Things About Light

I learned something today about gratitude. I try, for the most part, to operate out of a spirit of love and gratefulness and humility. Sometimes I suck at this, because, like all y’all, I am human and I am not always all of those things. Sometimes I am not even any of those things. Earlier this week I was really fighting ungratefulness and a mean spirit. I am not sure why. It would be easy to blame hormones or lack of good sleep or being homesick or whatnot, but whatever the cause, I had a hard time being nice.

I didn’t really feel like writing, but all the Writing People are adamant that writing is a discipline, not a whimsical option. So I made myself write. The writing that came out of me, being in a bad place was, in a word, bad. I mean it was funny, don’t get me wrong. But maybe it was funny at the expense of people I didn’t really know… based on outside observation. Maybe it was prejudiced. Maybe it was unkind.

If my words don’t come out of a place of gratitude and love, they have no business being. It doesn’t matter if they are true. It doesn’t matter if they are funny as hell. I get this. Part of me bucks against censorship and feels like I have some inalienable right to say whatever the heck I want. Nothing that I said was SO HORRIBLE or illegal or even totally wrong, but I KNOW BETTER. I know better than to let loose words of mine that come from a place of darkness. They do nobody any good.

When the sun disappeared behind the shadow of the moon for a few brief minutes yesterday morning, it brought into startling clarity, just how much I take for granted. The world was cold. Much colder than it had been only minutes before in the light of the sun. It was dark and colorless, like the light of the sun took out every hue of green and yellow and blue and red when it left. It was the dusky colorless of the last light in the evening, when the road and the trees and the herds of whitetail deer roving dangerously among it all are the same color. This is the difference between words that come out of darkness and words that come out of light. Color and warmth are in the light. It’s just how it is.

It’s not that I shouldn’t ever be able to laugh and make light of where I am and the TRULY ridiculous things going on around me, but I know when my voice is kind and when it is not. In reality, I work with a lot of great people, in amazing places, and I feel very blessed for the years that I have done this crazy cool job.

Here is what I learned: When I am where I am supposed to be (which I try to be, most of the time), I need to be grateful and kind and humble, and if I cannot be those things, then I need to be still and quiet. I learned that I don’t like a sunless, lightless world. I want to live in the sun, in the color and the warmth. I want others to live there with me.

If the moon were a little closer to the earth, we would lose the sunlight more often. It really is an amazing thing, this astronomical system we live in. It overwhelms me to think about the infinite minutia that dictate our survival. The tiny changes in temperature, atmosphere, angles and rotations that determine how we live or die on this planet are, in a word, epic. It’s like the little changes in mood, in motivation, in voice that determine the effect of a word on the world that it lands on.

All change is facilitated either through love or through hate. Real love is born from gratitude, accepting your worth and giving it back to those around you. Hate creeps in to fill up the absence of gratitude, the ugly insecurity of the lie that you are worthless. A lie I know like the back of my hand. We are such small, insignificant parts of this giant miracle of a world. I want the change that I bring to my tiny space to be rooted in the warmth and color of love and light. I want to speak love without flattery, truth without unkindness and hope without dishonesty. I want to make people smile, and laugh, and love more.

Photo Credit: Collin Andrew

Things I Skipped Over

I have been on this fire assignment for 11 days. Tomorrow I go home. I have written exactly NO WORDS this entire time. Pretty weird for me. Usually I am scratching off some loquacious communications either here or in other venues and getting my words out. But for almost two weeks I haven't had any words.

Maybe it's the week I spent working in the information office for the Area Command Team. Maybe I was inundated with words from crazy dumb people and it coincided with the guilt ridden deadline for the newspaper that I was seriously underachieving. Maybe I was worded out for awhile. I don't know.

I certainly isn't lack of things to say. I have been working with characters of all flavors on the North Star Fire that deserve mention at the very least, and full chronicling at best. I've run the gamut of a head cold, an earth quake, at least five different division supervisors, an education in Army National Guard medicine and a work force fresh off the boat from Australia and New Zealand.

