When the Darndest Things Trigger a Healing Heart

Today marks two months since the fire.

I started watching the TV show “Paradise” tonight. It shouldn’t just have a “Mature Audience” warning. It should have a “Lost Your House Recently” warning. It proved pretty triggering.

People are forced to live in a new place after a global extinction, trying to create home out of their new world. It’s beautiful, called paradise for a reason.

I too am living in paradise, surrounded my exquisite nature, calm, quiet, beauty and a seemingly endless ocean view. Less than 10 minutes to a beach where Stella can run with abandon and I can spy beautiful rocks, shells, people, dogs, sunsets, clouds as the gentle ocean breeze hugs me.

I have always loved the Carpinteria, Summerland, Montecito roads and highways. I’ve always sworn magical fairies lived on these lands. There is beauty wherever you look. Every curve in every road is elegantly designed. Nature rises up to greet you at every turn.

Normally this beauty fills me up, pumping me up with the helium known as joy, lasting hours, sometimes days.

And – normally -- when I visit paradises like this whether I’ve driven or flown to them, I return “home” with roller bags at my side, pause to shove a key in my deep orange front door, and prepare to be loved-up by Stella. After requisite cuddles, I usually completely unpack (even if I return late at night), throw laundry in the washer, get myself settled, back. I then crawl into my most amazing bed with Stella by my side. As I fall asleep with my hand on her, I smile at my lucky stars at being able to travel to such paradises and return to my own little imperfect paradise. Home.

Over these last couple weeks, I have done my first entertaining in my temporary home. I had my first dinner guests – an impromptu dinner with two friends – my first overnight guest, and I hosted my first lunch for a small group of women.

For the impromptu dinner I was unexpectedly thrown into a valley of sadness when I realized I didn’t have cloth – or paper – napkins. I tucked tiny paper towel bouquets under the top of the plates in a moment of design desperation. It made me laugh in my valley of sadness. This obsession with beauty, and the lengths I will go to create it.

My dear friend, hearing this tale, lent me a tablecloth and napkins for the little luncheon. Now that is love.

Today I finally bought some cloth napkins at the Pottery Barn Outlet. The woman who helped me, Maria, said something about Pottery Barn-Williams Sonoma. I hadn’t known they were merged, so I asked if they were giving the same fire victim discounts that Williams Sonoma is giving. They were. It made me burst into tears.

Maria was so kind and said she was well-versed at dealing with people in my position and said it was completely normal to be crying. She gestured to Gerardo, saying he actually still lives in Altadena and commutes to Camarillo. His house survived but twelve – yes one dozen -- family members lost their homes in the Eaton Fire. His stepdad saved his mom’s home, using buckets of water from the neighbor’s pool. Gerardo grew up in that house. He showed me the video of the morning he came to retrieve her. He has singed edges like me.

When I have a house again, if there is money left for things to put inside said house (yeah, that’s a thing), I’ll be going to visit Gerardo and Maria to find some beauty that I can share. In the meantime, I’m happy to have some placemats and napkins.

But this haunting TV show -- which I will likely stop watching -- is showing me what friends have been telling me for weeks when I tell them I wish I could get out of this funk. This is big. It’s going to take time. More time than I’m used to.

More than one friend has had to remind me:

You.
Just.
Lost.
Your.
House.

I’m in the business of helping people take care of their hearts. I’m trying to take care of mine now, but it’s a damn heavy lift. Paradise helps. Placemats and napkins help. Friends help the most, of course.

And yet I remain unmoored because a building burned down. Not just any building, of course. The walls saw it all and I’m sure they shouted about all the love that happened there when they went down.

I was there last weekend for a few different meetings (including dear friend Christina helping me move the statues that survived). When you walk around at a house that burns down, there’s a lot of crunching under your feet – nails, glass, metal of all kinds. I stepped on something soft and squishy and looked down to see what it was. It was one small branch of a kalanchoe plant. The bottom was blackened by fire, yet the flowers were alive as if it had only been apart from its mother plant for days. I stared at it wondering if the fire has somehow sealed it, protected it. It too was forged in fire.

I found it very shortly after taking the photo of the flowers in the fireplace. (That’s a story for another time.)

I brought the little kalanchoe orphan home and put it in the pot that used to have pansies in it. The landlord planted the pot of pansies for me, but it turns out peacocks love pansies, so they decimated the flowers. I put the fire refugee in there, hoping peacocks don’t like kalanchoe.

I woke up on this two-month anniversary to the peacock brigade, giving lots of love and attention to that pot. I will hope this little piece of my home can survive and find itself moored in paradise and be a little beacon for my heart.

And, yes, I'm OK. I promise.