Life in the Ivory Tower: Update from the Field

I just now realized that I was choosing to do pretty much anything rather that write an update on the aftermath of a house fire we had in March. If you aren’t familiar with the story, I’ll post links to my previous “Updates from the Field” down below.

Why the resistance? A bunch of reasons, probably. The most obvious, perhaps, is that I would rather think about anything but what I have to think about on a daily basis. Goodness knows, there’s plenty of distractions from it. Life in general offers many opportunities to put whatever we don’t want to deal with on a shelf somewhere in our mind.

On a trauma level, the book I’ve gotten halfway through but have abandoned in favor of coloring…that book suggests that one way to release trauma is to talk about what happened. I really haven’t done that yet, and my eyes are all stingy thinking about it. I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to recount everything that happened that day…

You guys, this is why I haven’t penned an update in forever.

At the same time, the house we’ve been living in is really nice. I call it the Ivory Tower, even though it’s a very light gray color outside. It totally is a tower, though. The house is built into a steep hillside, and we’ve been living mostly in the top (3rd) floor. This newly added master bedroom suite is just lovely, and it greatly resembles the suite we lived in for our final two weeks living in a hotel (but nicer).

For that reason, Nova (our surviving kitty Love) is most comfortable up here. Consequently, it’s where we all spend most of our time. Truth be told, there remains, probably, a safety factor for us as well. We still don’t go out much. It’s lovely and roomy here, though, and it’s nice to have so much space to spread out in and be however we need to be.

It’s a big house we’re living in, with a finished basement in which certain of our rescued items have lain still for four months now. I got a wild hair to toss a recovered blanket that the fabric people didn’t bother with into the wash the other day. It was a sad reminder of why I don’t go down there, and why all those things are still covered with soot, remaining outside the perimeter of my voluntary awareness.

So here’s how it is sometimes, and I have tears starting again as I write this, but I washed the blanket that Cousteau died on. I may never use it again, and maybe at some point it will be relegated to a beach blanket or something. I don’t know. I just know that my sadness about Cousteau in particular is really always just under the surface for me…and now my face is wet and my nose is all stuffy.

Dramatic? Maybe. This is me being real and raw, and I’ve been putting this off for too long.

It’s why I haven’t written.

Now that I have that uncomfortable part on paper, please do let me share with you the magic that’s here…

For one thing, the money to replace our personal property is just wonderful to have. We took our first trip to a mall last week to start replacing things that you just want to see in person. My daughter is like a Barbie Doll, and most of her things were ruined. Happily, the mall stores were good to her. I, on the other hand, wasn’t feeling inspired by anything much at all.

The fabric people were able to save some of my clothing, but given the chance to replace stuff that I’ve had for many years, and that I bought in a thrift store in the first place…oh, yes please! I really wanted to like something, and I even tried on some jeans. No luck there. We took a break to get something to eat, and the place we ended up in to fulfill that important mission even had gluten free flatbread. Major bonus! And it was very good.

I suppose it’s only fair to include that we ordered cocktails there as well, and honestly, it made the remainder of our travels through that monumental mall much more enjoyable. That fact may have influenced my complete lack of hesitation when we walked into a boot store and I saw this hat on the wall. I love wearing hats, and every single one of mine were ruined. I saw this one, slipped it on my head, looked in the mirror, and didn’t take it off until we got back home.

I confess that I didn’t even know what I paid for it until later. Worth every penny.

Anyway…a month or so ago (hard to tell with how fast it’s going), we drove up to a Farm store in the next county specifically because they carry these fabulous Adirondack chairs that are super comfy, and made of that decking material that is entirely unaffected by weather. It was a joy to be able to order two of them with a little table for in between.

Even greater a joy it is, though, to sit in them on the front deck gazing at this truly lovely lake view. We would go out there in the warm mornings when the sun was still behind the house to enjoy our tea. Sometimes in the afternoons, we’d go out and actually sit in the sun, and I would wonder where I’ll be finding a good (and, of course, stylish) sun hat.

The sunsets here have just been so wonderful and spectacular, too. We’ve been tracking where on the far hillside the sun disappears over time, based on this one very tall tree on the ridge.

We’ve watched hunting dragonflies at dusk shoot like tiny arrows and then change direction in an instant on their quest for dinner. Kinda like our Galactic friends and their silent light ships. Last night, the clouds shone like golden strips of shimmering silk against a cornflower blue sky, and they were right above us, too…almost like we could wave our arms and, whoosh! …shift their configuration.

There’s a thermal that develops right in front here, too. Our deck is above the street by maybe 17 feet in elevation, so aside from telephone wires, our view of what happens in the sky is unobstructed. The Turkey Vultures come and play in those warm air tubes, gliding effortlessly in invisible shifting spirals. Watching them is balm for our souls. We gaze upward with smiling faces, no other thoughts in our heads. This is a good spot that we landed in.

Both things are true…we are most fortunate, and we’re truly and sincerely grateful. We know and appreciate how supported we are. And my sadness dwells always just under the surface, emerging at the slightest provocation. The nature of existence underpins my every thought these days, and my concerns about pretty much anything are mild to non-existent.

I’m just not worried about anything.

And shocking as it is to me, the confluence of banking and insurance, contractors, mortgages and an ex-husband has pretty much made it so that I only just this past Friday brought sealed architectural plans to my town’s building department, to pick up all the permit applications we’ll need to fill out and submit.

That’s right…a full five months after the fire, and there’s been a lot of work, but no rebuilding yet.

How long will it take my contractor to get those forms filled out and submitted? Unknown. A girl can hope, right? This all is definitely not the preferred method for reinventing one’s life, but the Silver Linings are voluminous…and the grieving will be over at some point.