And the River, She Rises

There's a full moon in sight,

Shinin' down on Lake Ponchatrain.

And the River, she rises

Just like she used to do.

She's so full of surprises

She reminds me of you.

My daughters have i-pods. They don't know the joy of hearing their favorite songs on the radio-especially the thrill of that magical coincidence...that blissful, ephemeral moment when the song plays exactly when it should. My daughters, Robyn and Trystan, don't know about listening to top-40 radio day and night and day and night until even your parents, who are Glenn Miller through-and-through, cave-in and start singing along with your favorite song. My girls don't know about the endless guerilla battle for buttons on the car-radio; they won't know the number one Road Rule-"driver calls the music," even more important than who calls shotgun. They and their passengers will live in parallel universes, those little ear-plus in their ears.

"Poco," who I'm wildly speculating were the sane and sober survivors of "Buffalo Springfield," sang about New Orleans during my summer between sixth and seventh grade...I think. 1978. Whatever grade you're "going into" when you're 11 and the whole world is about boobs, boys, love, romance, and learning how to French kiss. Naturally I, more concerned about boys than song lyrics, didn't figure out that Poco sang about New Orleans until about two years later when I actually listened to all the lyrics. I tend to "perseverate" on things. I hate that word, but I admit that I do it; and in my original 1978 summer of "Heart of the Night," I gently and quietly held my breath until the boys busted-out the refrain, "I trust in your love just like I do in this town." For all I knew, they were singing about Park Ridge, Illinois, the old neighborhood, where my darling mother still lives and takes care of business.

I didn't feel crushed when I discovered Poco paid homage to the Crescent City. I've been there-stayed at "The Maison DeVille," a very-very-very comme il faut little fourteen room hotel in The French Quarter, of course, allegedly once home of the cocktail's inventor, which I think is wonderfully coincidental, because the hotel adjoins the Court of the Two Sisters, where one can enjoy the cocktails Msr. DeVille so ingeniously conceived and concocted.

That's the long way of saying I've been to New Orleans, loved every minute of it, didn't want to leave, but at these prices, unless you're Poco, you cannot afford to stay. Better to pay homage in song and go home to Park Ridge.

Now, it's different. Now, when I hear that song, I do feel a little crushed...and a lot worried.

New Orleans, bravely rebuilding itself, paid a high price for washing away its fine patina of culture and gentility. When the traditions washed away, the ugly racial and economic divisions came out, and we all had to deal with the ugly realization that the government really won't go where the po' folk live.

"Put 'em in trailers" sounds a whole helluva lot to me like "Let 'em eat cake."

That's the intellectual part of my worrying. The visceral part feels a lot more intense.

In my world, the associative chain links with links until it gets to "Hurricane, wildfire-it's all pretty much the same."

In other words, I identify with the people in New Orleans. I understand their dilemma, because I, too, have wrestled with it. And for all my relentless questioning and very skilled grappling, I never have mastered, subdued or reconciled the dilemma. When the voice on my radio growls, "We interrupt this broadcast...," my heart goes into overdrive, because I know-deep down in my gut where I never have made a mistake, I know-we're about to repeat the series of impossible questions families must answer as they face imminent disaster.

When the water's rising in what used to be your front yard, or when the fire's tear-assing down the hillside you used to call your "view," you've gotta face and deal with some truly profound questions for which I don't think we have right answers.

With a hurricane, you get a little warning and some really cool Technicolor pictures on CNN. With a wildfire, you get lots of smoke in the air and ribbons of fire coming down your mountain sides-also cool pictures if you don't live in them. For the people who have addresses and roots in "the cone of uncertainty" or "the fire's path," it's all still beautiful-awe-inspiring and breathtaking really-but really not so cool.

Question One: Will you leave? Where will you go?

Here's my basic data: I'm the single mom of two beautiful and brilliant daughters, one of whom is away at college in a place where neither hurricanes nor wildfires appear-ever!-on the horizon. Robyn didn't plan it that way, but she's not unhappy about the serendipity. With one daughter in college and another in high school, both addicted to Abercrombie and Billabong, life grows progressively more expensive. Yes, the "x" pays his support, and it's pretty-much right on time, but we're not makin' the $5million a year John McCain says we need to rise out of the middle class. We're off by quite a few zeros. The house is just about my only asset. Without the house, my net worth is about like the national debt.

Given all that data, living under the data's influence all day every day, actually with all that data so deeply tattooed on my brain it seems like part of my genome, my first instincts already put me at war with myself. I want Trystan to be safe, and I want to save my beloved little house-have Marie Antoinette's cake and eat it, too. I know you recognized the dilemma.

How much time do we have before "imminent" becomes right here and right now?

If we go, where will we go?

I would like to stay with family, but I'm an only child. My local ex-mother-in-law still likes me, but I have approximately as many qualms about going there as I have questions about life, literature, politics, and the human condition. My very own sole surviving family member, my darling mother who, as we noted, still lives and takes care of business in Park Ridge, Illinois, is not exactly "driving distance"-not even by California standards, and not even with my passion for jammin' along the Interstates like I was the original Mustang Sally.

"Stay with friends," my little voice perkily suggests, except all my friends are right here with me in the fire's path, and not one of them is so all-fired fireproof that she can say, "Sure! Come on over! We'll barbeque."

