I used to take a childish delight in natural disasters; riding my bike down a dirt road toward a funnel cloud with the hope of seeing a real tornado. One winter I lay down during an ice storm until the frozen slush covered all but my nose, thinking I might disappear into its mysteries. Flash floods were cool. It took a hurricane to finally satisfy my curiosity about nature's fury. Rebuilding in the midst of martial law and food scarcity brings a human scale to natural disaster. About all I can do to help during this fire is to stay out of the way. But why am I mesmerized by this force of nature?
When the Castle Rock Fire was small we watched it from Frenchman's Hot Springs until the sheriff told us to get moving. When Happy Hour patrons clogged the street to watch the flames licking at the edge of town a few days later, they grew quiet as if drawn to the event for some deeper purpose of their own. Even as we pull together as a community, each of us seems to watch the fire alone, as though it holds a personal secret for each of us. Is it because we are finally faced with something quite possibly beyond our control? Much of what we do during our day-to-day lives--the agreements we keep, the rules we follow--gives us a sense of order and control. The stuff we have and the homes we cherish give us a sense of routine and stability. Many of these things look merely provisional in sight of the shifting smoke of the fire.
Regardless of our situation in life, it is clear that something elemental has come to town and we are all in the same boat as we watch. Some will be heroes; others will take flight, while most of us will continue on as before. But the message is the same for us all: Impermanence lies at the heart all that we create. Every kid finds this out like a secret at a certain age and whispers about it to his friends, grows up and decides to participate in life anyway. Someone once said that every person sooner or later has to look into the abyss of his or her fear and when he does, he sees something there. That something is what will keep him out of the abyss forever and that something is called "character."
What kids can't always see is the way a town relies upon the interactions of its citizens to exist; that active participation in a community, the relationships among its members, more than money or stuff, are what make a town possible. Thanks to many from outside our community, all is well for now. The movie theaters still advertise the latest dreamscape, dogs are running in the park and people are reading in the libraries. A child just old enough to walk looks up at the helicopters circling the smoky hills like insects. May what each of us sees in the fire remind us of the miracle we have become, and may we consider more deeply what we are here to do.
Tony Evans