My days consist of an alarm that goes off (when my phone isn't dead) at 05:25 AM, me putting it off until 06:10, which is when I inexplicably wake up voluntarily every morning. I get up and stagger to the bathroom here that has flushing toilets AND running water to brush my teeth before I appear in the medical unit to save a few pre-breakfast lives. On a normal fire we'd be up and at briefing by 06:00 but this is not a normal fire, for which I am grateful.,

Instead our briefing is at 06:45 and I shuffle over with my coffee and wedge myself amongst the safety officers and branch directors and listen to the weather report and fire behavior predictions, before I moved with the herd into our division breakout and get the specific rundown for the geographic area where I have been assigned.

It's here that the division supervisor makes some joke about my hair or how many naps I will get in during a shift and establishes my identity for the rest of his crews.

Then we have breakfast, which is invariably eggs and some pork product. I have been skipping lately, because you can only have eggs and pork so many times before it's just enough.

After breakfast I go back to the medical unit, where I sit and regret what I have eaten for awhile, and take care of a few last minute fire guys who need their blisters wrapped, a dose of DayQuil, or some blue fairy powder before we all head out to the line.

A typical drive to the line from fire camp is usually 30-45 minutes. This fire is no exception, and the road to division zulu is a combination of paved and dirt, including some spots of knee-deep moon dust that will coat the inside of your truck and mouth with a pasty film.

Then it's sitting. Radio into the Incident Command Post that I am at the drop point. Tie in with the division supervisor so he knows I am near by. Check with the crews, hand out some dayquil, hand sanitizer and bandaids. And sitting. Watching movies, reading books, scanning the radio, ears perking at any variation of the word medic, medical, emergency, injury... A few times a day I get a visit from a task force leader or heavy equipment boss, looking for cough drops, nail clippers, checking to see which movies I brought to watch.

The best part of a fire is the characters you get to meet. Like Dale from Australia - who got a head cold and thought I saved his life with a little Mucinex. Or Zane from Colorado who was secretly a paramedic but working as a task force leader and funny as heck. On this roll there was PFC Sevarina Zinc - an army medic who stayed busy at the medical unit checking people for eye worms and sinus infections. Then her replacement was a special forces army Sgt Lynch who had done multiple tours overseas and probably could have ACTUALLY diagnosed eye worms and sinus infections. I had a division supervisor who loaned me A Picture of Dorian Gray when I ran out of books. And a contractor who waited anxiously for me to get finished with my two copies of Cosmo so they could abscond with them. There was the weird engine dude who came into the med unit every night for "Supplies", wearing his radio harness and radio, hard hat, safety goggles and headlamp. Because ALWAYS BE READY.

I feel pretty lucky to be doing this job - at least until somebody gets on the radio hollering for the line medic and it's up to me to figure out how to haul out a blown knee from a ravine about a quarter mile deep, or something worse. I am thankful that I don't get a lot of the worses - I am perfectly content to deal with ankles and feet and arm gouges and spider bites and not have to see someone's career (or worse) end before my eyes. I don't need that kind of excitement. I get enough waiting to see which division supervisor finds my hiding spot and hangs out with me all day.

Things About Doing It

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about running, or more accurately, not running.

I mentioned the personal life goal I had of passing the pack test. The 45 minute, three mile, 45 pound wildland fire fitness test, required for all line personnel. It's not a big deal, right? Thousands of firefighters pass this thing every single year like it's no big deal. Thousands of young, whole, healthy firefighters who aren't me...

I haven't been able to pass it for the past five. Five years ago, in Bend, when I tried to pass it, twice, I didn't finish it time. That was after 6 years of passing it. I even passed the moderate when I was pregnant with Aspen, because, you know, I am a badass. But there I was in 2010, testing with a new fire organization, a bunch of strangers... a bunch of firefighting strangers. Nothing like making a fool of yourself in front of a slew of firefighters. Twice. Turns out I had a vertebral disc that was working it's way out one side of the space between my L5/S1 junction. It just wasn't happening.

