the saving grace

It’s raining. It’s been raining now for a few hours. The reservoirs all around California are full to the brim, and the snow hasn’t even completely melted. It’s a banner year for water. I learned today (I heard it on the radio) that this makes the probability of summer fires even higher, as the grasses are thicker, more abundant than usual. By midsummer they will be a fire hazard. The knowledge of this has really thrown me. I’m a Californian. I’ve lived thru many drought years, and have those years inextricably linked to fear of fires. How strange to learn at this juncture that heavy rainfall is as much a harbinger of summer fire as a winter of drought.

Hearing this news today, I recalled the summer of my childhood when grass fires were a constant fear and threat. My family lived in the country, in the rolling hills south of San Jose. That summer there were several fires in the hills, and my parents had impressed on me the danger of fire hitting our large propane tank. It was out in the field in back of the house, and we kept the grass mowed down around it. I remembered today seeing the fire spreading down the hill towards our house, towards the propane tank. I remembered calling the fire department and my father at his work. The fire department got there just minutes before the fire would have reached the propane tank. My father roared up to find me in the gravel yard in front of our house, sitting on his locked metal box of important papers, holding my mother’s prettiest dress and my Barbie doll. I knew what was important to save. I can still sense my father walking towards me, how he inhabited his suit, his laughter at seeing what I chose to save, my sense of safety with his presence.

I don’t remember where my mother was, or my siblings. For years, I assumed the fire was a result of the drought. My sister Stacy eventually put me straight that the fires of that summer were set by my disturbed foster brother, who would eventually be taken out of our home after raping the mentally retarded sister of our neighbor. Stacy has filled me in on lots of missing gaps from my childhood, not being as disassociative as I, and serving well as the family’s historian.

This all rushed back today as I drove to work. All day it’s been tugging at me, this new knowledge that excessive rain brings the danger of summer fire. My father’s desire to have a son, my parent’s yearning to help out an abused child, this resulted in me and my sisters being put in danger. The lack of water, the lack of love, these lead to thirst, dryness, and the possibility of scorched earth. Today, I thought about the fires, the burning, the immolation that have occurred in my life as a result of Aphrodite's torrential rains. The swollen heart of falling in love, soaking up the wild wetness of this kind of downpour, sets you up for wild fires as well. The saving grace, which of course, nature is full of, is that scorched earth is fertile ground for regeneration. It’s been crazy winter and spring. Looks like it may be one hell of a summer.