his shoulders and shirk his responsibility.  I am beyond touched by their words.   
Yesterday, around 30 neighbors and families attended a hearing at the Capitol on proposed House Bill 32 152, which would raise caps for compensation for fire victims.  Representative Cheri Gerou (a mountain area resident) co-sponsored the bill with Representative Bob Gardner.
I haven’t been to the Capital since college.  The building is beautiful and Gerou and Gardner chose to have the hearing held in the old Supreme Court chambers, an elegant vaulted room with towering stain glass images of original Colorado settlers.  The room was perfect as we discussed our fine state and what it stood for: the Wild West tamed for habitation infused with the spirit of independence formed by a community of like-minded people.
The words “by the people for the people” emerge from the fog of my formative years.  I googled this to recall the source: Lincoln’s famous quote from the Gettysburg address. “…this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
I coach my author clients to sit for as long as it takes to get words on a page.  This morning, my resistance is robust.  I am pulled to zone out.  I don’t want to write.  Tired of saying the same things in different ways, I worry you are tired too.  I indulged in a very large peanut butter cookie last night (I know, alert the press!) and have a sugar hangover.  Fuzzy headed, my thoughts are sludge.  I misplaced my reading glasses so I squint and barely make out the screen.  Yet, still I sit.  I remember my darkest day yet was the day I chose not write... I don’t want to go there again.  Writing has become my way of greeting the day, of processing what needs to be processed.  Yes, I may be saying similar things.  My brain is still attempting to make sense of the nonsensical.  It is still processing the trauma.  And, as the numbness wears off the jagged reality emerges.  There is no going back.  This is my new life.  Who would have thunk it?
Yesterday, I watched the last of the metal scraps that once were my house be towed away.  As the flatbed flexed to pick up the load, I caught a final glimpse before it disappeared from view.  Pieces of my house, pieces of my life, memories turned into heaps of metal tumbled together then vanished down the road on their journey to recycling.
Contentment consists not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire - Thomas Fuller
On my women’s abundance call, we discussed the concept of contentment.  What does it mean to be content?  When are we most content?  The inquiry ended with an invitation to begin each day in contentment as a context for our day.  I politely declined.  I don’t want to do that right now. 
I am not sure I really know what it means to be content.  Or maybe I do know, and I just forget.   I do long for it.  But the truth is, I have always longed for it. Even in all my appreciation of and gratitude for my life, contentment alluded me.  If I don’t end up more content on the other side of this grand adventure, I want my money back!
Yes, I do know that contentment is not an arrival point… I know it but I don’t live from that knowing.  My Mac tells me that contentment means: “quietly satisfied and happy”.  It’s the satisfaction part that gets me.  What is it to be satisfied?  What does that feel like?  
I slept in until 7am!  Amazing.  Not quite rested, but happy that my wee hour wake up did not keep me awake.  Although I “slept in”, I feel heavy headed.  Every day, as I sit down to write; I don’t know what will come.  I process what needs to be processed.  I say what is there immediately, or what comes to me as I sit.
Today, as I sit down to write, I wonder if my writing will happen; if I will find my flow.  Right now, it feels effortful.  I worry I will run out of words before I run out of life.  Then Tigger throws up on the carpet and I jump up to scrub the green vomit before it becomes a stain.
During that task, my thoughts come in the form of sentences that need to be written.  Often, when I process internally, my thoughts come out this way.  Based on that evidence, I can’t imagine I will ever run out of words.  It is just a concern that we writers face: the dreaded “writers block”. 
This morning, my spinning mind won’t let me go back to sleep.  Emerging pattern:  3am, I have to pee, then I toss and turn until 5am and get up… No thank you.   The fear won't release it's grip.  Fear that I won’t fit back in to my life – I won’t.  Fear that people’s support will dry up – it will.  Fear of being alone – we all are alone.  Yes, we all are connected, but we all are ultimately alone.  It’s PMS time, so my feelings are deeper and more raw.  I always have a little of this during my time of the month.  I become over sensitive, hyper reactive, thin-skinned and more fun things.
The world is moving on.  It has to.  Our world is moving, but just not “on” yet.  After May 12th, we don’t know where we will be staying.  We have been living in luxury through the generosity of our dear friends Lynn and Laurie who offered their majestic log home.  We have had the much much much needed space to ourselves.  So many thoughtful people offered rooms – and we deeply appreciate all offers – however having our own space is essential for our healing.  Not having to make polite – or not so polite – conversation with generous hosts is important.  Here, we don’t have to talk to anyone.  We can leave dishes in the sink, walk around naked and fart when we feel like it.  All very important things.  For people who have lost everything, we sure can make a mess.  The 6-person dining room table is command central.  It is caked with stacks of notebooks for inventory, piles of new receipts as we buy groceries and replace some essential housewares (like a new French press!), as well as cards of love sent from near and far and gift certificates sent to support us our replacement efforts.  It’s hard to find a place to sit down. 
I did it.  I read the report.  And, now I feel sick.  I smell my own sweat in my stress reaction. I will share some of what I read.  And, some of what I heard at the Town Hall meeting last night. 
But first, I must say that there are those who are already saying we mountain residents should buck up.  We chose to live in a fire zone so what are we whining about.  I have actually seen comments such as these.  To that I say, when it’s an act of God, a fire is still devastating – and yes, we live here knowing this is a possibility.  We, like many of our neighbors had a “defensible space” around our home.  And, ironically, we received a grant from the Forest Service to preform this work.  They approved the thinning and marked trees that needed to go.  We also had a metal roof, fire resistant decking and metal siding on 1/3 of our house.  This fire was not an act of God.  It was an act of human error - and bureaucracy at it’s finest.   So yes, we are a little mad. 
I must remember, it’s always the ignorant that spout off at the mouth and are critical of a victim’s response.  We are all familiar with the “blame the rape victim” reaction.  “Well, she shouldn’t have been wearing such a short skirt and walking the streets by herself…”  These morons are to be expected.  When they turn up in our government, it is a little more disturbing.