I am currently sitting in a Starborks, sipping a salty caramel choco extra shot drink, typing on my metallic blue laptop adorned with a homemade Banksy stencil sticker.
I am so cool it hurts.
This is actually the first time I’ve ever done this. Not only in a Starborks, but in any coffee shop. I’ve always sort of thought that people that sit in coffee shops sipping fancy overpriced drinks and typing on their fancy overpriced portable computer boxes are kind of ridiculous. Which is in and of itself a ridiculous stereotype, especially since here I am. Oh god. A stranger has just seated himself across from me with his maroon laptop. He is eating a cookie very messily and keeps clearing his throat. Aaawkwaaard.
Anyway, this morning I packed up my stuff to head into town to spend Halloween with the bestie. She was supposed to be coming in from camp last night but was delayed due to weather, so she was going to be in this morning at 10:30. I was working in the morning, so it was going to be perfect as I would be done just as she was getting settled back at home. She messaged me at 10 and told me the flight was delayed again. And then again. And then she wasn’t sure if she was even going to get out of there. I was heartbroken. I’ve been looking forward to this night for weeks, mostly for her, partly for Halloween, and a little for just getting the fuck out of my mom’s place. It’s the end of the month so tomorrow I get possession of the cottage again, but for tonight I was going to stay in town so everything had been packed into my car last night. My sister and her bf were headed to the mainland to look for a place, and my mom was clearly looking forward to a night by herself. I did not want to appear back on her doorstep. (PS, bestie will be returning home tonight!)
So as I trudged around in the rain (for work), my heart as heavy as my rain soaked jeans, I considered again how unsettling it is being so unsettled. A little while ago I’d had a conversation with my mom where I’d said that I felt homeless. She got really offended and assured me that “this is our house,” and while I really do appreciate the sentiment, the fact is it’s her house. I am merely an extended guest. And even when I’m on my own in the cottage, it’s still not my place. It is in the manner that I’m there alone, but it’s still not my place. I don’t have my books out, I don’t have my art up, I don’t have my own furniture arranged the way I want. It’s still our place, although now there isn’t really an our or us to speak of. It’s just kind of sad.
It’s not the first time I’ve been “homeless.” I mean, I’ve never been homeless like a street kid, thank the gods. And in that manner I’ve been very fortunate. So here comes the post about the fire.
Four years ago we were at a Halloween party at a friend’s house. We were living in the boonies at the time, and had headed into town for the night, leaving the house in the capable hands of the dog and 2 cats. A little while in I got a phone call from the neighbour; specifically, the sister of my friend that lived next door. “I have terrible news.” I thought that something had happened to my friend, as she was supposed to be coming to the party but hadn’t appeared yet. Then the little sister said
“I have the worst news a neighbour could ever have to give. You guys have to come back now. Your house is gone.”
“What? What do you mean gone?”
“It’s burned down. It’s gone. It’s a shell. You need to get here now.”
We had been drinking, but my brother, his girlfriend, and their friend were there with us and the friend was sober. We packed into his truck and sped to the house, in shock, drunk, uncertain of what to expect.
We pulled up to the end of the street and realized we would have to park and walk. Our driveway was blocked off with fire trucks and cop cars. I had been dressed as a ladybug that year, and it only hit me this year how incredibly ironic it truly was (think of the children’s poem. “Ladybird ladybird fly away home, your house is on fire your kids are alone.”). We stumbled down the road. I remember it was dark, I remember walking towards the flashing lights, I remember pieces of my costume dropping around me as I staggered towards my house.
I don’t know how many of you have experienced anything like that, but that night I discovered that glass windows explode. There was glass across the street in the ditch. The house really was a shell. A burned out shell. I remembered the pets and panicked, frantically begging the firemen to please find the animals, please, we have pets, please find them. They gently herded us to the end of the driveway. At this point my mom and her boyfriend arrived, as my brother had called them to let them know. And as I stood there looking at where I had spent the last 4 years of my life, it hit me. It was gone. I remember sobbing, heart wrenching gut breaking sobs from my toes all the way to my soul. My brother’s girlfriend pulled me towards her and I cried, I cried and screamed and cried. It’s all gone. My bestie called me from the party and I somehow managed to answer the phone. I didn’t even know who it was, I didn’t even listen to what they said, all I could do was sob. It’s all gone. It’s all gone.
That night we went back to my mom’s house. She fed me glasses of warm sugar water, a comfort throwback from our childhood. She fed us sleeping pills, and that night was a doped up blur of tears and heartache. The next day my mom and I went walking through the wreckage to see what we could salvage. The firefighter that night had mentioned that he thought the fire had started in the bedroom, which was where I had left the lamp on that night for the dog. Because you know, dogs appreciate that kind of shit. So of course, I was convinced it had been my fault. I had left on the lamp, it had fallen onto the bed, and that had started the fire. After walking through we realized that the fire had probably started in the living room as that was the only place where the floor had burned through.
It stank. Everything was waterlogged, warped, burned. My sewing machine sat on my piano bench, both of them skeletons. My bookshelf, home to 26 years of books I had collected, bloated and wrecked. All the art on the wall had melted off. The tv that we had just bought and had made two payments on lay in a plastic pile on the floor. The couch, nothing but frames and springs. The whole time, all I could do was scan. Where’s the dog. Where are the cats. What’s left. We went into the bedroom and I went to the crate next to the bed, but couldn’t. I couldn’t reach in there to see if she was there. My mom found a stick and tried poking around in the blankets in there, and said she couldn’t feel anything. I opened the dresser drawer which was where my tabby loved to hide, terrified of what I would find, but found nothing.
We salvaged my bike, the bbq, a pair of incredibly smoke damaged boots, a smoke damaged travelling backpack, and my cast iron dutch oven. That was all that was left.
Two days later the ex and I went back to see if we could find the dog. In my heart I knew she was there, she was somewhere, she had gotten out and we would be walking around the area yelling her name and then she would come up over the horizon and run into our arms. Because no matter what had happened, if we still had her, we could go on.
He found her in the crate. She hadn’t been burned, besides where the wires had touched her. Her tongue was hanging a little out of her mouth, which she did when she slept, so we were pretty sure she had probably died from smoke inhalation first. The blankets had protected her from burning. My friend from next door was with us, and she sat with me on the grass and cried as the ex dug a hole to bury the dog. We all wailed together, and he put her in the ground and my god, I have never felt heartbreak like that.
We never found my tabby. But a week and a half later the other neighbour called and said she’d seen our little black and white cat running around. I went back and found him sitting in the driveway, in the rain, eyes huge. I collected him and took him back to my mom’s, and the ex and I sat with him and cried, our tears soaking his matted fur. He was a survivor. He was the only living link left to our past life.
One good thing that did come from the tragedy was the realization of how gigantic our support network is. Our friends and family were phenomenal, and there was no way we would have been able to pull through without them. And the fact of the matter is, everything you go through turns you into the person that you are. It was a horrible experience that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but I would not be where I am, who I am, if I had not been through it.
It’ll be four years tomorrow. I still think about it sometimes, but it’s not something that consumes me. It took a year to get over the shock, and even longer to get living again, but here I am. Living, struggling, but knowing that I will get through it. I will survive.
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