Embers Bouncing Off The Asphalt

 As part of my current Quiet Time agenda I've been re-dipping my toes into a Buddhist meditation book where one of the main themes is that a lot of human misery can be attributed to Things: getting Things, keeping Things, lusting after new Things, more Things, spending huge amounts of time and money to Thing Upkeep.  It can be hard to separate a normal desire for human comfort with an overreliance on Stuff.

Here in Southern California we live under the threat of fires consuming Things.  I'm not used to the threat of a fire.  In the Midwest the threat was from tornadoes and I personally lived on a street that a tornado blew through and on another street that was tornado-adjacent.  I could hear the thing and it really does sound like a freight train.  I stood in my darkened bedroom trying to make sense of the noise I was hearing.  Afterwards I realized that the sound was Things being violently chewed into tiny pieces.  The thing about a tornado is that you don't know it's coming until it comes and it's over in a flash.  A hurricane takes its time but there's plenty of advanced warning.  Earthquakes I guess would fall into the over quickly category.  Fires are a different animal - you can see and hear the threat but where it goes nobody knows - so you just have to sit and wait which can be nerve-wracking.  We had a major fire here five years ago in gale-force winds and in those conditions the fire is firmly in control.  There's no dousing it.  

This morning there was a vegetation fire a half mile away from our house with the wind blowing in our direction.  The helicopters making water dumping runs woke me up.  Outside I could see the orange glow lighting up the clouds of smoke from below and I was startled to see the occasional ember drifting overhead, hitting the asphalt, blinking out.  It's never good when you see fire trucks cruising through your neighborhood, looking for hot spots.  I was mildly anxious for a bit but - I'll tell you - those fire guys are amazing.  I had some time to idly look over my Stuff, my Things, and  wonder: "What if it's all gone in a minute?  What would I grab?  What would my life look like if all of this was gone?"  It was sobering but it also felt weirdly refreshing, liberating, almost.  What if I had to start from scratch?  What would I replace?  What historical treasures and mementoes and geegaws and gimcracks and tchotchkes would I mourn?  What I feel an acute sense of loss or would it be more of a relief to have all that Stuff liberated from my control?  It makes me reflect on the stripped-down life I lead when I travel - all of my Stuff in one small suitcase.  I'm okay.  I don't die.

It's easy to pat myself on the back after the danger has passed and I'm sitting securely in the midst of my Stuff.  Nonetheless, I'm happy that all of the time I've spent meditating on the transitory nature of things has left me somewhat - mostly? - liberated.  It would be a gut-punch but I'd make it out alive.