My little voice, still perky and determined to make the very best of a perfectly shitty situation, then goes Mary Poppins on me: "Well, screw it! Pack Wendell, the dog; Annie, the cat; Trystan, the kid, and just take off for Palm Springs. Get tan instead of sooty." But we ain't even got tuppence for the bag of birdfood let alone the cost of a night or two or three in Palm Springs. Hell, when you live in a resort, you don't really save-up to go to resorts. We invented the "staycation," and we just recently got around to sharing it. There is no way I'm gonna pay resort prices and 21% credit-card interest; and don't try to comfort me by reminding, "It's the off-season, you know." I'll show you an off-season.

It comes down to "shelter or house?"

How many garden hoses do we have, exactly? I mean the ones that actually will hose water the way they're supposed to? How much can Wendell lift his leg and pee?

Question Two: Are you actually prepared to stay?

The cunning linguists coined "Shelter in place" as a polite term for "you're on your own."

I actually felt relieved when Ray Nagin, whose moustache really has to go-get the full goat or shave it all, dude-kept it real, saying flatly, "If you stay, you are on your own. No services. No water, no power, no sewer. And if we see you out on the streets after curfew, you are a suspicious person."

So, there you have it-your warning and your checklist all in one simple announcement.

Can we make it without cable and internet, the staves of life in our world? Hey, we still have a top-40 radio! Let's turn it on. Naturally, no batteries. Okay, if the power goes out, will we have some place to plug in our radio...and even more importantly, our refrigerator. Yes, by the oddest series of coincidences, we do have a generator big enough to power those two-and probably only those two-appliances. We have books to read; I have my favorite old legal pads and lots of soft pencils; we can recreate pioneer life.

Do we have enough gas to power the generator? Can we keep that gas from exploding? And speaking of exploding gas, can we turn-off the gas to the house and protect the car, so that we're not surrounded by IED's?

Yeah, we can do that.

If the water really does go off, what can we do to fight the fire? Well, why wait? Take the sprinklers to the roof and start watering-down the eaves. The roof is fireproof-red tile, very southern California and all-it's the eaves that catch. And turn-on all the garden sprinklers. Drought, my ass. Still, we'll double check our insurance coverage, and we'll find a safe place to hunker down. "Hunker" seems like a great verb until you actually have to act-it-out.

If the water really does go off, can we handle being dirty, stinky, and without toilets for several days? Well, we've been to the Over-the-Line Tournament in Mission Beach. If we can survive that kind of deprivation and stink, what's a wildfire?

We're already suspicious. Trystan and I think of ourselves as women on the edge. We'll control our urges to run outdoors and into the flames; that kind of good behavior should curtail the suspicions.

Do we have enough food to last for several days? Does dog food count? How good am I at cooking on an open flame? Yeah, we could make it. Helluva way to drop a few pounds, but didn't I already say we're recreating pioneer life? Damn pets are too fit; no good meat on either one of 'em. But there's that possum that lives in the ivy up on the hill...

Combo questions Three and Four: If you stay, how will you feel? If you go, how will you feel?

We have come to the heart of the matter. Wasn't that a song, too? But by Don Henley, not Poco.

Let's face the grim uglies, bombaderas: No matter how we answer the questions, no matter what we choose, I am going to feel absolutely, totally and completely, 112% powerless. And among all the feelings we will endure for the fire's duration and all the time it will take to recover, powerless ranks number one among the very-very-very worst.

I hate feeling powerless!

And now we transcend the heart of the matter, going into its spirit.

"What's your most familiar quotation, Kyrie?" my little voice prompts. Yeah, yeah, I snarl, because I know I take fierce pride in "proclaiming" my personal gospel: We go to church just as an excuse for the dinner or brunch afterwards, but you never will find a person with faith more profound than mine. The pride, of course, kills; but the sentiment remains true, and the faith remains even truer.

Although He doesn't always return my calls, and although He has not sent me a personal angel like Earl on "Saving Grace," nevertheless I can tell my Great Father likes me. I am the living proof, the Deity's Exhibit 'A', that He has a great sense of humor and an even greater sense of irony.

Given the nature of our relationship, God will make certain that the house burns to the slab and the landscaping remains perfect. Of course, I am generally considered part of the landscaping, so I'll be fine.

Given the nature of our relationship, God will make certain that, if we go to the shelter, it will be packed wall-to-wall with PTA Moms and televangelists, all of whom have been waiting-planning, preparing, and counting down to the perfect moment-just to corner me and give me hell for something I said or wrote. The goddam President of the PTA will have a copy of the article, and she will wave it in my face as she rants. The televangelist will play with me, capriciously, like "sinners in the hands of an angry god," detailing how I am the incarnation of all things depraved... And no matter how much I protest, "Hey, dudes, I just ask questions!" No matter how well I can demonstrate that they totally have taken the stuff out of context, that they're takin' it way too personally, and that they're just flat-out reading it wrong-that's not what that word means, damn it!-still, they're gonna hold me personally responsible for everything from West Nile virus to the wildfire itself.

Given the nature of our relationship, of course, God will consider these attacks part of my apprenticeship as a writer. One way or another, He will let me know that we were on Chapter 37 anyway, and I learn so much more from experience than I ever would learn from reading the book. Yes, this will be on The Midterm. And, yeah, my house still will burn to the ground, but it's a small price to pay for so much wisdom.

The Ultimate Dilemma, and The Answer

Fire or ire?

Hmmmm. There's no Door Number Three, hunh?

Well, if this really is it, then I'm takin' the big leap of faith, and I'm takin' my dog with me.

C'mon, Wendell, get your list. We gotta shop for survival supplies.

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