Then the Forest Service decided that too many people were dying of heart attacks taking the arduous pack test, so only firefighters with jobs that absolutely required that level of fitness were allowed to take it. For a few years, they considered line EMTs a non-arduous qualification, and I was spared the agony of not passing it for awhile. This was good considering I had three surgeries to try to fix or remove the female organs that were killing me slowly during this time, so I was heavily entrenched in excuses.

Then somebody up top got smart: of course the line EMTs need the pack test - they're on the freaking line. But for us broken old EMTs, they made it optional, with a pay raise for the young bucks who could crank it out. The choice was mine, and something inside of me wasn't ready to roll over and play dead just yet. Even though the disc that was slipping before had now degenerated to nothing, I started practicing with 10 pounds, then 15, then 20... All the while reminding myself that I probably couldn't pass it this year, and didn't have to, and that extra $4/hr wouldn't make THAT much of a difference.

But in the back on my mind there was this thing. I saw it in a counselors office, as I sat there and listened to how my trust issues and lack of money management skills were making me impossible to live with, and trying to think how I could prioritize these things over keeping four girls alive to adulthood and somehow not lose myself in the process... It was a little sign that said only : "She Thought She Could and So She Did". It haunted me. As if I knew deep down that the only thing holding me back was the permission I was giving myself to not succeed.

With the gentle nudging of my best friends, I began to buy into it. Maybe I can. No, I know I can, if I can just meet this one goal first. And then the next... I met each of my workout landmarks, and I started to panic as I removed my excuses for not at least attempting the test. The reality that I understood was that if I started it, failure was not an option. I would not strap that pack on for a second attempt this year. I would not admit defeat again, like I had to in Bend. So I lost sleep for two weeks, arguing with myself about the ridiculousness of it all. I kept practicing, and psyching myself up. And then it came.

The day of the test, my buddy promised to pace me. Just like my best friend at home, I told him to keep on pace, just ahead of me, so I knew where  I needed to get to for a passing speed. The guys administering the test were good friends of mine and I watched with sweaty palms and minor palpitations as they weighed the vest and adjusted it to be sure it wasn't an ounce over 45 pounds. I have some awesome people in my life, you guys. The boys helped me get into my harbinger of doom, which almost didn't feel that heavy, until the walking started.

I could feel my hips creaking and my back grinding with every step, and the shin splints were burning within the first quarter mile. But it was do or die. I almost quit at a half mile. The pace seemed impossible and the weight was literally choking the life out of me. But I kept chanting in my head "she thought she could. she thought she could. I think I can, I think I can." I was like the Little Engine, chug-chugging across the pavement, red faced and not pretty at all. My buddy was a few steps ahead. Every time I gasped or grunted he turned to make sure I wasn't face down on the sidewalk in a puddle of aged regret.

I almost quit again at one mile. I was losing steam and my pace was barely on time. My shins were screaming, and if I had been able to see out of my eyes I was pretty certain there would have been a steady flow of blood pouring out from under the bones in my legs. "One more step. She thought she could. One more step. A little quicker. I think I can."

Two miles in and I was over time. I wasn't going to make it.  I almost cried but I was too exhausted. Clearly I hadn't trained enough. As if any amount of training makes the weight seem OK. Sometime after the second mile marker the burn in my shins started to die down, the spasmed muscles let go and my pacer turned with a concerned look when he heard my sigh of delight. I put my head down and picked up an awkward joggy rhythm that probably looked sort of like an emu running in place. Not finishing on time was clearly an unacceptable end to this mini-drama that I had created for myself. I had half a mile left when one of my good buddies showed up along side me and started to give me crap, which is always a useful motivator for me. A little while later and another bestie popped up on my other side. Then my boss was there, and some random lady I don't know. With a quarter mile left I had half a dozen cheerleaders jogging alongside me like my own personal fan club. Even my the guy formerly known as my husband got in on the pep rally.

