Stripped of Identity

Washington State has just suffered the largest forest fire in the state’s history.  Electricity and cell phone coverage for entire communities failed, so families were not sure if the fires were coming their way.  Was it time to evacuate yet?  The firefighters mounted a herculean effort to save houses, but some families did not know how close the fire was. It wasn’t until they heard the roar as it sped down an arroyo near their house that they saw it coming, and coming fast.  One family drove off with their dog and a purse while everything they had burned to the ground.

 After the fire moved on, they were allowed back home where they surveyed melted refrigerators and shells of cars.  One man said that the fire burned his house but spared his stack of firewood.  On the news was a photo of everything salvaged from the fire, consisting of a broken teapot, a little porcelain figure, and a few knick knacks.  File cabinets of important papers were nothing but a melted mess.  Treasures of the past smoked indolently.  One of the men interviewed on TV said “My family’s identity is gone.  Who we are as a family is burnt up.”

Our family once wound up with nothing but a suitcase of clothes.  None of our household goods.  No photographs, no favorite chairs, not even our dog’s bed.  But it was not as a result of a tragedy, and we did get them back after about a year.  It was an interesting study in discovering who we were.

It happened when I was 16 years old.  Dad got a job in San Francisco, and our family drove out from Illinois.  Mom and Dad found a house for rent, completely furnished.  The owner was an Englishwoman who returned to England for a year, leaving not only her furnished house, but her dog as well, a beautiful incorrigible Irish Setter, as wild as the cliffs and wind of his breed’s homeland. 

Since the house was furnished, Dad called the moving company and told them to keep our stuff in storage for a year.  Other than a suitcase of clothes I had come with, I had nothing of my past.  But the owner said we could have whatever clothes she left behind. 

The Englishwoman's house we lived in.

It was odd living in that house, wearing someone else’s jeans.  Reading her books, watching her TV, petting and walking her dog.  We used her china in her hutch, ate off her placemats, used her cleaning products, and slept in her beds on her sheets.

Nothing from our past life came with us.  My former high school friends?  Not one picture.  None of my mom’s lovely things.  None of my dad’s files.

Teenagers love to fit in, to belong to a club, to have an identity.  Poof!  Mine was gone.  At first sad, I came to look at it as liberating.  I could be anybody.  Mom let me get a few new clothes at the back-to-school sales, and it was the perfect opportunity to leave my nerdiness behind.  It was an interesting time to be washed clean of Who I Was.  But I couldn’t resist the urge to belong, to prove myself, and be part of a club. 

Some things about me would never change, for I did not become the athlete I dreamed about.  I didn’t lose ten pounds nor suddenly get smarter.  Instead, I joined the drama club just like I had at my old school. I still loved history.  But I did try some new clubs at school.  Our family became closer than ever.  I discovered a book by John Muir in the bookshelf and carried it with me.  I took the Irish Setter for long walks in the hills and had time to think.  Up in those hills, I ran into many rattlesnakes, found a few springs, and watched a bronze Irish setter’s joy through the waving grasses in the golden California light. 

John Muir said, “On the mossy trunk of an old prostrate spruce about a hundred feet in length thousands of seedlings were growing…so favorable is this climate for the development of tree seeds, and so fully do these trees obey the command to multiply and replenish the earth.  One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature – inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste.  And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out.  It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unsupendable wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies around us, feeling sure that its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last.” –My First Summer in the Sierra

Victims of the Washington State fires will have a lot of rebuilding to do.  But in spite of the man on TV saying, “My family’s identity is gone.  Who we are as a family is burnt up.” there are constants.  I hope you get through it and rediscover who you are. 

Even though most of us will not suffer the loss of our home in a fire, nevertheless, if the chance ever presents itself to leave belongings behind and move to a strange place with your family, take it. 

Especially if there is a dog and a book by John Muir.