Imagine Ashes

Artist Unknown

Am I too attached to this?

I find myself silently asking myself over and over, "Am I too attached to this?"

I've seen a lot in over three decades and what I know for sure is that everything and everyone can be taken away. None of this belongs to me and despite my desire to hold on to it all, I've accepted that there is only one ending to my story and none of this - most of all the people, cannot go with me.

I've watched so many LA homes burn and people telling stories of how their loved ones didn't make it out. "Didn't make it out" is just a gentle way to say that they burned to death. I don't want to soften the impact that those words have on anyone who couldn't imagine...

The irony is that I'm sure we could imagine. The thought crushes me so I push it away with those words - "I can't imagine".  Well, I've imagined. I sat in silence, in the dark, and I imagined.

Everything was ash.

I imagined the adrenaline I would have evacuating. I imagined thinking why didn't we have fire drills?  Maybe we could have saved time because I imagined that we took separate cars so we could take more "things" should our home burn.

I imagined that taking 2 cars would be best but not wanting to split up because I was terrified. 

I imagined watching the news and having a roller coaster of emotions. Huge waves of despair and hope; violently shifting from fear to faith.  So many emotions went through me as I imagined coming back to what once was my home.

Not my secondary home.

Not my vacation home.

My one & only space on this Earth. 

The walls that became arms that held me when I felt alone, the walls that sheltered me in every storm - internal & external.  I imagined my home, my shelter, on the ground and a pile of ashes and I cried.  

I wanted to stop imagining just to stop the pain I felt but I kept thinking.  

Thinking about the pictures, the love notes, the birthday cards that had my daddy's handwriting in them... I imagined it all as ashes and I sobbed. I cried so much I wondered if tears could extinguish fires.

I wept for the the things I didn't use every day. Somehow, in this moment all the things I kept in books and boxes were the things I mourned the most. The flash drives with pictures,  the laptops with pictures, the newspaper clippings of babies we know when they were born or obituaries of friends gone too soon. All the things we've collected because they connected with us in some form of fashion, are gone. 

Only existing as ashes.

I imagined everything that I worked hard to obtain to make my time here pleasurable, under my feet as ashes and I cried.

I opened my eyes and I was still sitting on my bed, everything still in its place and to my surprise, I didn't feel thankful.  This is what happens when you imagine; their problems become our problems because WE went through this and I was angry.

I could imagine, I did imagine, and when I opened my eyes I was enraged that the insurance companies dropped & robbed these paying policyholders of the one thing that was in place to assure that they had the means to rebuild should shit happen.

Shit happened and the insurance that was paid for to provide assurance is gone. Not because it was ashes but because someone decided that they no longer were covering these incidents. Imagine if that were your home and all the money you've spent on insurance just to have them deny your claim...  THAT scenario?!  I still can't imagine. 

That should be illegal or there should be talks of giving people their money back so they can add it to their funds to rebuild not only their homes but their lives.

So yes, I am too attached to this. This life, this experience,  the hope as well as the despair. The way I am expressing that attachment is changing but, I am hopelessly attached to the space that was created for us all to thrive and flourish.  But most importantly, I am attached to what is right, honest, and pure.