The pacer kept me moving, and as I crossed the finish, with 30 seconds to spare, he came back and somehow wrung me out of the vest that had become one with my frame. There were at least 5 people pawing at that stupid vest to get it off me, half of them I am sure because they wanted to be ready to hook me up to a defibrillator when I collapsed. I was done. It was done. I had passed it one more time in my life.

The pep squad made me walk a little longer to cool down, which seemed like the cruelest part. But they did all offer to buy me a beer. I have every intention of holding them to it sooner or later.

After about 15 minutes of tottering on the brink of death, I recovered, and I felt like I had just won the lottery. I even jogged through the parking lot, humming the Rocky theme triumphantly, on the way back. I thought I could, and I did, but more importantly, all of them thought so too, and they made it happen. That's the beautiful thing about friendships - there is so much confidence in having the right people around you to hold you up when a 45 pound vest has beaten the shit out of you. I wonder if this means I have to split my wage increase with them?

this is me in the weight vest, pre-test. the smile is fake.

PS - I haven't done a single lick of exercise since the test. FOR SHAME!

Things About Fire

I was driving off of the line last night, right through a big burn that some hot shots had just fired off. It was beautiful. More beautiful than Christmas Lights on Snob Hill. More beautiful than Pirates of the Caribbean. More captivating and powerful and terrifying and beautiful than almost anything. All at once. As I drove, I thought to myself, you're the luckiest girl alive. Here you are, broken, weak, quite nearly useless, and you get to see this. To be here. Not only that, you're getting paid. Fire is awesome. You know you're doing the right thing when you can't get over how frakking much you love it.

This is fire. There is no camera or artist that will ever be able to capture the heat that radiates over the road, through the windows of the car, warming the side of your face to remind you, ever-so-gently, that it could melt you into a puddle of nothing. If it decided to. If it ganged up with the wind and felt like it. 

Fire is a destructive force. As with almost all naturally occurring elements, given free reign. It is one of the most amazing and valuable chemical reactions. It has the power to heal as much as destroy. But such power. Two days ago, the only road to where we were working looked like this: 

Today, after a few over zealous hotshots had their way, and we nearly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of heavy equipment, it looks like this:

The fire blew so forcefully and quickly through that the needles on the trees on the east side of the road didn't even have time to burn off. Just blow sideways and fry to a crisp fall orange. Unnatural for an evergreen. This part of the forest isn't healed. If any of the trees survived, they will struggle through decades of fighting with a new ecosystem to continue their growth. In some places, the burn is gentle and friendly, like a mother changing her baby's diaper. Just cleaning things up. It's not pleasant, unless you happen to be a fire junkie (most of us out here are), but it's necessary and good. Kind of like killing all of the spiders in the world.  

I can never get enough. The smell, even when my eyes and throat and lungs are burning - The smell makes me want to strap on a shelter and a hard hat and tromp into the woods just to see it move through the trees. Something so powerful and mysterious and uncontrollable. Watch the silly little people in their yellow and green chase it furiously with their ineffective tools until the fire grows weary of the game and chases them back to the relative safety of their precious lines. Lines that often don't hold, in spite of the countless hours and dollars pumped into them. Whether the lines hold is really more up to the wind, and the sun, and every entity in the woods that isn't wearing green and yellow. All it takes is a singed bunny with a smoking hieny to cross the lines and drag his glowing, emberous cottontail through the crispy green brush. It's happened. But we're here, we draw our lines and chase our smoke and sometimes we get lucky and have the wind and the sun and the rain on our side, when they get tired of the arrogant flame front and his bossiness. And then we win. It's a melancholy win through, killing the passionate beast and trudging through gray sludge as we cool down the messy remains. Every job has its downside. For this one, putting a fire out isn't nearly as fun as outwitting the prolonged chase of it, directing it to where you want it to go in a fashion that will serve the purposes of the forest. Putting the fire out just means moving to the next game of tag, and starting all over. From April Showers til well past the first snowfall of winter, we chase it. Like a virulent  strain of a deadly contagion, we must catch up with it and squelch it. Not much rest. Losing sight of everything else that is important in our lives. Knowing that we can put things off until later. That it's FIRE SEASON and we must go.