The state of my heart is on fire

There are three times in my life that I have prayed to God to have my home spared from a fire. The first was in 1991, when a brush fire swept through the canyon that our home stood by. I remember Dad, Jason, and Jared, standing on the rooftop, hosing the house and yard down, doing everything they could to stop the fire from leaping across the narrow divide and onto our house. While they did this, my Mom and I packed up the valuables into the family minivan. Let me rephrase that. My Mom packed most of the 'real' household valuables, as well as the pets, and I was responsible for putting in the van what my brothers and I deemed the most important things to us. I recall packing Jared's baseball cards, and Jason's tapes and records. I can also recall the exact contents of my bag: some clothes, my photo albums, a hair brush, my stuffed rabbit Anne, and the book I had checked out from the library. Apparently even as a kid I was worried about late fees.

That day was also one of the few days I can ever recall my Mom getting really angry with a complete stranger -- in this case, the local TV news reporter who shoved a microphone in her face and said, "How does it feel to have to evacuate your family from your house because your home may burn down?" If looks could kill, that reporter would have keeled over onto her overinflated shoulder pads right there. But just as the fire came to our house and the tree in our yard caught fire, the wind changed, and our luck was our neighbor's misfortune, as is so often the case in these sorts of events. We lost a tree to that fire. They lost most of their roof.

The second time was, of course, the fires of 2003 -- the fires to end all fires, I thought., and the one to haunt my nightmares. The fires began the day of our Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in San Francisco, and while I should have been rejoicing in our record-setting results, Justin, Todd, Steph, and I were huddled together, frantically calling our loved ones as they were hurriedly forced to evacuate. Unlike in 1991, my mother was out of town while the fires happened, and like the current fires, the situation wasn't anything more than local news, so she hadn't heard anything. I had to be the one to tell her that the house was in real danger, and that she may not even be able to fly home early because of the fire conditions. We had nothing prepared in the house for this sort of thing -- no clearly labeled box saying, "Please take in the event of a fire." She and I could run through a mental list of things to get, but getting them was the near impossible challenge. It was the first time, though certainly not the last, that I would feel the gut-wrenching sensation of complete and total impotence.

I called my father, who though my parents are divorced agreed to try to drive to Mom's house to get the important documents out. When they blocked off the Tierrasanta exits on the freeway and he couldn't go any further, he called me with such disappointment, because he knew how much it meant to me to get there. I then called Steph's parents, asking them if they would stop at my Mom's house while they were evacuating out of Tierrasanta. They too ended up being turned away. Finally I called Jason, who in his law enforcement position could get behind barricades without a problem. For those of you who don't know my brother Jason, he's the physical embodiment of a 'tough guy' -- big muscles, tattoos, you get the picture. When I asked him what the situation was like, his voice choked as he said, "Kris, it's like Armageddon."

While Tierrasanta lost many homes in the 2003 fire, it was nothing compared to the complete and utter destruction in Todd's neighborhood of Scripps Ranch. It made the national headlines, just like this fire, but for most of the world it didn't mean much, which I guess is to be expected. It's a not a part of 'your world.' When you see the devastation of a tornado, for example, it looks just like the ruins of a home to an outsider. But to the person who lives in that community, those ruins represent the family that would go out of their way with Christmas decorations for the holidays. It's the home of the nice retired couple who could be seen out tending to their garden every morning. And now it's gone.

We drove down to San Diego immediately after the fires in 2003, and I'll never forget entering Scripps Ranch at 3:00am. There was no life. Of course there were hardly any people around, but there were no animals, no birds, not even insects. Silence. All that remained was the charred remnants of trees and bushes -- and of course ash. If you've not smelled a brush fire before, consider yourself lucky. It's the sort of smell that scars your senses, and for the rest of your life, when you smell that aroma -- a mixture of smoke, ash, and decay -- you'll get a knot in the pit of your stomach, because you fear what might be coming. Driving to Todd's house felt like entering a war zone. Entire streets were leveled, with only chimneys remaining of the homes that once stood there.

I don't think there is a single person in San Diego who didn't have a friend or loved one who lost their home in the fire. It may be why this week's fire hits such a raw cord in me. It's hard to imagine that only four years later that same sort of destruction has happened again. And for me, the feeling of helplessness I had four years ago has only magnified. I can't get in my car and drive down to help friends sift through the ashes of their home. I can't be there to make sandwiches for evacuees. Three thousand miles has never felt so far away as it does in this moment.

I feel grateful and blessed that most of my loved ones have been spared by this fire -- even if there were some close scares. Everyone is safe, which is the most important thing. I find myself wondering if there is a quota for prayers of these sort, and if one day my fire prayer will go unanswered because I've met my quota. San Diego is my roots. It is the place I grew up in, and where most of my family and so many of my friends still live. If I left my heart in San Francisco, then I left my soul in San Diego, in the good stead of those family members and friends. And this week it has felt like my soul's been ripped from me.

While walking to work yesterday I found myself inadvertently creating a San Diego playlist on my Ipod. I felt like if I was listening to Rocket from the Crypt, No Knife, or Nada Surf, I wasn't entirely disconnected from San Diego. Maybe -- just maybe -- if I just played the music loud enough and clicked my heels three times, I'd open my eyes to find myself back in my hometown. Needless to say, I'm still in Connecticut, which isn't bad, but it's not where I want to be. I heart you San Diego, and golly I wish I was home.